You know how people say, “I wonder what my funeral will be like”?
Well, in Konchi village, Bihar, India, 74-year-old Mohan Lal, a retired Indian Air Force Warrant Officer, decided to stage his own funeral while still very much alive.
Draped in a white shroud, he lay on a bier as villagers chanted “Ram Naam Satya Hai,” fully convinced they were attending his last rites.
The whole thing looked heartbreakingly real until Mohan Lal suddenly sat up at the cremation ground and revealed it was all an elaborate test.
He confessed he wanted to know who truly cared for him and who’d just scroll past his obituary someday. To seal the performance, he lit his own symbolic pyre while the song “Chal Ud Ja Re Panchhi” played in the background. Then, because apparently no Indian event ends without food, he hosted a community feast for everyone who showed up.
Mohan Lal said he wanted to inaugurate a new Muktidham (cremation ground) he built for his village, something that had long been needed, especially during the monsoon. “I felt joy seeing everyone walk with me one last time,” he said, smiling.
I don’t think this line of thought works with me.
Isn’t the whole point of life is to actually live while you have it, and not rehearse for its ending?
Mohan Lal’s act sounds dramatic, but when you strip away the theatrics, it’s just one man searching for validation in a world that’s probably stopped looking back.
Maybe he’s lonely. Maybe he’s wrestling with the silence that comes after years of purpose and uniform. But staging your own funeral to test affection is the ache of someone who hasn’t yet made peace with being forgotten.
I mean, if you’re gone, what difference does it make who cries?
The applause doesn’t matter when the curtain’s already closed. The most honest way to live is without needing an audience.
Mohan Lal’s story is about the terrifying human need to still matter even after you stop breathing.
THE WHY: VALIDATION
2/5 stars for this one because Grandpa needs to get over the fear of being invisible.
“Look, most of us want a normal life without any drama, but life in this world is always strange, and uncertain.
I don’t need your email. I don’t want to bug you with a billion notifications. All I ask is this, if you felt something here, if this made you think, laugh, or even shake your head in disbelief, just bookmark ‘Averagebeing.com’ and come back tomorrow.
That’s it. No strings. Just you, me, and this stupid world.”
