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A Taste of Life: The Last Days of U. G. Krishnamurti "SINCE U. G. rejected divinity and didn’t want to be remembered after his death, I see no point in talking about him when he’s no more. It sort of defeats what he believed in," Bhatt told a news agency after the death of his spiritual guru and friend. Yet, after some months he did decide to tell the world of his private mourning and the time that he spent waiting for his old friend’s death. Sharing intensely private moments is inevitable to the Mahesh Bhatt style. Remember, this is the man who has put up his entire life to scrutiny. His illegitimacy, his extra-marital affairs and his involvement with a severely disturbed but wondrously beautiful woman. So, how could anything so significant to him remain a secret? It’s out there for the world to read about and share. Albeit this time, it’s in the form of a book and not a film (as yet).
"Those 10 days mean more to me in terms of experience and enrichment than the 30 years that I’ve known him. It’ll take me more than a lifetime to sift through, understand and process the thoughts and opinions he shared with me during those days. It’ll be a long time before I actually start talking about those glorious and heartbreaking days, " Bhatt said, soon after the death of his mentor. Now, however, more than two years after his death, Bhatt is ready to share his last experiences with UG with the world in a biographical account. Krishnamurti famously said about biographies: "For those who delight in reading biographies, my story would be disappointing indeed. If they are looking for something in my life to change their lives for the better, they haven’t got a chance. You can fit my life neatly into that rhyme for children Solomon Grundy. That, in a nutshell, is yours, mine and everybody’s story. There’s no more to it than that." Bhatt, however, obviously disagreed with his guru there. The biographical account is an outpouring of his great love and deep concern and fear that UG would leave his body. That is probably because he was so fundamentally influenced by the man known as a "spiritual terrorist" who challenged the established belief system in all that we hold sacred and true and thereby plants "a grenade in the brain". The audience of A Taste of Life would be those who are familiar with U. G. Krishnamurti, his philosophy and his teachings. If the reader picks up the book in the hope of reading a Mahesh Bhatt potboiler, similar to his films, s/he will be disappointed. This is a deeply personal account of the delicate and precious relationship shared between two people who had found their souls entangled, true soul mates, even though one was the guru and the other the disciple. Bhatt writes as if every single moment of the days preceding Krishnamurti’s death is etched on his consciousness and narrates it in a style that’s easy and simple. His recollection of his guru is filled with deep love and a yearning that painfully reveals itself sometimes. "He gave me the responsibility to make sure he was allowed to die the way he wanted. And the greatest task I was given to perform was to cremate him," says Bhatt. Krishnamurti declined all remedial help when it was time for him to go. He let nature and body to take its course. The book is a labour of love, the narrative, serious and honest. It is Bhatt’s catharsis perhaps, to his soul mate’s departure from his body.
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Thinker and philosopher
U. G. Krishnamurti passed away in Vallecrossia, Italy, on March 25,
2007. Bhatt spent 10 days in Italy with Krishnamurti just before his
death at the age of 89. Krishnamurti, lovingly called UG by his
friends and admirers, had slipped and injured himself seven weeks
earlier and was bedridden. A Taste of Life is an account of
those 10 days. It’s a subjective account, more of Bhatt’s
relationship with UG, his guru and friend, than about Krishnamurti,
the philosopher per se, though it’s difficult to distinguish
between the two roles of the man.