Where Do We Go, Appa? | Life, Death & the Silence Beyond

🌀 Where Do We Go, Appa?

A quiet afternoon under the jamun tree at Ananda Neelam. A wind chime tinkles gently. Cauvery the calf naps nearby. Bahadur leans against a trunk, chewing on wild guava. Sundarammal is stringing jasmine. Ammulu sketches something that looks suspiciously like a phoenix. Dr. Chari closes a worn book with a sigh.

Ammulu:

Appa, where do we go when we die?

Dr. Chari (smiling):

Ah. Straight to the heart of the question, as always.

Bahadur:

My Baba says we become stars. He told me when Dolu, our goat, died.

Sundarammal (not looking up):

Stars or soil, it matters little. What matters is — did we feed someone before we left?

Ammulu:

That’s very poetic, Patti. But I want to know really. Science, soul... What happens?

Dr. Chari:

Science will say the body decomposes. Molecules recycle. Energy transforms.

Bahadur:

Like sunlight into food?

Dr. Chari:

Exactly, Bahadur. And quantum theory? It suggests information isn’t lost. That all existence is interconnected. The wave never really dies — it just becomes part of another wave.

Ammulu:

So our selves don’t disappear?

Dr. Chari:

Vedanta would agree. The body-mind complex dissolves, yes. But the Atman — the witnessing consciousness — was never born and never dies.

Sundarammal:

What comes must go. What goes may return. But the silence behind it all — that stays. I've met it often, especially at dawn.

Bahadur (wide-eyed):

So... even dogs don’t go away?

Dr. Chari (softly):

Not truly. Sita and Mylo still wag in the wind. Arjuna runs in dreams. In love, there is no final goodbye.

Ammulu (after a pause):

Then why do we fear death?

Sundarammal:

Because we mistake the vessel for the water.

Dr. Chari:

And because we haven’t practiced dying — to ego, to illusion. If you die before you die, Ammulu, you’ll never die again.

Bahadur:

I’m going to tell this to Mummy. She cries every time we talk about our old home in Nepal.

Ammulu (smiling):

Tell her the stars, the goats, and the stories — none of them really leave.

Sundarammal:

And tell her to boil tulsi tea tonight. For the living need comfort more than the dead.

[A breeze rustles the jamun leaves. A feather falls. No one speaks for a while. Only the silence remains — soft, full, and strangely warm.......

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