Depression or Devotion?

[Locs]

PATNA, India (Reuters) - Hundreds of people are flocking to a remote village in eastern India to catch a glimpse of an old man who has spent six years lying inside his own grave waiting to die as he mourns for his wife, officials said.

Basanta Roy claims he is 103 and spends his day clearing weeds from the grave and lying in it. Belonging to a Hindu caste who bury their dead, Roy dug his grave close to his wife's after she died in the late 1990s.
"He cleans his grave every day and waits for his death, which seems to be eluding him," said Shyam Narayan Ram, a senior government official from Jharkhand state.

 

[Tyrinus]

If he really wanted to die, he'd kill himself. Hell, if you're 103 what's left to live for anyway.

 

[Abaddon]

it'd be horrible if he fell asleep and someone buried him alive.

 

[Honey Vibe]

Maybe he needs to learn one more lesson before dying: death never really separated us at all.

 

[SpideyInATree]

Doesn't sound like it's either of those things. Different religion and a different culture. Not everybody in the world acts like an American.

 

[Dope Nose]

^really? certainly sounds like devotion to me.

 

[SpideyInATree]

Well, yeah, you could look at it like that. That he's so devoted to his wife that he'd lie in his own grave awaiting death. It could also be called depression too as all he does is...well, that. But in the article there it says that he's Hindu and they have very different beliefs about death and mourning than us Americans.

 

[SLVRSR4]

That guy is hardcore! definitely devotion!

 

[The Question]

That's surprising. Not the act itself, but the fact that he's still alive. People who are in that severe a state of greif don't tend to last very long. When the mind gives up, the body tends to follow suit. He must be in very good health.

 

[tzarinna]

That's what I'm thinking. If it's been since the 90'he cna't be all that broken up he's still eating.