Bibek Debroy, the eminent Bengali economist, died on November 1 at the age of 69. He had been born in Shillong, now in Meghalaya, but his grandparents had migrated from Habiganj in Sylhet. He was educated at Presidency College, Kolkata, the Delhi School of Economics, and Trinity College, Cambridge.

Just before his death, he wrote a prophetic column for The Indian Express newspaper which appeared on Oct. 29. Discharged from hospital after more than a month in the cardiac care centre, Debroy wrote: "There is a world outside that exists. What if I am not there? What indeed?"

His reply to his own question: "I don't feel like reading, even when I can. I don't feel like watching TV, even when I can. The same boring news, the same boring high-decibel debates. It all seems so transient and puerile. But so am I, transient and puerile..."

Transient, yes, but puerile? No, but Debroy's self-deprecation reflects a very Bengali conceit which reveals the elitist capacity for modesty among the best minds. I remember asking my father once: "Who is a profound man?" His reply: "He who is wise enough to know his irrelevance in the great scheme of things."

Debroy lived to be wise. His column touches on his work on trade issues and his association with law and railway reforms - all central to the making of public policy in liberalising India - but he adds: "Who remembers? Nothing seminal about such work. Had a role in the rat race, was temporarily read and passed into oblivion, buried in journal archives."

Debroy refuses to believe that his death will result in any kind of irreparable loss to the world, particularly at his age, "when life's productivity is as good as over". "In another ten years, what social value will I bring?"

He writes unsentimentally about his convalescence as well, including ritual visits by friends and colleagues. "Why do they drop in and want to hear about what happened and when? Weak and withering, why am I supposed to repeat every trivia? Genuine interest, or a vicarious pleasure in death and disease?"

Speaking of his illness, he says: "It is not time for erasure. The body will heal in due course. I am not sure about the beating the mind has taken, I think for the better."

Sadly, he was wrong about the body, for he passed away soon after having penned the column. As for the "beating" that his mind had taken, it was for the better, of course, because the approach of mortality sharpens the tangibility of life. Fortunately, he did not live on for unwanted and debilitating years, his body wasting away even as his mind refuses to give way.

He left with grace, in full command of his mental faculties without his body eating into his playful capacity for joy, astonishment and amazement at the mischievous unfolding of life.

Rabindranath

Rabindranath's approach to death is sublimely material. In his "Jokhon porbe na more payer chinho ei batey", he recognises the world without him. His earthly labours - his goings-to and comings-from the market - would have ceased. Having settled all his accounts, he would not be ferrying his goods-laden boat any longer. Back home, the strings of his tanpura would be gathering dust; thorny vines would have appeared on familial walls and mould by the sides of the lake, personalised metaphors of his zamindari existence.

Yet, the world would continue to exist, remaining true to the rhythms that he had embraced. The days would pass, as they do today; the ferries would run at the ghat; the cows would graze and the cowherds would play in the meadows; and the flute would continue to sing.

Tagore importunes the reader of his poem, a figurative embodiment of the future: So be it if you do not remember me then and call out as you gaze at the stars. Why? Because the poet never really left the world. He is present at every dawn; and he is a part of every game that children play. In the rebirth of his pilgrim soul, he will have a new name. New arms will embrace him. He will know himself anew. A new manifestation of the eternal, in the poet's leaving would have lain the excuse for his coming again.

To this day, Tagore's words inspire those who believe that two aspects of life - the transience of the body and the permanence of the mind - are reconcilable within a single precinct, that of Creation being an unfolding process of play in which everything changes - plot, character, roles, costumes and audiences - but not the stage. The stage does not change. It is the world of the here-and-now, the theatre of suffering punctuated by love and beauty where to be wise means to recognise the vast necessity of life, its pulsating legitimacy that is owed to no one in particular and to all in general, and to humbly recognise one's insignificance in the reality of it all.

To live today is to have lived once, and to return to live again.

Poets, it has been said, never die: They merely pretend to die.

So it is with Rabindranath. So it is with Bibek Debroy, a poet in economist's garb. So it is with anyone who values the material metaphysics of existence.

The writer is Principal Research Fellow at the Cosmos Foundation. He may be reached at epaaropaar@gmail.com