When you're fifty, you have certainly known the world - most of it, if not in full.

In my case, I'm more comfortable with the world at this point with my knowledge and insight into its ways that I've acquired this long. I think I can live the rest of my life in a more informed and organized way.

But the idea of death scares me. Why must a man die? Why is life so short?

Akhtaruzzaman Ilius, an outstanding Bangladeshi novelist, once told in an interview that he would like to live three hundred years to complete his literary aspirations.

He was right, and indeed gave voice to what I find myself thinking these days.

Unfortunately, he died a few years ago when he was not yet eighty.
MRINAL BOSE