Bringing Death Back Into Life: A Conversation with Ethnologist & Author Jyoti Marianne Bahri Ahead of Her Hyderabad Workshop
By Fridaywall Editorial
Based on an exclusive interview with Jyoti Marianne Bahri
Death is often the last thing we want to talk about. In our homes, in our culture, and even in our private thoughts, death occupies a forbidden space—whispered away, pushed aside, coated with fear or wrapped in ritual without reflection.
But what if we could look at death differently?
What if death isn’t the shadow of life, but—as poetically described by several wisdom traditions—its closest companion? A teacher, a mirror, a threshold.
This is the invitation extended by India-based German ethnologist, educationist, and author Jyoti Marianne Bahri, whose work spans cultural anthropology, educational systems, spiritual inquiry, and deeply personal experiential study. Her books include Freed From the Frame and Dying Differently – Inviting Awareness and Dignity in Life and Death.
Bahri is in Hyderabad for a special two-day program at Goethe-Zentrum Hyderabad on November 29 & 30, featuring free public panel discussions followed by an experiential workshop that attempts to bring death back into life—gently, courageously, and consciously.
A Culture That Celebrated Life’s Thresholds Now Fears Its Final One
In our interview, Bahri recalls how her early academic work as an ethnologist focused on rituals around pregnancy and childbirth among Buddhist communities in Delhi. “India had a very rich culture in terms of celebrating and acknowledging the thresholds of life,” she says. Birth, adulthood, marriage—each transition had ritual, celebration, and collective meaning.
But death, she observes, is the one threshold we’ve increasingly pushed into silence.
“Even in my own family experiences, in India and Germany, I noticed that people simply didn’t want to talk about death. It was always ‘tuk-tuk, bolo mat’ or ‘don’t draw the devil on the wall’. That struck me—why such a huge difference?”
Her personal journey—including a near-death experience that changed her life’s direction—made the question unavoidable.
Corona Brought Death Close—But Not Conversation
Bahri points out how the pandemic shifted global consciousness.
“During Corona, people died left and right. For the first time, the question ‘Am I next?’ came close. Yet, instead of opening up conversations, for many, the fear deepened.”
This is why public spaces for such conversations are essential, she believes.
“Families hesitate to talk. Individuals hesitate to search or read about it. So we need cultural spaces where death is not taboo—where it can be explored with dignity.”
From Information to Inner Experience: The Workshop Approach
Bahri emphasises that unlike a lecture or intellectual discussion, the Hyderabad workshop is experiential.
“We are flooded with information today. But what we rarely do is look within. This workshop invites participants to experience their vision of death—to meet their fears, to look back at life, and to sense what they would like to change. Not through the mind, but through deeper layers of awareness.”
Participants will be guided through quiet reflective processes:
- Visualising the end to understand life more deeply
- Encountering inner fears
- Examining what remains unfinished
- Practicing the art of letting go
“Letting go,” she says, “is essential. My near-death experience taught me that. Acceptance, surrender, and gratitude can transform how we live—and eventually how we die.”
Her goal for the Hyderabad sessions is simple yet profound:
“That people begin looking within, courageously. That they see life more clearly by looking from its ending.”
A Global Shift Toward Death Awareness
Around the world, death cafés, end-of-life doulas, death literacy programs, and experiential workshops have become part of a growing movement. Bahri has just completed a one-year intensive course in Germany where participants met monthly and reflected weekly.
“The feedback was extraordinary,” she recalls. “People said the space became essential—because there is nowhere else to talk about these things.”
The Hyderabad workshop brings this movement to India in a rare, intimate format.
Event Details — Goethe-Zentrum Hyderabad
November 29 — Panel Discussions
Free & Open to All | No Registration Required
- Panel 1: 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
- Panel 2: 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM
November 30 — Experiential Workshop
Led by Jyoti Marianne Bahri
Limited participation | Registration required
A guided, introspective journey into understanding death as a teacher of conscious living.
Why This Conversation Matters
Bahri leaves us with a powerful reflection:
“The last breath is the most important one—a mirror of the life you lived. If we prepare for it, we open ourselves to something much greater, long before that final moment arrives.”
In a world that celebrates life but hides death, this event offers a rare chance to understand both more deeply.
To reflect. To question. To look within.
And to return to life renewed.
