They drop their masks only when they are about to die. I know of a lady freedom fighter who only wore khaddar in her life and was revered for her Gandhian mode of living. When she lay dying with a rattle in her throat, she mumbled incoherently to the relatives beside her bed. But nobody could comprehend what she had to say. They brought a photograph for Mahatma Gandhi and held it up for the old one to see in her dying hour.
Pretences leave human beings when they are near death.
You cannot pass the doorway of death carrying the luggage of falsehood. I am forever looking for receipts and documents that I have misplaced. My sons advise me to keep a secretary who will, in turn, go crazy looking for the receipts and documents that have been misplaced. His tension and his fidgeting will rob this house of its tranquillity. The silence in these rooms sustain me.