Death can come at any time to anyone. Everybody is equal before

In the councils of the living, where breath is borrowed and the clock is unbribable, hear Mohanlal’s plain thunder: “Death can come at any time to anyone. Everybody is equal before death.” The sentence walks like a village bell—simple words, ancient sound. It cuts through the gauze with which we wrap our days and points to the unbroken law: the last door opens for king and porter, scholar and child, at hours unannounced. No gate pass, no pedigree—only the summons that makes a common size of us all.

Its teaching is double. First, “any time… anyone”: uncertainty is not a flaw in life but its frame. The hour is hidden so that the heart may stay awake. Second, “equal before death”: the scythe is the great level, the true republic. Whatever masks we wear in markets and courts are stripped at the threshold; what remains is what we have become—our mercies, our kept or broken promises, the love we dared to risk. To remember this equality is not to grow morbid; it is to grow honest. It lowers pride and lifts regard for the least, turning our attention from show to substance.

The line rises from a life acquainted with impermanence. In an early interview reflecting on loss and the brevity of success, Mohanlal said, “I understood then that nothing is permanent in life. Death can come at any time to anyone. Everybody is equal before death. After that I am not scared of death at all.” That newspaper profile (1997) preserves the context: a star speaking not as an idol but as a son of time, translating grief into clarity. Later quotation collections repeated the sentence because it carries the weight of that first confession.

A story will make it plain. In a crowded ward, two beds faced the same window. In one lay a retired magistrate whose name once opened doors; in the other, a mason whose hands held the memory of stone. They watched the same patch of sky, waited on the same nurses’ rounds, felt the same tug of sleepless hours. When the rains came and the air smelled of dust returning to earth, the magistrate asked the mason to tell him about bridges, and the mason asked the magistrate to tell him about laws. They laughed softly. Before death, they were simply men, and the dignity of each was obvious as daylight. When at last one bed emptied and then the other, the ward remembered neither robes nor calluses, only the gentleness they had exchanged.

History writes the same parable in larger letters. Plague and war have often marched through palaces and alleys without checking titles. Tombs of pharaohs and paupers share the same hush; names weather, bones level. Societies that keep this truth near—carving it into law and custom—tend to honor the poor, temper the mighty, and prepare for calamity with solidarity rather than scorn. Societies that forget it grow gaudy and brittle, surprised by the first strong wind.

What, then, shall the living do with such a sentence? First, reconcile early: keep short accounts—apologize today, forgive without interest, and let no nightfall find your heart barricaded. Second, order your house—write the documents, label the passwords, bless your heirs with stories and clear instructions—so that even your leaving is a last act of care. Third, practice equality now: learn names that power teaches you to overlook, tip your hat first, share tables wide. Fourth, spend your time as if it might be called in—schedule the mercies you intend, not merely the tasks you must.

Carry the cadence like a pocket rule: Death—any time—anyone—equal—before death. Let it humble your pride and ennoble your attention. Let it turn your gaze from ornaments to obligations, from trophies to tenderness. And when fear rises at midnight, answer as the elder did: if the door is certain and the hour unknown, then the art is to live ready—lamp trimmed, debts paid, blessings spoken—so that when the knock comes, it finds you already generous and unafraid. For the last equality, rightly remembered, is not a thief of joy, but its guardian: it teaches us to prize each face, to spend each day, and to leave the world a little kinder than we found it.