Euthanasia means to give a peaceful exit to a person suffering from a terminal illness. Active euthanasia entails the use of lethal substances to kill a person, such as a lethal injection to a person with terminal cancer. Passive euthanasia entails withholding of medical treatment resulting in death, like removing the ventilator from a patient in a coma. In 2011 as part of the Aruna Shanbaug judgment, the SC legalised passive euthanasia for those who are brain dead or in a persistent vegetative state. Permission can be granted by the High Court on the basis of a report prepared by three reputed doctors and seeking the opinions of the state, close relatives or, in their absence, a friend. This procedure is to be followed until the Parliament passes a law. The government is working on a law on passive euthanasia called ‘The Management of Patients With Terminal Illness — Withdrawal of Medical Life Support Bill’.

Since 1987, Narayan Lavate has been crusading for a citizen’s right to a state-sponsored death. His first letter to the secretary of an NGO championing passive euthanasia when he was just 55 years old was followed by a slew of petitions addressed to the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of India, Tamil Nadu’s chief minister, and most recently to the President of India. In one, he offers all his blood and organs to the soldiers fighting in Kargil; in another, he begs the late Jayalalithaa to hang him and his wife in place of

’s killers.

“Hanging will take how much time? Maximum half an hour of agony,” says Lavate, who will suffer through his 87th birthday in August, “but it will save me the agony of living.”

When Lavate talks about “agony”, he isn’t referring like most euthanasia candidates to a terminal illness. The octogenarian and his 77-year-old wife don’t suffer from any serious ailment, have a roof over their heads, and a small but sufficient pension. Lavate’s angst is more existential. “What is the use of living further?” he asks. “We have no purpose. And beyond 75 years of age, you fall prey to various ailments and infirmities.”

A cursory glance at Lavate’s bookshelf — just a foot over his bed — makes it clear that the issue hangs heavy on his mind. There’s a tome on forensic medicine, jammed between books on the Indian Constitution, judicial strictures, affidavits, PILs and

rules. “I’m currently reading law books because I want to know the judgments and precedents on euthanasia,” he says, “and forensic science books to understand how diseases are contracted.”

Lavate has also reached out to Dignitas, a Swiss non-profit that provides assisted suicide for members who suffer from a terminal illness or severe physical or mental illnesses. Though he and his wife don’t fall in these brackets, Lavate is convinced that his inability to procure a passport — his wife has one — is the only thing preventing them from dying peacefully in Switzerland.

In India, passive euthanasia, defined as the withholding of medical treatment to hasten a terminally ill patient’s death, has been legalised as part of the Supreme Court’s Aruna Shanbaug judgment but only after permission is obtained from the High Court concerned. What the Lavates are proposing is miles ahead of even active euthanasia, which is an intentional act causing the death of a patient experiencing great suffering. They want to die simply because they deem their lives “purposeless” and fear facing the indignities of old age alone.

“No country in the world would grant their request because they don’t have a terminal illness,” says

, a family physician, who has been a member of the Mumbai-based NGO, The Society For The Right To Die With Dignity, for the last 25 years. Dhelia, who has met Narayan Lavate on a handful of occasions, believes that the law must first evolve to accept voluntary euthanasia for the terminally ill and living wills — written statements detailing a person’s desires regarding future medical treatment in circumstances in which they are no longer able to express informed consent — before entertaining cases like the Lavates.

In a sense, Lavate, a former Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation employee, wants to die the way he’s lived — on his own terms. A resident of Laxmibai Chawl in Thakurdwar’s Zaobawadi in Mumbai, he always shunned the traditional trappings of middle-class life. He refused to marry till 37 — only relenting when his mother was on her deathbed — preferring to read on BEST buses or roam the streets of Mumbai till 2am. After an arranged marriage, he spent the first year convincing his 28-year-old wife that having children would be an act of selfishness because no baby chooses to be born and suffer on earth.

Lavate soon came around to her husband’s way of thinking. “I also don’t like children,” says the former headmistress of Aryan High School in Girgaon. She hints at the toll this took on her social life. “In our community, if a woman has no child, she’s looked at as abnormal,” says Iravati. While her husband could occasionally borrow the neighbours’ kids to play with, she had to keep her distance because of this stigma.

When it comes to ending her life with the help of a lethal injection, Iravati is just as compliant. “I was convinced by my husband,” she says. In his 2014 letter to the CJI, Lavate originally suggested that those above 85 should be allowed to “embrace death voluntarily” but modified this to 75 years when he realised the age limit would bar Iravati from dying with him.

Lavate has been contemplating suicide since he was in his twenties — he even attempted drowning off Chowpatty Beach — but has now come to the conclusion that suicide is too risky. After all, the couple might survive jumping off a building or flinging themselves off a bridge but the government can ensure their painless deaths.

Lavate’s siblings are dead but Iravati’s are still alive and both have nieces and nephews. On the day we visited, relatives made a trip from Pune after hearing about the couple’s decision on television. Over the last few weeks, perplexed relatives and neighbours have been streaming into their home, promising to care for them in their old age but the couple remains adamant.