Living it for her...
24th Jan, 10 pm onwardsIt’s the fifth day. I just got a call. She died. My mother was crying – expected yet unexpected. I am leaving for Delhi immediately. Classes are not a concern. I do not know how to react. I feel my stomach churning but there are no tears. My friends show concern but I’m okay. I can think straight. I think I can think straight. I know I wouldn’t make it to her place before the guests for the occasion. It doesn’t make a difference, yet it’ll never be the same again. I wish I’d had a few moments with her alone, before, or even after her death. I want to feel the interminable silence that spread between us.
I get in the train. I missed my dinner, so I buy a packet of Kurkure and a Pepsi. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be eating junk after this news, but I’m hungry. I still am not crying. I don’t know whether it’s just the lack of emotions in me or a resignation to the fact that it was just a formality, that she’d already been brain dead for five days and that probably she’d died years ago. Or maybe it’s that I see some good coming out of this happening and so I feel that it’s a good riddance. I only know that I feel like loathing myself at the moment. In any case, I lie down and take out a book. I’m already sleepy. The day had been hectic. Am I not supposed to be sleepless? That’s how they show it in the movies. Regardless, I fall asleep.
I am in the auto-rickshaw which is nearing her place. I gather my wits to face not her, but the barrage of relatives and visitors that I’ll encounter and think hard how I’m supposed to behave. I get off, pay the driver very matter-of-factly and step inside. The house is buzzing with activity. The first thing I see is mamma. I jolt out of all my thoughts. After 21 years of reading the phrase countless number of times, I now know what it means to go pale, white rather and how blood can drain out of one’s face. This is probably the first time I’m seeing mamma show her vulnerability. I’m sure it’s real but then it’s necessary too. The society demands one to be so.
They’ve just brought the body (not her) from the hospital. The door is full of people. I try to peep in and steal a look. I’m see someone, shriveled up, nose stuffed with cotton plugs. Is it her? I hear wailings. Someone beside me runs off to an inner room to cry. I remove myself from that area. I don’t like the look of it all. I don’t want to cry. I’m nearly about to but I manage to keep it to moist eyes. I hold my 9 year old cousin and lead him inside. He’s more curious than sad. I don’t know how he is supposed to feel. He never really had a relationship with her. All he heard about her were demonic things. True, but demonic. I have better memories. I’ve been loved. I still don’t know what to do.
It is time to take the body away. It’s (the her becomes an it in a flash) been bathed, tied to the wooden planks, draped with shawls from all relatives. There’s wailing, the loudest from acquaintances who haven’t met her in the past few months. I hear a comment – “Arre yeh to paanch din mein hi swaha ho gayi. Kisi se kuchh bol to jati. Aise hi chali gayi.” My mom loses her composure again, starts crying. I want to tell that lady to fuck off and mind her own fucking business. How dare she count the number of days she took to die. She’s been keeping a record, making calculations.
I’m in the ambulance with her. Her head is in my lap. It’s giving out a weird smell. I’m feeling uncomfortable. The body’s heavy, the place is too small and I don’t know how I’m supposed to react. We reach the cremation grounds. We are waiting for the busload of relatives to reach. In the meanwhile, the payment for wood has to be made. They’ve booked a VIP cremation ground for her through some MLA they know, but it’s not free right now. We get the semi-VIP one. We go there and a dog is sleeping in the area. The priest (who does not look like a priest at all) shoos him away in a very un-priestly manner. I do not understand how it would make a difference if she’s burned in the commoner’s area or the VIP or the semi-VIP area. I know that it’s not a way of paying tribute to her. Nobody’s doing that. So, are they still thinking of the social status at this moment? How am I supposed to behave?
The priest chants and rants. She burns. I can still remember her alive. I can still hear her voice in my ears, in my head. I see her burning but I also see her laughing, talking in her own mean, conniving way. Why does it seem more acceptable that burning the body? Is she dead? What’s death? No, that’s metaphysical. I won’t go there. Sahil, my nine year old cousin, is still throwing the remaining wood sticks on the smoldering body. It’s not my idea of fun. I was never called for putting flame to the body. I don’t think I’d have gone even if I was. Some people from our crowd are standing in a corner, socializing. I also see two of them laughing. They have come to the crematorium in a very self-assured way. They seem to know the difference in rates of all the cremation grounds around. Some of them have free parking. This one has. The one in Shahdara doesn’t.
We move in a file. The body still burns. The priest demands his fees. He wants the price fixed earlier and double that amount on some other pretexts. The elders haggle but he’s adamant. He’s shouting now. He’s saying something about her, about death. He’s well practiced. He won’t give in. He knows the tricks of the trade. No one’s in the mood to bargain. He gets his way. We move out. The guard at parking demands money. We refuse. We hear a lot of filth. If I were alone, I might’ve kicked him in the groin. We come back. Every visitor has to be fed. They don’t want to eat in the home where a death has occurred. We want to feed them since it is the tradition. Both are right. We win some, lose some. It’s all okay.
It’s morning now. We go to the crematorium again. We have to pick up flowers. I didn’t know what that meant. I took it literally. It turned out that all the bones do not burn to ashes, contrary to my expectations. I don’t think I did my science properly. We are supposed to collect them after a ritual involving milk, sweets and flowers which I had to procure from a few nearby shops. Even now, people are thinking who gives me the money to buy it. I’m not to do it of my parent’s money. They have egos, they have plans. They don’t have change. Things, like always, work out somehow. Now we get to the actual job of collecting the bones. I can’t. I think it is unhygienic. I don’t ant to touch them. All of them tell me to. I evade the issue. I manage to get past it all. After a lot of other things, unacceptable to me, we get back home. Tomorrow, we have to take the ashes to Garhganga for asthi-visarjan.
Family politics reaches a high. Nevertheless, the group I’m a part of, has its way. Early morning, we start for Gangaji. Mamaji is driving. The ashes are in a red cloth. “Red cloth for women, white for men”, the priest had said. I fail to see why. He’d also ordered not to place the ashes down on the floor or the seat of the car. I have to carry it in my lap for two hours till the time we reach the place. I’m not sure how I’m feeling. The red bag I’m holding used to be a person. That whole thing used to be my nani, now it’s just an inanimate thing that I’ve got to held till we can do the needful with it/her. I hold her, and I’m feeling nothing. I’m blank, I feel so hollow. Damn, don’t I have any emotions in me? Why the stone-heartedness? What if I shed a tear or two? Why can’t I? I should try harder.
Gangaji is a very commercialized place. Everybody has rates. We get crowded as soon as we get off. We took a bath in the holy river full of ashes and muck. The water was worse than ice-cold. The priest embezzled more than we intended but less than his expectations. We left at the earliest. Back home, garuda-purana has been organized for ten days. I’m forced to sit. After a while of rambling in Sanskrit and Hindi, the pandit starts describing how those who’ve sinned in this world are going to go to hell, how they bear pains like the sting of a hundred scorpions and a lot of other things that I don’t care to listen. I’ve had enough. I refuse to be a part of the circus procession anymore. I walk out.
It was her I went for, and I found everything except her. Nobody seemed to remember her. They talked of what was socially and politically correct to say. They said good things, they said superficial things. They reflected themselves, not her. She was missing. Maybe she has actually died. Maybe it was time. Maybe…
posted by Swetank Gupta @ 1:44 am
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