The Funeral Diaries - Part II

It's been a week today since Ba passed away, and the condolence e-mails from friends and family far away continues.

I remember feeling relieved when Papa called to tell me that she has succumbed early that morning. The last time I saw her, four days prior, she had not recognised me. Her breath was jagged, with the rough, scraping sound of a body that was giving up, her words indecipherable. After a while, she thought I was my sister. Her favourite grandchild, the one who looked like her and was as good a cook. She smiled repeatedly at Nino, questioning eyes looking at me, recognising him perhaps, but not able to place the context of that memory. Do you live closeby, she asked me, playing host, her way of thanking me for coming to see her. I told her where I lived, and she nodded politely, and then suddenly she asked if my mother-in-law was back: and for a second I knew that perhaps she knew, but that moment passed away and I left, her light-grey eyes imprinted in my memory. I shed tears for her pain, for her skin that was peeling away, for the ghost of the woman that she'd become.

That day, as we sat around her body, crying in turns for her, for us, for the others before her who have left us, I saw faces and names I've never met. People who trooped in from the far away ancestral village, travelling in jeeps and buses to come meet her, one last time. I heard tales of how she'd protected women from errant or violent or drunkard husbands, how she'd helped girls get married by shouldering responsibilities, by cooking for hundreds of people, by singing all night long. How she raised her children, on her own.

She died on a very auspicious day, I was told repeatedly. Radha Asthami, the birthday of Radha, the Lord's consort. There would be prayers and donations everywhere, it couldn't have been a better day for a Brahmin's soul to depart. Her last month, by when she was just having a few sips of water and perhaps half a cup of milk, was coincidentally Shravan, the holiest Hindu month, wherein fasting is considered the quickest elevator to good karma. In a way she too fasted, they told me, it couldn't be better. Her soul passed away from her mouth, I was told, the second most auspicious kind of death. As they placed gangajal, and tulsi leaves and little bit of gold wrapped in tulsi leaves in her mouth, I learnt that Hindus believe the soul 'escapes' from several 'openings' - inlcuding the eyes, nose, mouth, genitals - perhaps signifying the chakras. The 'port of escape' according to some scriptures offers a clue about the next birth and likely karma of the deceased. Her eyes were open when she died, and so was her mouth - and because her breath was the last thing that my uncle heard, they said her soul had passed out of her mouth - very lucky, they said.

It was a macabre word to use that day - luck - and yet as I sat through my irritation at the statements, I realised the simplicity of the message - the need to see the good even in something as destructive as death. These were simple folk, those who knew no fancy words that could make it into condolence-cards: this was their way of giving us support, of letting us know they wanted us to get through this. And I was humbled by the love she received, by the love we received, by the love that I received. They knew me by name, had heard of me from her, and they called me by a name my childhood has long buried - and the memories came flooding back - of her, and her warm lapsi, the walking in a blue banarsi sari to see her on New Year's Day, hands firmly clasped on my ears to shut out the Diwali crackers, stopping in the narrow lane because of cow-dung cakes - I would have to set one hand free to lift my saree to jump over, but I was too frightened of the crackers. I was less than 10: and she had laughed uproariously at first and then seeing my tears, shooed the pol boys away.

For the past few years, I'd viewed her through my father's eyes and my mother's eyes, perhaps because the roles of daughter-in-law and mother came to the fore: and I used my own yardsticks of being a happy daughter-in-law and a new mother to compare, to make judgements. And yet I saw her daughters-in-law as devastated as her sons when she died, they cried over memories that were far more forgiving that those that I remembered. I remembered a dear friend that day, one who recently taught me that people do the best jobs they know how to - in all their roles.

In this past week I've discovered a woman who was not unlike me - a woman who spoke her mind, who had strong likes and dislikes, who fought to keep her family together. I discovered a woman who made the best of what life gave her - her moments of grace far outnumbering the others. Whose expressions of affection were just different from what I expected.

Forgive me, Ba, for days when I was quick to judge, quicker to criticise. For my fights - verbal and silent - and for my tears of anger that I knew you sensed. For the love that I feel now, too late. I hope you're happy and at peace, and I hope to meet you again.

The Funeral Diaries - Part I

Om taccham yoravrini mahe

gaatum yajnaya

gaatum yajnapataye

daivi svastirastu naha

svastir maanushebhyaha

urdhvam jigatu bheshajam

sham no astu dvipade

sham chatushpade

Om shantih shantih shantihi

We worship and pray to the Supreme Lord for the welfare of all beings. May all miseries and shortcomings leave us forever so that we may always sing for the Lord during the holy fire ceremonies. May all medicinal herbs grow in potency so that all diseases may be cured. May the gods rain peace on us. May all the two-legged creatures be happy, and may all the four-legged creatures also be happy. May there be peace in the hearts of all beings in all realms.

She's watching them, and they her, although it is two different things now. Her sons: the eldest, the middle one and the youngest. The fourth is far away: separated by time, distance, words and circumstances.

She'd cradled all of them once: bathed them, massaging them, rubbing hard against the hair to give them the creamy, hair-less, soft skin that is their surname: the fair one. The middle son is bathing her today: he anoints her with sandalwood, tags her with abil, gulal, kanku. There's a slow, methodical love in his hands: how does he know this, she wonders? It does not come naturally to his gender, and yet, he knows how to prop her head up, how to drape the clothes on her, how to arrange the flowers. He's chanting too: and she knows her husband is watching too, flushed with pride. The pandit with four sons, named after the Gods themselves: three atheists and only one believer. The other two are watching too: working in a tandem that beats age-gaps, egos and beliefs.

Om sahasra shirsha purushaha

sahasrakshaha sahasrapat

sa bhumim vishvato vritva

atyatishthad dhashangulam

The Purusha (the Supreme Being) has a thousand heads, a thousand eyes and a thousand feet. He has enveloped this world from all sides and has (even) transcended it by ten angulas or inches.

What are they thinking, she wonders. Do they remember my anger? Piercing words. The rolling pin, the kitchen utensils that were an extension of my arm, and my anger. Once, a hot pincer that had found its way to the eldest one.
But he bothered me so, the eldest one. A naughtiness and boisterousness that defied his asthma-racked body, malnourished from the hand-to-mouth existence that marked my youth, my middleage.
Do they remember the love? The going hungry to feed them food? The walking barefoot to chosen deities, scorching sun and blistered feet? The fasts, the giving up of favoured things, the countless nights spent, stroking, sighing, sitting? The warm, ghee-soaked sheera that I fed them before I offered it to my Lord?

purusha evedagam sarvam

yadbhutam yaccha bhavyam

utamritatva syeshanaha

yadanne natirohati

All this is verily the Purusha. All that which existed in the past or will come into being in the future (is also the Purusha). Also, he is the Lord of immortality. That which grows profusely by food (is also the Purusha).

Me, the shipping magnate's daughter with rooms of my own, watching the waves roll in from my window to the endless. Me, the pandit's angsty wife, raising four sons and two daughters and one more in a one-room house, designated corners to cook, to pee, to bathe. Me, the woman who put her youth and her beauty in the aluminium trunk I carried my wedding clothes in, and locked it in for mothballs and silverfish to enjoy.

Me, the creator of my own destiny. Me, the forger of my own fortune. Me, the mother of four sons. One who I drove away with my words. One who lived with me, but who still seeks a semblance of happiness from a life in which I weed-ed out love. Wife to a man whose malaise was generosity, whose curse was his concern for other people, whose gifts were only for the hapless.

Me, Prasanna Gauri, named after the Devi who is both happy and gracious, benevolent and serene.

--

to be continued...

The many limbs of memory

It's two in the night and my stomach is cramping - huge pelvic knots that send my body pores into wide, open flashes of panic - and I realise for the nth time, food poisoning is as mean as it sounds. I'm tempted to groan and moan - I'm a firm believer in expression of feelings, especially the painful ones - and awaken the gently sleeping husband to my misery. Instead, I sit up, do a couple of deep breaths, remember Her, and sip some water. This has been the second day and I've taken my tablets on time, skipped those foods that are likely to make my situation worse. And I've not complained. It's predictable behaviour for an adult, you may think, but it's not predictable behaviour for me. I've to be prodded to have my medication, spied upon to make sure I stick to a particular diet, and patiently listened to as I moan about the pain that racks my body.

But I'm thinking of Her today, as she quietly went about her routine, medicines on time, meals never skipped, the quiet sigh as she sat down the only indication of a painful ankle. They say she hated to depend upon any one - I think she just understood that few people have the patience to play nurse. 'Why to trouble anybody ma', she used to say. It wasn't the bother she was talking about, it was the worry. It's what she said as she lay in the ambulance, vulnerable, watching me button her undone blouse. 'Did not mean to trouble anybody ma,' she said. 'I know,' I said, but she was already hooked on to the ventilator, unable to reply. As I chanted the vighneshwaraya vardaya sloka that comes to my mind when I'm faced with pure and absolute terror of loss, she exerted a mild pressure on our clutched hands. Even in that state, as she lay racked with the pain of a heart that was giving up, she looked out for me.

There were no loose ends with Her, ever. At the hospital, as the doctor asked us about the medications she took, we mutely opened a tiny tin box that was her medical file. Every tablet she took was there. There was no medical file per-se: she hadn't been ill in years - she was indestructible, almost. As I spelt her name out for the countless forms we filed it seemed ironic that her long and beautiful name was rarely spoken. For all whom she met, she was merely Manni, Perimanni, Amma, Periamma, Akka - generic names that will never be the same again for those who spoke them with Her in mind.

I wondered how she felt, lying there, jabbed in half a dozen places, unfamiliar hands and faces all around her. Did she think of all the people she loved and lost? Of all whom she loved and would not be able to see? Did she feel cold, angry, hurt, betrayed? Did she accept it as she did everything and everyone in her life? Did she mean to fight it as she fought her debilitating stroke a decade back? Was there something she thought she had left unsaid, undone? I remember asking her if she wanted something. 'Shall I sleep,' she said. 'I'm very sleepy.'

I remember her telling me through most of my adult decision-making life to do what made me happy. It applied to career choices, clothes, love, marriage and even rituals. The only rule was that the decision had to make me happy: sometimes I wonder if it was because she was confident in the upbringing we had received that prevented us from being happy at someone else's cost. She merely smiled when her grand-children told her they eat meat. An orthodox Brahmin who merely switched the question 'What did you eat' to 'Did you eat well' every time we returned home from a restaurant/party. Nothing was taboo. Not love, not food, not the body. She clutched my hand and lead me into the Somnath temple, just after I'd rebelled against the Hindu ritual of shunning women during their menstrual period. 'It's what you believe in,' she said to me then. 'If it's not sin to you, it's not sin.' How did she manage to balance the ideas she was brought up with, with the times she saw changing?

As I cringe every time I bend my beliefs/ideas for the family I'm married into, for the people I work with, I marvel as how tensile adaptability can make you. She bent with changing times, at-level with the people she interacted with, never snapping with the effort. And yet, never changing the true steel of her character.

They say you must begin your day with the thoughts of the Almighty. I do, but she comes first. Because it is she who taught me to say the morning chant of Kausalya Supraja Rama that I use to wake Nino up. And everytime I say it, big lump in my throat, I remember Her before He comes to my mind. Lately it's strange to see my atheist husband try and join in, stumbling at the Sanskrit pronunciations, his way of helping me keep as much of Her around me as I can.

As I lay screaming in labour, not allowing my body to take its due course and open up to Nino, I forgot how she'd walked a pot-holed muddy road with a kerosene lantern on a rainy night to deliver her youngest son. Her husband was travelling and she had to worry about the other kids so she made sure everyone was asleep before leaving, but not before she had arranged for their food. It seemed so heroic to me then, but it was so simple to her, it was so her.

I believe being able to nurture is a trait very few people are blessed with. It does not come automatically through mother-hood, neither it is something that can be perfected through conscious practice. She was that rare breed: she nurtured - family, relationships, people, plants, the food she cooked, the stories she shared, the prayers she said. It did not matter if you were not related to her - she had reason enough to wish the best for everyone who met her.

Old photographs surface from the corners of her neatly kept cupboard. Black-and-White pictures of a dainty young woman in an immaculate Kanjeevaram and an impressive nose-pin. Her grace and determination is evident even though the woman I knew looked so different. Did she mourn the passing of her youth, the changing shape of her body after motherhood, like I did? It is not as if the outwardly never mattered to her: 'My blouse doesn't match my saree, hope it'll do,' she would mutter as guests came in. Her eyes would light up everytime the grand-daughters would wear sarees, but they never frowned on fashionable expressions.

They say she loved her husband to bits. And that though he bullied her, they shared a love that transcends understanding and definition. They say they're together now. And I know exactly which particular piece from Shakespeare Bapuji is serenading her with: Sonnet 18.

They say the departed spirit spends 13 days on earth with its loved ones, before it goes on ahead to its future destination. It’s almost 13 days now, and I know Amma’s filled these by zipping across continents and time-zones making sure her children, grand-children and great grand-children are doing okay, making sure we can see her benign smile though the swirling clouds.

Lalithangi: the one whose limbs resemble/are akin to the divine mother, Devi. Lalitha also means the 'adorable and brilliantly sweet One who plays.' She was named aptly.