by Saisudha Acharya
To: vinodini.markandeya659@gmail.com
Subject: The Funeral
Dear Vinodini,
I am writing from a hotel room. The house reeks of tuberose and camphor and incense and I cannot stand going back there.
Every room I walk into triggers a memory. Every memory serves as a gut wrenching reminder of how everything has changed irrevocably. So I checked myself into a hotel room.
I am on the sixth floor. Outside the window, it looks like a moving oil painting – large swathes of orange, pink, and grey, buildings in silhouette, the street below packed with evening traffic.
The thick glass blocks out all the sound, except for a low electric hum. I am relieved to be alone at last. I like the sanitized smell of central air conditioning.
As I sit here, a pair of pigeons land on the ledge to coo urgently at each other. They are puffing up, circling each other, flapping furiously every time they come to the edge of the ledge.
What stupid birds. If you were here, we’d probably play that game where we’d make up a whole conversation between these foolish pigeons.
I think it is a territorial squabble between a pair of macho pigeons:
“Eyy! My ledge! Go, go!
“Guturrr, gutturr, shut up! I was here first.”
“Eyyy! Off, off!”
“Guturrr… watch it. Watch it. Otherwise I will puff up and push you off this ledge.”
“I have wings, you fool!”
If you were here, you would laugh and I would feel proud. Proud that I could still make you laugh. But then you’d say it’s a frenzied courtship:
“Oh give me a little peck, darlin’.”
“Not here. Oh, stop it! Not now!”
“I can’t wait.”
“Not in public like this!”
I would roll my eyes at you, and you would smile and lean forward for that peck.
I miss you.
The funeral was ok. You would have been surprised by how many people ended up coming, everyone in white standing around awkwardly.
Everyone at a funeral is worried. Condolers are worried about what to say and how to say it. Grievers are worried about what life is going to mean after today. Children and relations-by-marriage are worried about how much longer they have to stay. Everyone is worried except the dead.
Sometime in the morning, Adarsh created a little stir. He sat blubbering audibly beside the body. I could tell Reema didn’t know what to do. She tried to hold his hand and rub his back, but in the end I had to come and mop him up.
It upset the children to see their father weep like that and their mother helpless beside him. Parents are supposed to strong. They are supposed to set an example. How can he command their respect if he is going to sob like a four-year-old on the first day of school?
When one gets to Adarsh’s age, one has to learn how to suck it up. With every year you are married and with every new depth your relationship reaches, your mother is supposed to become that much less important.
No need to swell in indignation! It is true. Your son ought to love you less today than the day he got married. That is a sign of a healthy marriage.
Anyway, I picked up that boy and brought him to sit with Vineetha. She sat ram rod straight the whole time, her eyes heavy and clouded. She is cool and distant with everyone and people keep their distance.
When she was born, the nurse brought her out to show me. Adarsh was curled up on the cold metal bench, fast asleep from the day’s excitement.
She put this tiny little package in my arms and said, “A gift.” What a gift.
With Vineetha dawned a new era. It was my renaissance. Vineetha’s keen interest in me shone the spotlight on me and I flourished. I was funny. I was wise. I was strong. I was a hero. Even Adarsh started taking notice, competing with Vineetha for my attention.
I was thinking about this, as I watched Vineetha come stand with me. There is this gulf between us. We seem at a loss for words and instead of reaching out and helping each other across it, we look away and shrug in pretend indifference.
If you were here, I might have asked you what to do. How do I fix this?
If you were here you might have said, touch her. Hold her hand. Help her.
But I can’t. I feel like I am on the edge of space watching her glide off, slowly, tragically, with no hope of return. She stood silently with me for a short while before going in to lie down.
When she left, I found myself alone in the room with the body. It was odd. I felt nothing towards it.
It was a vacant shell. I pressed its toes, so tightly bound, but still I felt nothing; no tiny movement of recognition.
How odd it is that when we die we are swaddled so tightly, much as we are when we are born. The body looks comfortable like this – cosy almost.
I come closer and touch its cheek. That face all lined and tired and worn out from the struggle of daily routine. I could not find the girl I fell in love with; who played and fought with me over every damn Scrabble game we ever played; the girl who demurred when her parents or in-laws would walk in but then turned swiftly to jab or pinch me to do her bidding. When I close my eyes, all I see is that girl of 20 whom I fell in love with and who, till the very last moment, looked at me with eyes brimming with energy and humour.
This is not my first time around a corpse. When my father died, he died with what looked like a smile on his lips – frozen there till it got lapped up in the flames. Somehow it made me sadder, to see a happy corpse. But this body was just lifeless, humourless, unrecognisable.
When he died, I didn’t weep like Adarsh. I just felt so tired. I remember seeing you sitting on the floor staring straight at me. You were young and full of this light – this constant, effulgent light. You looked at me and willed me on through your eyes. I didn’t feel alone then; I felt loved.
Then my mother died, and you stayed home because the kids were down with the mumps. You called and I didn’t say anything about Mummy’s passing. You asked about my back ache, told me about the kids, and then you paused and said,” I am always, always thinking of you”.
Are you thinking of me now?
I saw you leave, you know. I saw you wake up in that hospital bed and I watched your eyes move across the room. I was outside the door, talking to the doctor. I would have come in, except you seemed relieved to be alone.
I thought you wanted a private moment – a moment to fart, or burp, or even to go back asleep.
I saw you close your eyes and I watched your lips move. I wondered what you were praying for. Were you praying? Were you saying good bye? Was I just imagining the whole thing?
You were there one minute and gone the next. I was right there. I was in that doorway listening to the doctor tell me that he thought it would be a slow but likely successful recovery. I was there listening to this man telling me that he thought you had a decade while I think you knew you had just seconds.
That body we cremated this afternoon – that was just that – a body. It was not you. I saw you leave.
Everyone today told me what I was feeling. They supplied me with words like “tired”, “shocked”, “sad”, or “lonely”. But they are all wrong. I am not any of those things.
From that moment when, through all the chaos of nurses and doctors rushing about you, I knew you were dead, I grew aware of this black, insidious stain creeping across my chest. I cannot stop grinding my teeth; every muscle in my face is weary.
I am not angry with you. I am furious.
What I really want to do is talk to you. Tell you about my day. Discuss our children and decide on what we need to do to repair my bond with Vineetha or help Adarsh through the difficult circumstances over the last few days.
But you left. And here I am with no answers, no cheat sheet and no survivor’s manual on how to keep this family together.
So, I thought I’d write. And once I wrote, it didn’t feel enough. I felt like sending it to you instantly. I know it sounds silly: souls have better things to do, I am sure, than checking email. But I can just imagine you sitting in our vacant house that I can’t stand entering, starting up that old PC and reading my email. I half expect a short little reply that says “I am always, always thinking of you”
Always, and forever,
Anand
Loved it, SS! In a sad sort of way…
To say it made me weep for Anand and even for Vinodini, it obviously means your story touched a chord deep inside.
Keep writing, Always and Forever.