Passing On To Eternity

How does one prepare for the death of a dear person? Yes, it was expected (how ugly that sounds!); yes, it was a merciful release from pain followed endlessly by more pain; and yes, the years had taken their toll.

A phone call in the morning pierced through the tendrils of sleep, and a hushed expected unwelcome message; I recall the moment exactly - it went quieter; the cawing faded, the air con hum stilled. After a few moments I called Nagpur. The sadness of the voice when bhabhi spoke caught at my throat. It was the sadness filtering through the phone that made me feel helpless. I cried then, unable to bear the sorrow that had been left behind.

To grieve for one who has parted, to reach those places in the soul for moments of complete aloneness and despair - are these not the purest moments when we are closest to god? If there is god then must it not affect it? Does it cry with us? Does it too, need a comforting hand on the shoulder and a warm cheek to rest one's tears?

Ah! But humankind is strong, it is resilient. We tell ourselves that we shall all perish one day, as indeed we shall. And we tumble into happier memories, of times that smiled and laughed. I did that too, not moments after melancholy. I remembered the stentorian yet rich, 'So how are you, Partho? gaan-taan kemon cholche?' How is the music keeping up (I sing in a desultory fashion when my mood takes me)? And then that Edwardian smile of the handsome man that he was, the crinkled eyes that welcomed me, yet again, to a home that has been my home for the past 25 years. I remembered him gnawing on a tender morsel of paanthaar kosha mangsho (gently simmered semi-dry goat-meat) with the eyes closed, as if in Communion; the half-rocking right knee keeping time with the chewing of the jaws - the sheer enjoyment in the entire frame, an ode to extraordinary cooking as much to the ability of showing pleasure at such wholesomeness.

I was at peace. And I wished and prayed that each one of us who is today grieving for Mesho will also find their own wisp of recollection. For, in those wretched few moments of despair in the morning today, I know my heart was pierced not by an individual grief, but by the arrows of the many who were grieving for him. It was the thought of so much sadness that I found unbearable.