Vishal Sharma
With eyes swollen and reddened; and a wearied, tear stained face; he sat silent and morose, looking through the glass top of the dead body freezer box at his deceased mother. The death had taken place around noon, but cremation had been postponed till the following morning to enable the grandson of the deceased, who was at the time in UAE, to make it to the funeral.
There were fewer than four persons, including me, in the room. We sat on the sofa instead of on the ground in a departure from the normal. The atmosphere was somber; and we sat in silence; one or two amongst us spoke to each other occasionally in whispers. The son looked depressed and languid. Every time, there was something to be done, he rose up and seemed to drag himself to attend to the work at hand. He was the only son of the deceased, so he did not have the luxury to only mourn. There was work to be done too. And quite a bit at that! He would quietly return to resume his seat each time he finished the work he was called upon to do
Every now and then I saw his face break up into many layers, as he quietly sobbed. Each time his face twitched and quivered, as he silently cried, tears refused to come out of his eyes. He seemed to have already cried himself dry. His eyes looked like two sunken hollow red balls.
A little later, a florist came and started adorning the freezer box with the flowers. Before long, the deceased was in the company of the white lilies, roses and orchids. Inside the box, the deceased looked calm and had a radiant contented expression. Then an elderly man walked in and told the son to place a stick alongside the box. A stick was brought, but was returned as it was too short. It had to be as long as the box-not an inch smaller or longer, he advised. A right stick was later brought and placed on the ground alongside the box.
I quietly witnessed the scene and it struck me that there was dignity in the way the death in the family was being dealt with. There is no loss greater than loss of one’s mother to death. And there is no pain bigger than the one that is caused by the loss of one’s mother. There is just no debate on that. But then how is it that in some cases, there is too much of breast beating, flailing of arms and wailing, and in others, a quiet crying or sobbing or shedding of silent tears.
I guess every person is hardwired to respond to such situations in his or her own way.
The unrelenting emphasis on observing traditions, practices or rituals associated with funerals or the events that follow it and their near inviolable nature is one of the complex social pathologies of our times. There are just too many of these traditions; and adherence to some of them is extremely onerous. They begin with the death of an individual in the family and continue all the year round. By any reckoning, the thirteen days that follow the incidence of death are no less than an ordeal.
While at first sight, they may not seem to be difficult chores, just imagine, if your job requires you to stay away from the family and still carry out these tasks all by yourself for as long as a year. Imagine you are at a place where to make offering of water you can’t find peepal in and around the area where you are staying or worse still, anywhere in that city, because it does not grow there at all, or there is no cow you can rush to every morning for daily offering for there are no dairies in your neighborhood. Wouldn’t that end up disrupting your mandatory rituals? What about the massive guilt that you may have to carry all your life for not performing the rituals that as a performer of funeral rites you are obliged to?
The dogma relating to the practices around funerals and the events subsequent to that need re examination. Time has come to see if some of these practices have to evolve and be consistent with the times we live in. Sanatan dharma is what it is today because of the vast religious codes that form its rock solid foundation. There is either a book or a treatise on every conceivable activity a person performs in life. Our every action in life is explained by teachings in one or the other book. There is nothing in life that is left to imagination. Along with its rich pedagogical or doctrinal traditions, another thing that has added greater meaning to it and enhanced its relevance through ages is its amenability to change. It has embraced change whenever it found there was no way around it. This flexibility has powered its glorious march through the ages.
Consistent with its glorious tradition of change and adaptability, time has come to recognize that our approach to the funerals and the subsequent events has to now change as well. Back in the past, when life moved at a glacial speed, and technology had not disrupted our lives, people had enough time on their hands to devote to fulfill their funeral/post funeral obligations. And they did so without complaining.
In contrast, how is an only son of a family, who is in a corporate job in Mumbai (where they don’t let you off for more than a couple of days or, let’s say, four or five days at a maximum whatever may be the reason), expected to carry out his obligations these days without endangering his job? By the way, isn’t it preposterous to have a same expectation from the poor fellow as one would have from someone who has no such constraint for they don’t come from the same place? This is why those in whose powers it is to rewrite these practices must step up to the plate. It may seem counterintuitive, but we do grow faster and better, if we change and adapt. In any case, we don’t have to look further than the march of sanatan dharma across the ages. There is enough evidence to be found there, only if we care to look for it.
( The writer is a novelist)
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