Mourning

 Why two blogs posted one after another? Is that your question? Well, yesterday I was real tired, what with the lingering fever, refusing to go way cough n cold, reaching my brother's place almost before the day dawned (after years I saw the still sleepy Pune as neither I nor my students have to any longer face the first 7.30 a.m. lecture!), not to forget, the monthly-Date 21-'fast' ( a day managed with two coffees, one tea and two small little cutie-pie bananas) and a journey, was I a little drained! Yet before today technically began, i did complete writing the blog for yesterday, though the uploading may appear as if it is today. Happens!

Yesterday I attended the last rites of my mother's younger brother. He was an Ayurvedic doctor. In his late eighties, he belonged to that by now almost extinct species, the family doctor, the "doctor uncle" on whom three generations, grandpa to grandchild, used to depend.

And, did the Dombivali-kar's rise to the occasion! His patients, most of them themselves in their mid-/late seventies, paid their respects. People stood in a queue at his dispensary. The queue, the relic of our childhood, now fast forgotten in the every which way 'metro'-ized Pune! 

I do not think I am prejudiced, but I am doubtful if any other satellite city of Mumbai would have so risen to the occasion. I am equally uncertain if any doctor of a later generation, given the excessive specialisation and the inescapable 'business' outlook, would 'de-serve' such respect!

And, yet, the usual mourning mentalities managed to amuse me despite the sense of sadness. Well, I do not pretend to be busier than Mr. Modi. So i cannot constantly check my mobile for some mostly re-hashed messages when a corpse, about to face the last rites, lies there awaiting the final farewell from home. I DO switch OFF my mobile even in the classroom, though my lectures, to cut a crass joke, are never dead-ly!

Why, earlier I never used to touch the mobile if there is anybody with me, sitting next to me. Now I have realised that some people do deserve the dose of their own poison. So i do now and then check my mobile in front of such, though it IS mostly switched off.

Awaiting the final moments of the last journey of somebody from your immediate circle cannot be the time spent away in cracking loud jokes, in back-slapping relatives and acquaintances you managed to meet after decades. Can it be an occasion for exchanging pleasantries, invites, addresses, the much desired mobile numbers, and that, too, in a loud voice that can drown the Ramraksha stotra hummed in a gentle way?

None expects everyone to pull a serious face. Why, in their hearts, many might be thanking that the old, with thousand health related issues, are no longer a responsibility, though such honesty  would never match their hypocrisy!

Yet what stops such gossip-mongers from getting up from their place, going to the next room, or the passage way, do the needful (of all sorts, please!) and come back to keep the vigil? Why, nobody is playing musical chairs there, right? Nor are people Fevicol fixed to their seats!

Similarly, I find the senti(n honestly)mental overflow of powerfully exploded feelings quite astonishing. Sure, after death, better to forget the cruelties and the crudities and the conscious craftiness! Better to remember a positive occasion or two, if possible. Otherwise, better to keep the trap (here, too, the over-sharing/showering/shivering mobile screen!) shut!

Here, too, the gang goes in to a overdrive. Persons, about whom they have often shared their real opinions, suddenly are better than saints, gods, or both combined. There emerge all sorts of stories as their memories choose to unroll these tales.

Of course, there is HUGE (read font size seventy-two, bold-ed, italicized)  partiality, groupism, gangsterism even in such remembrances. People the mafiosi do not want to be acknowledged, as they do not belong to their own mafia, or as they never forever back-scratch the mafia, are completely forgotten, ignored, ill-treated, are even laughed at for these very or similar praxis, while their own types are praised sky-high so much so you wonder why YOU never came across this gem! 

Aai used to call such an attitude "smashan vairagy", that is, the rabid response due to the momentary (in all the senses of the term) surge of grief. Please to note, the translation is MINE! Nothing, absolutely  nothing, to do with her! Another caveat, please. These observations, if they bear any similarity to any person, known/unknown, alive/dead, the similarity, it must be noted, is absolutely incidental. No need to find ANY 'Pratima', image or reflection, there(in)!

Pratima@ The quiet genuine grief may often be lost to such exhibitionism which demands that others must see your tears, hear your howls, eh, sobs! Why, the family and friends debate later who cried how much! The reality could actually be the count of all sorts of orders! No wonder, I admire 'absurd' plays of the "Mahanirvan" variety, despite the pomposity of 'those' mafia! Death indeed is an equaliser!