An Ode to Death

I went to a funeral today. As it stands I am in London right now and I have some relatives who have been based here for almost an eternity. And a human being being a social animal that he is, they obviously made acquaintances with people living around them or with those who had chosen to migrate to UK almost at the same time as they did.

One of such acquaintances of theirs was blessed with a very lovely charming intelligent and a beautiful daughter.

She was 24.
She was a meritorious students studying in one of the top notch universities of UK.
She had numerous scholarships and certificates to her name.
Her family is one of the richest in UK and most influential back home in India.
She committed suicide last week.
I never met her or knew her.
I was moved beyond my deepest emotions.

We lost our way to the crematorium and reached 5 minutes late. The service had started and the hall was packed. With many others we stood outside the hall in the chilly wind listening to all the family members paying their tributes to her. I could not see anything. I was there, standing outside the hall in a wind which was blowing with such an intensity that it might as well would have carried me with itself and with such a chill that I wished if it does indeed carry me somewhere it please be the fires of hell so that I not only get to warm myself but also reach my final destination and finally escape these dreaded talons of this life.

But no I am not that fortunate, am I? Had I been fortunate to get what I wish for, would have I ever wished to escape this vicious circle of life!

No it did not happen. No matter as much as I wished, yet I was there standing outside all the while listening to a voice booming over my head from a speaker. Wondering just why did I agree to come to this funeral in the first place when I don’t know anyone, when I have no relations with the deceased and her family other than that of humanity which as I have learned to understand the hard way does not really matter in this world and when I have long since lost my capacity to be touched by emotions such as grief.

And then she started speaking. I didn’t know who she was, perhaps her mother, or her aunt or maybe some grieved friend. I did not know then nor do I know now. But she started speaking and I was glued to where I stood. She started narrating a small poem she had written and suddenly I was washed with waves and waves of ice cold realizations which crashed over me with such fervor that the wind suddenly felt as burning ciders on my skin and just one question suddenly sprang up in my brain and spread its tentacles through my neural system with such rapidity that before I could have even realized its presence sweeping through my conscience, there it was flowing along with my blood all through my body and having already proclaimed and proven its dominance over my capacities to rationalize it was now trying to puncture that invisible barrier which separates my mortal self from my soul all the while screaming just one thing

“So what matters then in the end?”

I have been trying hard, very hard that I do not have to leave London now. I have been trying harder to clinch a job in the United States of America. I have been trying desperately that I do not have to go back to India or face my mortifying endless repeated act which us the denizens of this planet have coined job. I have gone from pillar to post to make sure I am always in touch with the “right” people, eating and drinking in the right places and made contact with the right authorities as much as I possibly can.

Would it matter to me in the end where I am burnt, dust to dust and ashes to ashes? Would I care if my car got its proper parking space or that my employer was not racist or my green card application was accepted or what my peer think of me whether I look good or am I looking to thin or am I looking too fat or whether the “right” people are attending my last journey or whether it is being organized at the right venue with kosher food and vintage wine and am dressed immaculately and I do not have stubs on my face and my hair is not messy and have they selected the best of my photographs to place along my body and is everyone seated properly and and and…….?

Would anything matter to me when I finally sleep?

Why then am I living my life too hard? Why am I always trying to be an edge apart and a step above those around me? Why do I hate some and love none? If nothing has to come to me in the end, nothing can give me all these comforts which I so desire now when I shall so need them the most why do I strive to possess it? Why then am I living now when I have to die tomorrow!? What is the purpose, the aim the final destination of my life?

My death?

That is? My life ends? Why then try so hard! Why study or work or amass wealth or love some when at the end I am going to be all alone, just me myself and I, stripped of all that I earned owned possessed and isolated of all whom I loved? Why why and why! I do not understand this. Maybe I am not supposed to, maybe I am just supposed to try my best shot at this life and take things as they come to me. But then if I am to do just that I do not understand what shall make me different from my vacuum cleaner or my TV or my car all of which can neither think or ask or analyze. All of them just do for what they are built. They have no power whatsoever to modify what is to be made of them or what is to finally become of them. My car can do little if I push it of a cliff and destroy it. My TV can not ask me why do I change channels rapidly but can only do what I wish for it to do.

Am I not like them then?

Or maybe I am worse, for all such things as cars and TVs have a purpose for which they are built. What purpose was I created for? Is there any or am I just simply a byproduct of human love? Am I worse than even the most minutest piece of machinery?

No I am not and I know that. The reason, the one thing that distinguishes me from a mechanized motorized pile of steel is my power to think and feel. And then again therein lies the cause of my misery. Why do I have this power to question the Lord when I am deprived of the ability to make him answer me! Why do I feel joy and pain when I am nothing but a puppet on this vast stage who can do little if his creator chose to end his part and pull his string?

She went on and on. Her pain was beginning to pierce me, seeping through these pores on my skin and slowly gradually mixing with my blood as if my own. I knew not why was I moved, I knew not what connection if any existed and I knew not what could I do to make her stop. Her narrations spoke of time well spent a life well lived and a death well embraced. Oh yes she was asking questions too. With her lament and her cries she was asking Lord again and again why did He have to make this 24 year old beautiful talented girl kill herself. And as He does to me, he chose not to answer her no matter her wails and sobs. The Church was quiet, the crowd was quiet and He was quiet.

Finally she stopped. Of sheer exhaustion or emotion I do not know. But yes she felt quiet. For a long time no one spoke no one breathed. We all stood quiet, very quiet. All waiting for Him to finally speak and sooth His bereaved, destroyed, devastated daughter.

He was silent still.And then there was music. Ustaad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s remarkable voice seemed as if a glass made of fine china had been delicately shattered. He sang and sang and sang. People started moving, everyone as if cajoled from a deep trance. A line began to form. We moved with the crowd of humanity which somehow now seemed more united and connected. Everyone was moving with just one aim, to hug her parents and cry and light a small little candle where she would finally be laid to rest.

And I who is ever unable to shed a tear could not do even that. I just carried my dead self back to the car heaved my body onto the seat and came back much like a dead body riding in a coffin only that my journey has not yet ended.

Rest in Peace Meeto. I was not fortunate enough to know you but I feel as if we never have been strangers. One day I will cry, and I will cry for you then. Till such time I am your guilty, forgive me.