13th of January 2008 ............. my dad's birthday ... and the day of Lohri which is widely marked with a bonfire in celebration of a productive agricultural season. But things seldom follow our plans ..... and this was what was in store. We had made all preparations for Lohri and a small birthday party, not knowing the bonfire we had planned was not to be.
It was at about 4 p.m. that we got the news of the sad demise of my dad's grandmother (not the real one though, but a near one sure). She was 84 and was now reduced to a bundle of bones. Don't really know if people who converged at her home in Gulmohar Park in New Delhi were really sad. She was the last person of her generation and had been ignored far too much to be noticed. Her last days were lonely.
The bonfire that was to be was transformed into a funeral pyre which burnt human flesh. While the city celebrated Lohri, we witnessed the demise of a generation. No one in attendance was sad ..... as if they had expected this for years. They were just there as a formality; so that they do not lose points in social parlance. Dunno if I'm being overly critical, maybe the other funerals that I've attended involved untimely deaths. And hence the sobbing and weeping from fresh wounds suffered due to breakage of long-standing bonds. And maybe today no bonds did actually break, maybe they were broken long ago, or maybe they did'nt exist at all! Maybe the happiness and joy and the good times we experience in life are all shared with people of our generation and the previous generations are simply forgotten, not just in death - but also IN LIFE.
2 comments:
U know sometimes if death does not come on time its like a curse to the person....death may not aways be a mourning...sometimes its a relief. Specially if its at the end of a long and fulfilling life. Its always better to rejoice a person's memories than to mourn his/her loss....this something that even our scriptures say. And strangely enough today we discussed the meaning of life in class....u know life is meaningless without death, just like joy is meaningless without sorrow.
I hope its not too preachy :)
the funny thing is that i have been to many a funerals myself and found the same there.but you see,maybe some people have got so accustomed to death that they really are not much moved by it,esp. when it is somebody they hardly cared about.and in some cases i have seen that the mourners are people who were not even on talking terms wid the demised.so only if one sheds tears,or cries does not mean he /she feels the loss.and we all know that the nearest of kin are the biggest sufferers.its hard not to be critical i know,but with time we all realise that not everybody in this world cares so much abt the others.same applies to us.only thing we can do is to make the people we really care for feel cherished and love them while we can.
Post a Comment