Funeral is for the Living

2019.  A year of incomprehensible loss, perplexing decisions and a life changing lesson that I am only a moment away from life changing moments …

Before I tell you more, let me tell you, I am a lawyer. A thing about me, that I wear with heavy pride and without the robes.

 And so, in a career span of two decades, I prided myself with having seen through hundreds of onshore and offshore oil and gas, infrastructure projects successfully.  My career was deemed successful. By others, of course.  On the personal front, shortly after our 14^th wedding anniversary, my spouse left me in less than an hour’s notice. Although I saw it coming for the preceding six months or so, it was only when he and his trolley bags dragged through the corridors of the apartment overlooking the beautiful Noor Mosque at Buhaira Corniche at Sharjah, whist I was battling influenza did I realize that I was now truly on my own to manage Project -LIFE.

 I did manage that. Immediately, I had to get a car. That was the only thing that he was “contributing” to the marriage, and therefore when he left with the two fancy German cars that adorned the car parking, the vacuum did not pinch me. The steering wheel of the Japanese car was less comfortable but redeeming. What my marriage ride was, is another journey that I will tell you some day.

I went on with life. Working, meetings, traveling, taking care of my kids, my aging parents, organizing birthday parties, school fees and parent school problems, domestic help issues, getting on with my life generally.  When my spouse left a position that had become redundant, I took it as an opportunity for fresh beginning.   Slowly but steadily I secured a safe net for myself and my kids, build walls for any adversity that might happen. I became stingy, I purposefully bought a mediocre car, I saved, I spent time with children, focused on my work, made excuses and broke friendships that had far outlived its meaning, slowly but steadily got there…. People asked me, how I did it. I smiled and said it wasn’t tough. I was proud. I walked with holding my head high. I am no damsel in distress. I started to believe that I can handle most things that come my way. Thus, went on four years. And then one day I had to deal with death of my loved one. Now this was something that I have never dealt with before.

I was on my way to Abu Dhabi weaving corporate strategy for the Jacobs - Worley acquisition when my dad called. It was exactly 6 :12 am.  He appeared calm and it dint occur to me that a terrible incident had occurred.  Few hours later I called Amma, when I was sure that she wasn’t with dad. At the end of the interrogatory skills which only a mom- daughter can relate, I realised I must reach home soonest. Naively, I believed I could get back to it and handle it. Just like I handled my other challenges in life. Trifle annoyed at the inconvenient timing and the impediments his irrational life would cause to my work, I was affirmative I could set it right. Medicine was advanced, and I had the willingness to give all I had to get him up and running. I can manage that. With him, we have been through numerous occasions and so this can’t be any different.

When I boarded the aircraft from Dubai, with my two children during the middle of a school term, I did not anticipate staying longer than the weekend. I even imagined him back home and dropping me to the airport. I ended up lying awake for 14 nights on the ceramic white tiled floor at the door steps of CCU, waiting to be called that he is fine. The image of him there that night, when I went to Cosmo hospital straight from airport, is still punishingly afresh in my mind, and the pain is as raw as it was a year ago. He was an image that I had not seen before. His body neither responded to my cries or threat. His static eyeball freaked the hell out of me then; the memory of it still does. 

Next morning, I met his friends and most of them for the first time. He had always kept me away from his world. He lived two lives. One external and another one at home. Some of them never knew beloved Brij had a sibling. We lived entirely different lives and thrived in our differences.  It was then my own friends coined our surnames and wondered why they never thought of the connection before. The answer is simple, we were chalk and cheese. We were known separately, but never known together. The only man alive who would give his life for me and that life was hanging on a fragile rope. I befriended his tribe.  Something I know he would never approve. Some of them had come from far and other states. I was ashamed that I wasn’t there sooner. I spoke to his friends who were from all walks of his life. Fisherman from Kovalam, auto driver, and one a billionaire business man, politicians, scarred women. I was desperate. I wanted to reach out to every part of him. I knew he lived for his friends and through his friends. I was desperately holding on to every part of his life, and of life outside his lifeless body.

I was there every day and night. The doctors said his brain did not register that I was there, but I knew they were wrong. His soul knew. When the nurse asked me, if I could shave his beard, I almost heard him say I will kill you if you agree. I consented to the nurse and smirked at him, as I always did. I had conversations with him every night and I knew he could hear me through his motionless body, and tube fueled physical self. They said he dint feel any physical pain I knew that he would take it personally derogatory. Like me, he would have cared less for physical pain.    

Slowly I succumbed to events outside my control. I was distraught between letting him go or keeping him hovering around his lifeless body. Somedays, I prayed for a miracle.  Some nights I wished the transition was easier for him.  The worst thing in life is when you know when someone is dying, and you can’t do anything about it. It is terrifying. 

The lobby outside CCU went eerily quiet at night. The lights were dimmed. People adjoined the plastic red chairs and slept on them. Some of them like me, preferred the hard tile. And that was when I had the conversations with him.  I reminisced some of his late conversations. We had spent a lot of time together just a few months back when we were both fighting Amma’s cancer.  I had the hospital duties and he had home duties taking care of my children and being the chauffer for my dad.

“Being alive is a lonely proposition”, he said.

I replied: “Shut up go to gym and you will find a girl friend.”

“If you are not successful, People just disappear. They just evaporate.” He said.

I smirked. “Everything evaporates when money does”

“There are so many matrices to measure a man with, and I don’t know what’s right. “

I dint reply.

I knew the end was coming, but still was unprepared for the finality of the blow when it happened.  14 nights had passed. The doctors had lost all hope. On day 15 noon, I was told to settle the final bill.

For the first time in many years, I dint know what to do. I was unprepared, un-organised and totally caught off guard. Somewhere I had believed that I would bring him back home, chide him and get back to my life. Instead, they were asking me about the “body”. I couldn’t bring myself to reduce my brother to a “body” or that "something" that needed to be done. I was the only one in the ambulance with him when he was brought back home in the coffin. I ensured he was wearing his favourite shirt. I brought him back home.  Now what?

Briefly I turned to my dad, who was 74 and justifiably appeared senile. I know those questions cannot be routed to him. One should never have to deal with the loss of a child. It is against the laws of nature. I had read somewhere. One should not also have to deal with a death of a sibling at my age. That must be karmic too. But I had to step in. I had no choice nor the allowance to loudly cry for the death of my first friend and my first rival and from my birth. we talk about romance, about parenthood but Sibling love or relationship is probably the most underrated amongst all other relationships. When we lose our sibling, we lose a big part of ourselves, our childhood, the only rivalry that tends to put all things in perspective. Same blood, same origin, same nakshatra, same lagna. fifty percent of me is staring at me, all garlanded surrounded by coconut lamps and incense sticks.  What do I do now? Had he been here, he would have managed everything. I just feel so numb. When the level of grief is so deep that it sometimes stop resembling grief, or the pain is so severe that the body can no longer feel it, I suppose that's when we are "numb". The grief cauterizes itself, scars over, prevents inflated emotions. I guess, numbness is a kind of mercy. 

A few months back, our greatest fear was Amma. Her cancer. Whether we would lose her? Albeit inebriated and tearful, he said to me he would give his life to her, because I needed her more than anyone else in the world. All those ominous words keep ringing in my mind, while I try to hold my tears and sometimes fail. There are so many people around. I haven’t seen many of them for so many years. Half of Trivandrum appeared to be at my place out of nowhere. And all I wanted was to spend a quiet moment. I wanted to get into the bath and cry in the shower. I wanted to sleep it off and wake up as this was a bad dream.

I know, he would be laughing and sharing a joke with me if he could at this moment.

I don’t know what to do. My uncles instruct me to follow the Telegu Naidu tradition. That package appears to be unavailable in Trivandrum. I take a concoction of what is available in Trivandrum and follow the Naidu tradition. My uncles tell me to read Garuda Purana. Trivandrum reads Ramayana. He, would have cared for neither. He would just want me to stop climbing the stairs so much and aggravate my sciatic back. He need not have worried because was much lighter in mass and heavier in heart. 

He looks peaceful and handsome. In that refrigerated glass coffin. But I can’t bear to break down. I have to arrange for tomorrow’s cremation. Have to arrange that there is food for all those people, flowers, clothes, tradition to follow, I don’t have the luxury to sink in the gravity of my loss…but I know my cells inside are dying. That's when I realise that the funeral is not for the dead, the funeral is for the living. I invite all his friends which the whole of Trivandrum constituency is almost and organise a farewell for him. 

That night, my father told me: " I can’t do the kriya. It has to be Gautam. If you won’t allow Gautam to do it, then there will be another pyre to lit."

I don’t think he would want dad to do it either.

I said to him, " don’t worry, Baba.  get some sleep".  He held me and started telling me how it was all his fault. I could literally feel my cells inside dying when holding him howling and taking the blame. When some close to us dies, I think we want to tell ourselves a story, of how it was our fault. Because it gives us some form of control

My mind in an utter turmoil not knowing what to do. People were coming and the house had no beds or space left. I arranged accommodation at a hotel nearby. I am unable to think further. I wish I could position myself in the refrigerated coffin and sleep like him. He had always found the easier exits and somehow left me with the challenging ones.

I am so furious at him that I have to deal with the judgmental relatives without him. He dint have to do anything at all to die. Death is easy. Living is a little more complex. There is one thing we always have to do. Breathe. Every single day, every fucking judgment, every challenge, whether we like it or not, we still breathe. Even as I wither away and sell my corporate dignity to the lesser but considered superficial white clan, asphyxiate my hopes and dreams for those of my offspring, yet I still breathe. So even as I count my countless breaths and steps, holding on to my own existence I breathe.

I simply can’t stand it anymore. I spend the night talking to him.  He thinks the whole thing is funny. He holds his gentle smile and it rips me apart to glance at that coffin.

Next day at the Shantikavadam, something inside me snaps. This is all there is to life and mine is going to be no different. You were my child, should I have taken care of you better bro? Don’t go, please breathe back to life..please please come back. I simply cant live without you and you know that better than anyone else. Somebody tapped on my shoulders and told me I need to get a chit. A receipt. If I needed to collect the ashes tomorrow. 

In life and death, everything is about payments and bills. For a fraction of second I am glad, he didn’t have to deal with this anymore. I avert my eyes away from my son as if that would avoid my sibling being electrocuted. My son screams after he lit the pyre and comes rushing into my arms. I know this has scarred him for life. I push him away and tell him to straighten up because I must be arranging for the ashes. I murmur, Mama (uncle) is happy and will be watching him from heaven, to a broken 11-year-old boy who has had the trauma of death. All the rituals that he performed since this morning, seems to have transformed him into a mature boy overnight. I shudder at what could possibly be going through his mind. But I will worry about that later. "Mama is never coming back, I just burnt him " I heard him stoically say to his sister when we returned. My spine froze. 

2020

It has been a year now. Yet, I would be sitting in meetings, completely absorbed in the project and its delivery issues, and out of nowhere his thoughts would strike me, sometimes triggered by a choice of an adjective, grief choking me  and tears welling up my eyes and ears burning, the project the meeting and the people suddenly losing its relevance, and I would lose my will to live.  The people around me would sense the change in my dynamics, but nevertheless that meeting would go on, the project would go on and the company would go on…as the stock prices of my company are unaffected by my grief. Grief is a funny thing, you think you are strong and you have overcome it only to realise that it will come back to hit you stronger and warmer when you least expect it. 

My sibling’s English would put an Englishman to shame.  I shamelessly stole his compositions as a kid. It was immaculate and he often corrected me and taught me just as painfully reminding me of that night when our father wouldn’t allow him to pursue Literature. Till date, there are a few people I can share a private joke on English language. We are the children of the boomer era and our parents couldn’t see beyond certain professions. Simply he was a person born at the wrong time.

I have undergone a personal transformation with the loss of my sibling. For the first time in my adult years, I have lost my composure, not been able to handle events, realised that losing someone could bring you down to earth. Tried hard and lost. It’s a personal loss. A loss that I cannot fathom in as many words I have mastered in the human language, A loss that is a knife deep into my heart and bleeds when it pleases, a phantom loss that can only be fathomed by me, a loss that left me like a mineral in the sea shore, trying to hold everything inside and to transform into something else.

After 12 years, I moved my house in a hope that his thoughts will haunt me lesser. I have tried to change things at Avittom Road in the same effort, but every time I get to my terrace I know he is there smiling and smoking, gazing at the stars, laughing at my choice of words, and my inability to inhale tobacco. He smiles at me sometimes and tells me to move on.

Funeral is not for the dead.  It is a cathartic second chance for the living. It is a painful but effective reminder to those who are left behind, that they can turn their lives around at any point. I am not bound by the past. That is what I used to be. My feelings do not define me. It was what I felt at that moment. My future doesn’t have to travel the same path with the same people. I can start over. I don’t have to apologize to people who won’t listen. I don’t have to justify my feelings or actions, during a difficult time in my life. I don’t have to put up with people that are insecure and would like to see me fail. All I have to do is walk forward with a positive outlook, and trust that the universe has a plan that is greater than the sorrow I had.   The people of quality that are meant to be in my life won’t need me to explain my heart. They already understand what being human is----a roller coaster ride of emotions during rainstorms and sunshine, sprinkled with moments when one can almost reach the stars. I love him and always will. 

And that's why I believe Funeral is for the living.