podeamAatha.
The conch was sounding, this booming foghorn like cry, except more plaintive and more musical; a foghorn I guess it was, parting the gloom into the afterlife, as we carried her body after the conch bearer.
Cries of “Govinda†filled the air, to be echoed by those of us carrying the body. I had no idea what it meant, have no idea what it means, but it felt like the most fitting thing to do. I cried out “Govindaâ€, my voice ringing with the others’ and echoing in the corridor we were in, and with my voice left anguish and pain and sorrow.
Tiles felt cold underfoot, and the airconditioning was freezing my bare body. Bare-bodied, I was wearing only the traditional Indian veshti, a length of unstitched cloth tied around my waist.
Or, in my case, around my hips. It was almost funny, for if I had wrapped it around my waist, it would have ended mid-calf. So around my waist it was, a cheap lavender thing provided by the casket company, which left cheap lavender smears on my legs after being ritually doused in water, and with holy thread slung around one shoulder. Sacred ash had been applied to me, three lines across my forehead, and on both forearms and both elbows and both pectorals and both ribs, holy ash that gleamed white grey against my brown flesh.
I was carrying an ornate silver pot of water, and with rosewater and flowers ornately added. Hoisted high above the heads of others, on my shoulder, and walking in a line with my cousins, also with their pots hoisted high above the head of others on their shoulders, our heads brushing the cloth we were supposed to walk under, the cloth that others were struggling and failing to lift high enough so that we could walk under it.
But now, hours and hours and hours and hours after we carried the pots on our shoulders, we carried out grandmother on those same shoulders.
I carried my grandmother in a cloth, to be ritually cleansed. I carried my grandmother in my arms, to be adorned with garlands. I carried my grandmother in a coffin, to be burnt.
She deserves an eulogy that is so much more articulate, she deserves the best writing I can write, but right now, I am dead. For she is.
I love you.
« Bright Walls | Buddha Call. »