Here are the first stirrings of Spring-sudden showers, balmy winds, trilling birdsong and yet, my mood is sombre. I have attended no less than four funerals lately, and let me tell you, four is enough to bring on the blues. It was almost as if the Spring winds had shaken the people tree I had written about a couple of weeks ago, and borne away the brown leaves. The families of the departed faithfully carried out all the rituals, including the feast at the end of it, and I could actually see them lighten up, smile and chat. Having people around during a bereavement is a great comfort and our wise ancestors devised all these complicated and arcane rituals, just so that the grieving family remains preoccupied and distracted from the enormous truth that a loved one is gone foreover from their midst.

From a very young age, I have dreaded funerals. This phobia must have a name, but I don’t know what it is. It happened when I was an early teen and a very dear friend of mine lost her father in tragic circumstances. They were holidaying in Kolkata and going about on innumerable shopping trips, when he had a massive heart attack. I had met him once or twice, a plump, jolly man with a bright yellow car, who adored his four daughters. I was quite traumatised by the incident and put off going, wondering what I could possibly say. This avoidance got so bad that after a time, believe it or not, I almost blamed myself for his death. Teens are usually mixed up young people, and I was especially so. My friend never understood my action, or lack of it. I never met her after the incident because she enrolled in a different college. If she is reading this, I hope she forgives me.

These days, now that I am older and more, well, blase, funerals are easier to attend. I’ve learnt that nobody expects you to say anything profound. And if you are out there to offer solace, the best line is “At least s/he didn’t suffer”. I’ve found that this single sentence, spoken with the right dose of sincerity, works wonders.

It has also occured to me that all the funerals I went to were of men, not women. Was it because they took less care of themselves? Or is it because, as the scientists say, women have inbuilt survival skills that somehow render them more invincible, less capable of being demolished? Two of the widows I met, did a splendid job of meeting people, ensuring they were seated, fed and given due importance. They were strong women, refusing to be pitied, and one of them actually told me she would be busier than ever, because she had a business of her own, had put much labour into it, and there was no time to mope. This made me respect and admire her all the more, because with those words, she rubbished the notion that women cannot have a life of their own after the death of a spouse.

The other day, I watched the new Neil Nitin Mukesh thriller Aa Dekhen Zara..., which is basically about a camera which records what happens in the future. So, our greedy hero is able to make a killing at the lottery, the stock market and the horse races, till the baddies are after him and his lady love Bipasha Basu. Our hero also discovers that he is going to die on a certain date, because his photograph is a black square with just that date in it. If this happened in real life, people would loot photo studios, trying to get hold of such cameras. And I would be scared witless if I knew the date I would die. It would be more suspenseful than playing Russian roulette. So many of us have this weekness about knowing the future and wanting to prevent the unforeseen from happening to us. I see perfectly sane men and women wearing every kind of gemstone on their fingers. Doesn’t it occur to them that the fortune-teller, also being the seller of these stones, have deliberately created a scary scenario for profit? At the very moment of my writing this, an eminent astrologer of the city is on the run from the law because they found animal hides and body parts in his workplace. Well, he being an astrologer, how come he never saw it coming? Doesn’t his painful predicament point out the irrefutable truth that we will never know the future? And it is this ignorance, this unpredictibility, that gives life so much beauty. You learn to appreciate the good things when you learn everything is transitory. And because life is short, we must use our time on earth in meaningful ways. We must read the best of literature, listen to the greatest symphonies, watch the greatest works of art, even if it is on your PC monitor, and get out of those malls which make us shop like headless idiots, and which, with their loud chants of the day’s discounts and bargain offers, make us silly and materialistic. Get out of there as fast as you can. And then, learn to do the things that really matter – catching up on an old friend, watching that Fellini movie on World Movies, telling bedtime stories to your children. Sometimes, when I feel overwhelmed by life’s problems, I just gaze up at the night sky. One minute I am full of troubles, and the next moment, there is the peace and silence of a starlit sky, with cottony clouds afloat, and maybe even a crescent moon. It makes me feel tiny and significant, and better still, my problems seem to be of so little consequence. Try it, and you’ll see how it works.

I have never really been vociferous in my support of the International Womens’ Day. For one thing, I believe we are inching towards some kind of equality with men. It’s a pity they don’t have a Man’s Day to air their grievances. That was why I was in two minds when eminent social worker Dr Sunita Changkakoti, asked me to speak at a women’s rally at Goreswar. But I went anyway, because a ride to the countryside was a wonderful diversion. We drove all the way to Boga Mati, near the Bhutan foothills, and the sands of the river were really white, with huge boulders smoothened by the force of the river. The hills were purple blue in the distance and in the homes of the hardy Nepali folk, there were quaint two storied hay shacks, very neat, with goats scampering about among the bushes.

We then came back to the rally. Women in neat buns and colourful dokhonas, children on their laps, were waiting for us. We on the dais thought out loud about what empowerment meant. But, deep in my heart, I knew these patient women knew better how to face the hardships of life, how to raise families under the most adverse conditions and meagre resources. They danced Bihu and Bagrumba dances, smiling in the golden shinshine, their long hair swishing back and forth, their limbs carrying the assurance of freedom. In the end, drinking their delicious local brew made of borasaol, I felt they had more to teach us, the pontificating city folks, so lost without our comforts. This was made even more clear after the rally ended, because as we rode by in our cars, they were walking home for several kilometres, their sleeping kids on thier backs, and once they got home, it would be back to the grind, lighting fires, preparing meals, perhaps a bit of weaving, too. No, we didn’t need to tell them anything. They were doing splendidly, thank you.

– indrani_raimedhi@reddiffmail.com

website: www.iraimedhi.com

Indrani Raimedhi