Musings

MISTRESS DESPAIR

2005-10-15T23:12:22+02:00

The heart at the point of bursting, the brain on fire, the vision blurs.

The horrors the mind is bent on conjuring up appear at the end of the nose.

Problems? Grief? Private hell let loose. The world just passes by disinterestedly.

No one listens. No one will.

A fallen leaf, blowing hither and thither, no volition just the thrust of a strong breeze makes it dance.

The mind goes round and round in despairing circles.

Despair is not for sharing. None lifts the burden of others.

Mistress Despair beckons with gaunt arms.

Toothless gums cracked and blackened she smiles.

“Never fear, for here I am.. When none will stand beside you, I’ll.”

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FUNERALS ARE GOOD BUSINESS

2005-09-18T12:22:12+02:00

A notice gave the cost for incinerating a human body in the electric crematorium at Rs 65. For children below 13 the cost was slightly less.

There were also essential items, which had to be paid for as well as optional ones. These were included in the total cost.

With man doing his best for deforestation, I was not surprised to find that a pyre made of wood (250kg) would cost the relatives of the dear departed something above Rs 500.

The Kolkata Municipal Corporation has set the rates.

My mother-in-law died last evening.

The office where the money was to be deposited for the ‘essential items’ was a poky little room. The cashier was a man getting on in years. He was a cheerful soul. He told us that the death certificate we had brought was illegible. “This is a carbon copy. But they rarely change the carbon paper,” he explained helpfully.

A transistor radio was playing songs from Bengali film songs. On his desk among the papers and files was a Bengali film magazine. He perhaps leafed through this when business was dull.

A bamboo frame to put the body on for the last rites before being shoved into the red hot plates of the furnace was easily found in a shed next to the cashier’s office.

The other ‘essential’ items – some coarse grains of rice, a single sickly looking banana on an earthen plate was handed to us by the cashier. There was a shroud also. It was almost transparent.

The body of my late mother-in-law was brought from home by her weeping sons and daughters on a “Bombay Khat”, a wooden bed made of inexpensive wood. It was highly polished though. The option to a “Bombay Khat” is a crude wooden structure, which can be carried on the shoulder by mourners.

The bed had a new mattress and a new pillow. Both had been manufactured with the understanding that no living soul would use it. The same could be said for the “Bombay Khat”.

The flowers and wreaths were real enough. The use of artificial flowers at funerals has not been thought of yet. But if artificial flowers and garlands can be used for home décor and for the gods and goddess, the time may come when this imperishable commodity catches the fancy of the bereaved.

This was a Hindu funeral. The body is cremated.

Christian funerals are none different. The coffins are trimmed with a cheap shiny black fabric. The trimmings are of tin foil. I do not know if brass trimmings are available in Calcutta. The wood that goes to making a coffin is the yellowish and brittle wood for making crates.
I have even seen a shop, which proudly proclaims that it makes coffins, while in reality it turns out coffins by the dozen.

Those in the funeral business readily take advantage of the fact that a mourner will not haggle over prices and is possibly looking for the best, yet has no time to examine the goods. It’s like ‘goods once sold will not be taken back’ disclaimer.

Though there is no question of a coffin being reused, since it is interred, the cots used for Hindu funerals are sometimes recycled.

Long ago, the ‘doms’ or scavengers took away the cot, the mattress and the pillow. During a normal day quite a few piled up. These were resold for sale afresh to others bereaved. The prices of these were lower.

As long as people die, the business of funerals will not.

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Hypocrites

2005-09-17T02:23:02+02:00

This is non fiction.

There was a lady. She is 81 years old. She wears glasses, but her vision is poor. Three of her sons and two of her daughters stay with her.

Her youngest son is a mountaineer and instructor. He does not have regular employment. He is unmarried.

Her two other sons are employed – one is a teacher and the other works for a small private company. The son who is a teacher is unmarried.

Two of her daughters who stay with her are spinsters.

The older of the two, a Masters degree holder each in Ancient, Medieval and Modern Indian History, did a course in Alternative Medicine. She considers herself to be a doctor.

Those who practice this therapy take a six-month course. The practice of Alternative Medicine is illegal in India. But this does not deter her. She works for a pittance at a small missionary hospital. She also claims she knows yoga and has done some ‘research’.

She also talks a lot. In a conversation she hardly let’s the other person talk.

She has never looked after her mother. She sometimes has used harsh words with her mother. She does not know how to cook. She expects her mother to cook for her. This her mother does.

The son who is a teacher dabbles in religion. He works voluntarily for a religious order.
Though soft-spoken, he likes to hear the sound of his own voice. He also forged his mother’s signature and withdrew the money his father had saved. His father died about a decade ago.

His younger sister who is unmarried has a temper. She helps her mother with the household chores though. She accompanies her brother who is a teacher on visits to the religious order’s institution.

The other brother who is married turned sickly after marriage. He has a quarrelsome wife.
Though he and his wife live on the ground floor of the house, he seldom goes upstairs to either meet or inquire about his mother, whose health has been failing for many years now.

When the mother suffered a cerebral stroke early this week, the daughter rushed her to the hospital where she devotes time as a volunteer. The hospital only takes in female patients and is a maternity hospital.

This daughter left home in the ambulance with her mother with hair uncombed, wearing a nightie. Her feet were bare. After her mother was shifted to a proper hospital
She told doctors there that she was a doctor. The doctors were surprised at her dress.
She sat beside her mother’s bedside all through the day and into the night – the picture of a devoted daughter.

Her brother the teacher, at first refused to believe that her mother could not be treated at the maternity hospital and required to be shifted to a proper one. Possibly, he was worried at the expense.

At the hospital, while his ‘doctor’ sister gave free advice to actual doctors on how her mother should be given treatment, the teacher brother sulked in the background.

He also refused to inform relatives who would have come to help. When they came, he advised them politely that they were not required.

He also spoke about positive thinking. He was thinking positively that his mother would get well. The power of positive thinking worked better than medicines.

How can people be such hypocrites? A daughter, who ordered her mother around and refused to help around the house, let alone cook, is now posing as the ideal daughter.

Do people need to pose at times of distress?

And the man who robbed his mother off her savings, taking advantage of her advanced age, is lecturing visitors who are dropping in that he would take his mother home safe and sound soon. Positive thinking would cure her.

His mother is partially paralysed after suffering the stroke. She also has a massive brain hemorrhage. Doctors have decided not to operate on her because of her age. She can mercifully neither see nor hear the antics of her progeny.

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My First Post

2005-09-17T01:18:55+02:00

It's nice to have a blog. I intend to write about my feelings about every day matters.

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title-185911

2005-09-17T01:14:49+02:00

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