Aftermath of Death

Something about death that makes us think, and think hard. Makes us look at the person who passed away in a positive way.

I felt sorry for this person, genuinely, when I received a call last night with the news of his death. After I disconnected the phone, I thought of few good things he did or stood for. I also thought I’d pray for his departing spirit. I even reached to the point of shedding some tears. It felt like a loss. For most of time I’ve known him though, I’ve done nothing except loathe him.

And he deserved the loathing, not only from me, but from all the people who knew him. He wasn’t well liked. Even his children hated him. A weird man, he spend his retired life sequestered from his neighbours and family. His second-wife enforced this barrier, so much so that they drew away his four children also. Three of them (two sons and a daughter) were in Germany, and one daughter in Australia.

In Hindu tradition, perilous is the departing soul’s journey, if your children aren’t around to see you pass away. Yesterday, his eldest son was preparing a seven hours long voyage to reach Kathmandu from Germany. Also, the gods won’t see too kindly, if the body is not cremated within twenty-four hours. This person’s body will be kept, for his son to return and light the funeral peir. Despite god’s warth, it’s even more ominious if the body is set alight by someone else. Such is the importance of an offspring in Hindu traditon. Yet, during his lifetime, he spent most of his energy driving them away.

This person was my neighbour, for bit more than twenty-five years. Living next to his house, hating him all the time, it didn’t do any favours for the love I wanted to nurture for all sentient beings. He’s gone now. I guess there will be a void he’ll leave. When I return home, it’ll be strange to look up at his room on the first floor of his house and not see him cough and stare at you. Believe me when I say he stared at people he hated. With eyes gaping, he was a fright, especially in my childhood. And he reserved most of his stares to my family members. It was useless staring back at this senile figure.

In one way, it’ll be a welcome change also. His own children had given up on him. It’d been ages since any of my family members spoken to him. I guess the cold war will be over now. No, but wait a moment…there is still his second-wife to content with. If he was hated, she’s a hate figure.

She comes with even bigger eyes, ability to stare even more, without blinking, and is endowed in the art of mouthing out loud. A lippy menace she is, albiet a feeble one.