Waking from the Dead

The smart phone thrust inside the breast pocket of my shirt ruffled me when its ring tone- music, together with the accompanying vibration woke me from the dead .Usually I stuff the phone in the pocket of my trouser, lest the electromagnetic radiation interfered with the smooth functioning of the heart and enhanced the chances if any of its naughty petulance. Frankly I was not worried about the radiation messing up with other functional organs. Well I could not recall what, if it was not the alleged malevolence of radiation that eventually interfered and annoyed the heart and put me down -dead. That is a different story which needs to be probed separately and is not in context here.

Well then, as I mentioned, the smart phone rang and that startled me and also interrupted the eulogy one bloke was engaging in with little restraint. Though I managed to maintain the perfect cadavers pose, folks standing around were attracted to the origin of the ring tone as it always does when the surly ring of mobile phones defiles and irritates, intruding into many places and occasions where it has no bloody business to be . “I see trees of green........ red roses too ; I see em bloom..... for me and for you ; and I think to myself.... what a wonderful world……”  Louis Armstrong’s immortal masculine voice played on through the Smart phone. I wondered if the irony of the song was missed.

 I must have been dead for quite a few hours, I guess less than a day or there about and I noticed that folks who promised me to consign my cadaver to the medical school forgot about the matter. Else I had no business to be laying there a silent, mute spectator in torpor clubbed by the ennui of the eulogies’. I ought to have been by then lying spread-eagle on some dissection table, rib cage sawed open, entrails left out, surrounded by curious youthful faces and a sophisticated professor- all equally amazed how the fellow’s liver stayed intact after years of tangoing with spirits.

Coming back to the interrupted eulogy, I was certain that these pleasant hearted souls would not want to speak ill about the deceased and that must be the sole provocation for this pretty long but certainly boring ritual of lavishing encomiums on the dead . I surveyed the scene from a distance and saw some of the elders annoyed at the sudden and irreverent (sic) intrusion of the Smart phone. I was laying recumbent, supine- decked with a few flowers and a couple of wreaths – laurel wreaths (!) (Sic).

Now, since I have been dead for long, how do I account for the time I spent from the moment of dying till now? I have not been to a nether world; I did not see paradise or the abominable hell. No fairies in pristine white chiffon gowns and silver wings sprouting from their backs, no sandalwood  and rose scented , perfumed sparsely clad celestial damsels  with provocative bosoms and rump, no forbidding looking men eager to haul me over rough thorny terrains. Then it struck me pleasantly, man there is no hell and mercifully there is no heaven too. The stories of rotting hell and bright paradise with rivers of honey and oceans of unadulterated milk have been pretty fables used by the sophist, grifters and nitwit men and women to scare the gullible , the meek hearted, the guilt ridden selfish of people and they were in plenty. I was immensely relieved, pleased and happy that there was no hell and heaven in the after-world- there was no after-world to worry about. In hindsight, I ought to have, when alive, enjoyed living with more exuberance than I managed to. Only because there was no hell and heaven to hitch hike to in the afterlife.

Thankfully there was no sniveling around. The eulogy continued by another bloke. I sensed that the folks were eager to get done with it and some were petulantly checking their wrist watches.

I surveyed. One bloke wearing dark aviator glasses, with greyish white hair and beard  was massaging his beard with his fingers, while leaving his other hand thrust in his trouser pocket and occasionally glancing at his reflection in the glass pane of the window. He refuses to be displeased with his appearance. The lovable narcissist that he is! I saw another fellow standing in the far corner, impatient and with deep frown announcing probably his belief that the world around is conspiring against him. Bludgeoned by that belief which constantly shadowed him, he flounced out flummoxed, in anguish and annoyance, pulled his moped from the parking stand and steamed away-all the idiosyncratic qualities intact and  trailing after him. Seeing him go, another tall lean guy, in faded Levis jeans decided that enough is enough with the eulogies, jumped into his car and sped towards the club for his evening quota of spirit.

I moved out to the verandah of the building when I heard some muffled laughter. There were some business friends and acquaintances of old in restrained conversation, broke by intermittent muffled laughter. One fat guy who I always admired for his witty retorts and stories asked another, the short bald guy who resembled an elf, the one who runs away to the wash rooms, or bends down to untie and tie back his shoelace when it was time to throw in his share for the restaurant bill and was one of the least fascinating beings I met when I was alive. “Look, Seethu, do you also not want to go away with such fanfare and respected treatment like our A did? We all will assure you, most of all I will, that we will not lessen the gaiety and splendour of the sendoff we give you when you are gone.”

Typical of the man his jest may sound rude and taunting for those who do not possess taste for spirit, of fun and banter and who are incorrigibly vacuous to appreciate jocularities. I saw Seethu’s face turn pale, paler like, paler than the most pallid among the pale skinned Americans.I impulsively began shaking with laughter and soon put the back of my palm to the mouth to muffle the laugh, though no one would have noticed my laughter in the sudden burst of feet pounding , clapping and laughing out there, triggered by Antony’s assurance to the now distrait Seethu, unconscious of the dead man lying inside and the panegyric ritual.

Louis Armstrong’s sonorous voice persisted and the wake up alarm ring tone on my mobile finally woke me. It was early morning and another beautiful day in this Wonderful world-

“I see trees of green........ red roses too ;I see em bloom..... for me and for you ;And I think to myself.... what a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue..... clouds of white ;Bright blessed days....dark sacred nights ;And I think to myself .....what a wonderful world.

The colors of a rainbow.....so pretty ..in the sky ;Are also on the faces.....of people ..going by ;I see friends shaking hands.....sayin.. how do you do ;They're really sayin......i love you.

I hear babies cry...... I watch them grow ;They'll learn much more.....than I'll never know ;And I think to myself .....what a wonderful world

The person mentioned here, his moniker - Seethu, passed away some six months ago and the news were relayed to me a few days back by a distant colleague.

Antilla Weddings

There was this little conversation that became a discussion, an argument with raised voices and even then it was difficult to hear over the snarling sound of traffic and the tuk tuk of the auto rickshaw engine.  The shouting that was more partially out of disagreement with the other, annoyance and partly because of the din and noise on the busy road ceased abruptly when the destination was reached. I and R (my daughter) have not taken up the argument from where we left it lurching that late evening.

However the point which I presume she was arguing about was one’s freedom to spend as much money in any which way as one wants one one’s wedding and that it is one’s prerogative. I wonder if she disagreed with the vulgarity and inappropriateness of that vanity in the context. Though she dismissed the possibility of her aping in her life such profligate flaunting and that sounded remarkable!

What prompts me to bring up this subject in the Post is that it is disheartening to see at close quarter young women and young men disinclined to even think of avoiding ostentation and vanity. Certainly the major guilt has to be apportioned upon the parents. Upon the miserable argument of upholding tradition and convention they wittingly or unwittingly assign women as an instrument and the solemnness of wedding as a spectacle.

I mentioned to an elder person about a recent commendable instance where a promising young actress in the Malayalam film industry wed her colleague without such jaundiced display of wealth. In fact the young couple went to the Cancer Center & hospital in Kochi and donated fifteen lakhs of Rupees by cheque. I also told her that people want to be like the Jones next doors and even be one up on the other by displaying and flaunting. She disapproved my statement and said that we must respect the opinion of the general public and cannot be singularly revolutionary. She exclaimed that if Sonia Gandhi does something that may be lauded but if we were to do the same people may ridicule.

So the onus is volleyed around.

I do not disagree that wedding day is in our midst still once in a life time pleasance. People would want to be special and be doing something extraordinary on the day. But decking the bride head to toe in gold and precious stones, hosting sumptuous multiple course dinner for folks already ploughed under by their over indulgence and gluttony is something that must be recommended forcibly for eternal rotting in hell if there is an afterlife.

Looking at the gatherings at a couple of wedding recently (one in the family) I mused if we Indians tend to have a wide spread of relatives, friends and acquaintance than the average family in the West.

R, after the wedding in the family expressed her incense and anguish at the bride being decked up like a marionette over burdened with heavy silk sari and loads of gold all over her besides having to change her robes a few times, while the fella was walking about as if on a stroll by the beach. It is difficult to ignore the empathy and the virtual feeling that she expressed. Would she change her opinion that there need be unrestrained display and spending of money on weddings? Would she agree it cannot necessarily be one’s prerogative to hurl around ones wealth even if it is earned?

She may not disagree, I’m sure that it is still a masculine world however and as much the emancipators (sic) want to liberate the female sex. However and as much the haute couture damsels on prime TV channels discuss and debate the liberated Indian women.

In comparison there is no difference between the Ambani’s obscene eye sore, his mansion the “Antilla” overlooking the slums of Mumbai  and the average wedding in Mallu land.

Winter of Lonliness

    “How incessant and great are the ills with which a prolonged old age is replete.” C.S.Lewis

Well, briefly visiting people- people who one may have known, some not met before, some distant relatives and some social acquaintances. All this, the result of a social exercise that one have to set about, however dismal some of those brief visits and social encounters are. Honestly it is a thankless endeavor, having to call at houses you never wanted to, bare your teeth in a muscular exercise called smile - to draw back your parched lips and grimace baring the frontal teeth to some you may not even want to notice on the road; some trivial, some petty, some haughty, some charming, some stoic about life- theirs and your and some gracious for your remembering them.

A few of them would be eager to annoy with their seemingly innocent but tactless, rude and misplaced enquiries, about something that one  wanted to let behind and  be forgotten; then when they notice a slight trace of discomfort in you they hammer in the nail with a wry smile- what can be called specious empathy. Smile inside with a brutally sadistic comfort before seeing you off.

Sometimes, how one wishes that one need not have to talk. Often it is pleasurable to not speak, to be quite, silent, in a mute existence!

I have been on social calls for the past few weeks necessitated by a forthcoming wedding in the family. So when entrusted with the uncomfortable job of going to homes and inviting folks there is nothing much one can do besides accepting the hazards of the exercise.

Brushing aside the forgettable invitees, I was troubled to see a gentleman who I have known since I was little-seen him in his prime and always compared him with the most handsome men in the tinsel world. A man who is a doctor by profession and whose family had close family ties with my maternal grandfather. I remember often visiting his well-known clinic when I was little and also even in my teens. They were wealthy physicians over three generations and were respected and well-known.

Old age- when money, social positions and nothing else matter; it catches up on you swiftly that you realise that you are handicapped even before you bated an eyelid. . He is in his mid-seventies and was widowed some years ago. That I have known devastated him. 

The loneliness of old age! It must be the matter of the desperation of the mind over what ails the body was what I guess I saw in his face – a man, physically a shadow of what he was. But he was alert and cocooned up in his bedroom watching the cricket Test live. A walking aid was kept next to him. In the course of our brief conversation he spoke about his fascination for cricket, asked me if I played. He enquired about everyone, though sometimes he was unsure. He stood up while I was leaving and with folded hands thanked for remembering him.

When I was driving back from his house, I wondered how many among the rest I met over the past days would ever stand for a moment and think of the fragility of life, of the ephemeral youth, our helplessness in between the brazen existence we often display.