An Obituary.
I just stood there. A wraith like figure, oblivious to those present in the room. Oblivion. That’s where I was headed. Or so it seemed; at least back then. You were not a pretty sight, in a room full of corpses. But people said you looked beautiful… even in death, it seems, humans can’t let go of vanity. The crooked timber of humanity and the life that flows in those veins. Your IPod lay beside me. Idle. Sting still persuaded Roxanne not to sell herself. But the headphones were missing. You were missing. And I missed you.
There are going to be plenty of meetings now. I promise I’ll meet Kurt Cobain and tell him that “teen spirit” had been your teen anthem and fragrance. He has a hundred and fifty thousand fans on facebook, wonder what he’ll have to say to that. Then of course, grandma and grandpa would be there. I’ll tell them your story. I’ll tell them you were a great guy and that they should be proud of you. I’ll tell them that ma and pa will do just fine.
I sometimes get flashes of that solitary lamp-post casting its golden halo o’er the mango tree and the little dirt track of a path you travelled almost all your life. I sometimes feel like hugging that lamp-post. Holding on to it. Your life “swept me of my feet” a bit more often than I would have liked. A stream with devastating force. Literally and figuratively. The mango tree and the lamp-post that casts its golden halogen halo over it were probably the only static objects in your life. Rest everything was shifting faster than the mind could register.
Friends were friends no longer. Caste, creed, religion suddenly mattered so much to people. Constricting our personalities and fitting into a “role” almost as if all this was preordained and hence obligatory of us to become a part of the community we so love to uphold and glorify. A community whose significance beyond the material was close to naught. So what really is the rationale behind these ideals that we worship but which in turn only cause “bad faith”? And when you would ask dad about the same, he would say, like most of these gracious people attending your funeral would say, “practical life is a totally different ball game, son”.
And that was all.
The fact that a pragmatic approach to life entails twisting and contorting age old morals and values in a vicious manner, was engraved on stone. Morals which were subjectively glued to my conscience and thus to my very identity- my existence itself. Destroying them meant destroying me which in turn meant destroying you. There was no one to prepare us for this unsaid but inevitable predicament. And we were left scratching the walls of this immaculate labyrinth.
Checkmate.
A white cloth covers you. Your funeral attire was impeccable- kurta and pyjamas, something you had hardly ever worn. People were calling in. Whispering their condolences. They said you were a good man and that they knew you well all along. They were recalling obscure incidents that they had shared with you in some other life. They said they knew you were a good man. And somewhere in the melee I forgot to ask you…
Who you really were.