kokoroZendo

2 dis-appointments and a funeral…

No prizes for guessing. It does rhyme with the movie title 4 weddings and a funeral. One of my favorites. Especially the scene @ the funeral when Auden’s famous poem is recited. “Stop all the clocks…”. After my own father’s death 3 years back, I generally tend to avoid funerals. And one of the books that is gathering dust in my bookshelf, I am yet to progress beyond first page is “The Tibetan Book of the Dead.”

Last week, thoughts about death were again in the air of the crematorium. I was among a small crowd attending the funeral of a colleague’s spouse. The unfortunate  was not known to me personally. But her affable and sincere husband was. And there was another deadbody, lying listening to Vedic chants in nearby room waiting to be cremated. Probably the priests were preparing the soul to enter thru the gateway of heaven. Many others hovered there desiring to be there in heaven, without really wanting to die. Very oddly the notice on the board @ the crematorium read “Only Dead bodies are allowed inside the Furnace”. The atmosphere was melancholic and it was quite disheartening.

I felt quite overwhelmed and went for a haircut in that saloon near Adarsh Gardens. I wanted to get rid of the feelings and move on. Now a days janata generally does not want to think or read about the other side of life.. Death, disasters and disappointments. May be due to the burgeoning multibillion dollar PMA industry. Fundamentalist Preachers of “Positive mental attitude” religion, spread the need to find a silver line in every dark cloud.

In that saloon, while waiting for my turn, I happened to read a small news item on Bhopal tragedy where it was written, how the late Nani Palkhiwala played a pivotal role in helping Union Carbide to get away with gasing the poor denizens of Bhopal. That really hurt me. Palkhiwala was one of my heroes. I know Jurists may not make the typical hero list . But then It wasn’t typical hero worship. (I don’t even worship God for that matter.) But for one who really wanted to don a lawyer’s gown, the likes of Nani Palkhiwala, V. R. Krishna Iyer and Ram Jethmalani were the part and parcel of every day thoughts. I had heard many interesting stories and legends about them. So it was quite heart wrenching to read how Mr. Palkhiwala retraced his view about the whole thing and was one of the persons who rewrote the fate of survivors of Bhopal, by arguing for moving the cases to India. He won his case and poor people of Bhopal lost it very badly. And the image of Nani Palkhiwala in my heart’s eye died and I did the final cremation then and there itself. Within a week or so, TV Screen was full of images Mr. Jethmalani walking out on Devi’s Advocate, not really comfortable answering questions about his own turn political around. Jethmalani was always known as a different kind of fire brand who fries other ‘s and who lead a life on his own terms. For someone who had the guts to take on the role of defending Mrs. Gandhi’s assasins against great odds, it was more than a fall from grace, by letting himself needled by the likes of Mr. Thapar. . Finally I no longer wanted to be a lawyer.

May be the real death happens when the image in your mind’s eye finally dies. Till then a person is really alive and kicking, even when physically nonexistent.