1 The Funeral I Never Wanted

I believed I was prepared for this day. I visualized the outcomes and theorized about what is going to happen next. I should have been able to withstand my feelings. But now that I am living the moment, why is the vigour of pain this tremendous? It's not like what I thought! Why am I feeling confused and scared?. It feels like the world is ripping me apart and I am sinking in it. All my plans and theories are fading away from my mind and are being replaced by dread and anxiety. My throat has dried up, words are not able to escape my lips. My hands are pale and everything appears to be in slow motion. Why am I having flashbacks of memories and instances from my life? Why am I remembering them now? Is it because seeing someone that close to me die, whom I loved so much, is making me realise how worthless and useless my life is without her. I don't know what to do. I don't know... I don't... I... I...I just want to... curl up and die.

"Adi!" a voice from my back brought me back to the world of the living. It was my aunt, "Don't worry... Don't worry at all ok? We all are here for you."

My aunt curled me inside her bosom as tears oozed from her eyes. I think she was trying to reassure me by saying words like those, but I knew the reality, I knew what's going to happen next.

"You have to be tough... just like your mother was. You are his son right... be strong like her"

I kept my stillness. All of my feelings were clouded and my brain was not functioning properly. I just don't know how to clear my mind while I am at my mother's funeral, standing in front of her funeral pyres. How can I be strong when I am just going to witness her body which is kept under the shade of the woods being burnt? I never imagined that I would be forced to see this one day. What kind of religion is this? Why does the son have to see her mother get burnt along with some chunks of wood? This is mad...just like torture.

"Son, come forward and depart your mother to god's place." the priest called me and my old man to burn the funeral pyres to say my final goodbyes to my mother.

"Sonu, please control your emotions... this is reality. Everyone has to die one day or the other. For Vrita, her day has arrived." My grandmother comforted my father.

"Shut Up, you all are miserable people. Shut your cursed mouths. You are the ones... she was supposed to live much longer. You are the assholes who murdered her!. You murdered her. It's your fault. I'll destroy you all! You all will suffer!! It was her misfortune to be married into your gutter-like household." I was screaming in mind.

I was forced into sharing the flambeau with my father. If the verdict was to be in my hands, I wouldn't have even allowed him to come here. If I could, I would want to snatch the flambeau and burn him up instead of my mother's pyre. I leant forward, took the lead and set the fire while I cleared all my thoughts and doubts and shouted one thing out loud in my head.

"Your time has come. Don't you dare worry one bit about your children. You have suffered enough. Now, I beg you to live your afterlife to the fullest. And please, I request you to guide me whenever I get stuck in the path of life."

A strong gust swayed by tickling my face gently as if my mother honestly heard my wishes and granted them as well. This one instance has given me so much more strength than I could ever imagine.

I sat there and gazed at her holy pyre burn until it broke down into a pile of powdered ash. Earlier, I had questions about this ceremony, but now I think I understand the bigger picture behind such a weird way of departing somebody from the mortal realm. Instead of thinking of it as giving even more pain to a body, I think it cleans the soul from all aspects of materialism and desires so that the person could truly rest in peace.

I watched the water in river Ganga flowing slowly, gushing onto the river's bank. The scenery was supposed to look beautiful as the place for the funeral was the holiest in Haridwar. But I felt nothing. Even though nothing was left of my mother now, sitting there still gave me the sensation of her presence subconsciously. My father was standing alongside the riverbank. His back was only visible but I was sure that he was smoking. I looked away back at the river as watching him made my blood boil.