A Sense of a Presence: #Anthem 20

My uncle, father’s brother, once accidentally called our landline, a few days after my father’s death. My uncle heard a recorded message — in my father’s voice on the answering machine. Needless to say it was a jarring experience for him, and I heard it from him years later.

What do you remember? Is it the voice; a name, or a face?

Almost twenty years have passed since my father passed. Frankly, I remember not his face or his voice. I often try and feel his physical presence. If I try, I could construct memories; but that’s inorganic. When family get’s together, there is a sense — a shared one — and memories play tricks on us; tease us almost.

Over two decades I have had friends who have lost a parent or parents. And my unqualified message to them is just this: It may take whatever time; but you will forget. You will forget the face, the voice. The presence will dilute. It does become easier, with difficulty. After twenty years, how you remember will change: tears will be smiles. How we remember, changes.

Each fragment of a memory; and there will only be fragments; will bring a smile to your face instead of tear in your eyes. The pain will never ever go away; but eventually you will learn to manage it. Some random Thursday afternoon it will sting you suddenly like the end of the world. And suddenly enough you will smile. God has given us equal strength to remember; and an equal strength to forget. (This theory of the power to remember/forget is not mine – I got it from another Uncle of mine)

Here is what the opening lines of this song are:

My name will be lost
My face will change
My voice is my only identity
If, you would recognise it

This song is for people who are alive. For me, this is the 20th song in the series. And it is a non-Anthem. In any case #Anthem has outlived its time, since the originator of this Tag is long gone. Am not doing any more #Anthems. I may embed music videos for other reasons

Photographs help. Stories from spouses and siblings help. Friends can tell vivid stories. But the absence of the person stings — in various degrees at various times. Twenty years later, it hurts but the pain isn’t there.

Twenty years later there is a remainder; a sense of a presence. And that is enough; even as memories dilute.

All the forgotten moments, all the conversations, all the arguments, all the fights, all the affection, all the advice: It is all enough to be together.

Forever.

End of Things

All good things come to an end. All bad things do, too, apparently. In short, all things come to an end.

And that’s the nature of things. But how do they?

#I

Some things end abruptly. Without warning – like sudden death. One fine Tuesday morning – while everything is as normal as it seems; in less than a few minutes, things end. A world that you always assume is there, is no more. It changes. There is nothing you can do; you live with the change.

# II

Some things end with an alert. I am ending; I am going away; I will be no more. There is denial and acceptance, at the same time. This worse than #I, in a sense. The wait is the worst. The rubber-band of of hope and dread; but the alert is clear and confident. And it dies.

#III

Some things just end. No warning. No alert. While there is a way we can deal with #I or #II, there is no way to deal with #III. Because you do not know! It just dies a death. It’s in your face – it is obvious and not. It’s like participating in a slow death; only you do not know.

#III is the worst.

*

#I and #II have ashes. #III is vapour.

It’s never about death; it is always about the pain. Pain is personal. There isn’t a pain that is better than an another.

Death is temporary; pain is permanent.

Gone Too Soon; Too Soon

Time, and the human brain are co-conspirators.
*
I want to close the windows, draw the curtains. I want to paint black, the walls of my room. Shut tight, all doors. I want to pump up the volume. I want to listen to Pink Floyd. I want to drink affordable rum, as it is available, without a care, sitting right where I can hear the blare of all the speakers. The perfect position. I don’t want to move. I want to Run Like Hell.

I know you are smiling at me from heaven. Don’t give them a tough time.

He would have recalled it, if i reminded him of it.

I have no doubt about that.

I would have reminded him of the “Pachu cha Bet” (Isles of Emeralds). And Ennui and Rebel. And so many more things; he would have remembered and restarted the conversation, just where we left it off, sometime in 1991.

I have no doubt about that.

Recite the Leon Uris poem in The Haj for me, he would have said. He is the only one who knows that I froze, the first time I was on stage for the recitation. I often suspect, he lived the poem more than me.

I have no doubt about that.

But, I’ll never get a chance to show that to you.

Minya died, yesterday.

This is the only surviving photo I have of him, before mobile cameras. And thank God, we didn’t have mobile cameras then. We treasured memories.

I was not close to him, we were not intimate, we didn’t see each other for decades, In fact, I met him only once, after college. And then we did not meet for over a decade. In that one meeting, nothing changed. We were as we were.

I have no doubt about that.

But there is this hole, deep, gaping, widening, questioning hole, that needs filling. And I could have asked Minya, but he is dead.

Only for you, Minya – I am having the Party of my Life. Because that is the only way, I know you.

The King is Dead; Long Live the King. Only, in my heart. Forever, forever, forever.

Heartbreaks Are Personal

Of all the things in the world, heart-breaks are one of the most personal things. At the same time, heart-breaks transcend every boundary that humans have created. They cut across boundaries that are political, physical, geographical, racial, cultural, and often, those that relate to time. So, for me, they are exclusive and same at the same time.

So, when someone talks of a heartbreak, I know exactly what the person is going through and I have no idea what the person is going through. What do you say to the heartbroken person? Nothing really. All you can do is smile and be with the person. Given the culture that caused your persona, you may behave differently. But essentially, you do not leave a heartbroken person alone. I think, that’s the global common. Seems simple enough, yet, we have a tendency to analyse it all.

I have, sadly so, attended many events around death. And the worst statements of support are when people compare the degree of death to another. You know what I am talking of: died of disease? Here’s a (potentially worse) story of someone we know; died in an accident? Here’s a (potentially worse) story of someone we know, and so on. Perhaps we tend to bring in degrees of suffering to alleviate the suffering of those that will have to live on. The intentions may be in the right place. But a death is a death. A heartbreak is a heartbreak. There are no degrees.

Yet, love (or the loss of it), is nothing like death. Love is like life. Infinite Capacity. And there is no scale for measuring how much you have loved. And for good reason. In the times that we live, when everything is about facts, stats, proofs, documents and such, love remains the one experience available to us that we don’t have to explain. Especially, about how much we were loved back.

Love is not measured by reciprocity; if at all, it is measured by intensity.

Love isn’t. It just is.

हम ने देखी है उन आखों की महकती खुशबू
हाथ से छूके इसे रिश्तो का इल्जाम ना दो
सिर्फ एहसास है ये रूह से महसूस करो
प्यार को प्यार ही रहने दो कोई नाम ना दो

Since I’ve treaded in a thorny terrain, I’ll walk through it (i.e. the translation) and I call on my friends to help me correct this, if I have made mistakes. And to interpret it differently.

I’ve seen the pervading fragrance of those eyes,
Hands away; contaminate it not with trivial accusations of relationships
Feel it through your soul, the way it is meant to be
Let love be, stay away from name-calling.

Love stories and poems become popular. Popularity, however, is no method to gauge intensity, either. That a million (or more) people in this world at this instant are feeling the same, is no reason for you to feel solace. Love may be unrequited. And it means less, for when you have been in absolute love, it is only a measure of how much you have loved, not a measure of how much you have lost.

And a million words from me or anyone else will not (and should not) mean anything. A heartbreak is a heartbreak. It is yours. It is personal. Your friends can be around, but only you can mend your heart. And forgive the friend who asks you to forget. You will feel what you have to feel. And take time to feel what you feel. Your life however is richer because of the love in your heart.

As time passes by, you will know your life is better because you loved; it’s not poorer because it wasn’t reciprocated.

Death Becomes Us

Death comes in many sizes: S, M, L, XL and XXL. Rarely XXXL. Then, there’s one that envelopes us all: XXXXXL. Never ever printed, but it exists. The final.

To live a full life we have to die many times, before, we eventually die. Small sizes, large sizes, whatever is the need of the hour, we have to go through them all.

Death is an end.

It is also a start, but essentially, it is an end. Of all the things that have to end. Enough, enough now.

I look forward to an impending death, as much as I am afraid of dying. But this fear is unfounded; since we were born we have died many times. We have been reborn. Some births are conscious; some not. Yet we are not ever completely dead. Parts of us are dying.

There will (soon) come a day, when I will decide who dies. I will die soon; I will be reborn.

My life is inherently beautiful. Thank you to all of you who have decorated it and made it a masterpiece worth of wonder. There is a reason why I will not give up on my life easily. That reason is you.

At the same time it seems prudent that I ask for forgiveness for those who I have inadvertently hurt. Inadvertently is key. Because I would never knowingly hurt. Somehow my genetic composition disallows it.

As I near a certain death, let all the bad spark out and burn fiercely in the pyre, let all good be laid neatly aside for me to pick up when I rise. And may this pyre be a continuous affair, and may I walk out better each time I burn, till one day I burn for a final time. And, then, let them say:

These are the ashes of the one who strived and eventually died after many a death. But lived a complete life with each dying; each living.

My Earthly; My Heavenly Family

There are things I am afraid of. Some I succumb to; some I stand up to. The situations that I succumb to are my own doing. The one’s I stand up to are my own doing. Technically, not my own doing — inspired. The standing up, i.e.

I have been thinking I should write a post, about my grandmother (my mother’s mother) for a while now. The more we talk about who we are and who our family is, reduces the privacy we potentially have, on the internet. I have not tried to hide my identity on my blog for a while. I have been wondering if it makes sense if I have the right to “expose” the identity of my family members, without their consent. Especially, of my family members, who are dead, and I have no way of asking consent.

I care less when I post photos of the dead people on my Facebook profile — I wonder why I hesitate writing about them on my blog. Do dead people have privacy issues? Will they, from heaven frown upon my blog? I think it really boils down to the people looking down from heaven. In my head, they are the same people as they were on earth.

For now, I am withholding writing about my grandmother. Some other day, I may not think too much, and may write about her. Not today.

Grandmothers, grandfathers, grand-uncles, and grand-aunts, part of our parents, non-grand uncles and aunts, very young cousin sisters and brothers. At least one of each is in heaven. Each one of them is watching me, not judging, but kindly. I have loved them and they have loved me. And knowing each one of them intimately, I am curious about what they want me to say about them; and I am sure they are curious what I will say about them.

Yesterday was a wonderful evening, spent with (alive) uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, cousins, nephews, and nieces. We never, for a minute mentioned our heavenly relatives. Yet they were with us.

We are alive and dead at the same time, some times. The reality of the gravity binds us to where we are, but we are able to travel, for that one instance, in the netherworld, and our happiness of having spent moments or years with those, who are absent, multiplies.

Slowly, one after the other this earthly family members will leave and join my heavenly family. I dread that day. We will miss “being” together, but we will never miss “being together.”

I will, I hope, learn, not miss you.

Fundamentals of a Funeral Fire

If we were able to recall our future as well as we remember the past, would the past have that much less stranglehold on our lives?

A friend was once talking about the last-rites systems that humans follow. He theorised that cremation offered a sense of closure, better than burying. Nothing remains, he said. What little remains, is cast off in the water. I’ve wondered about this, facing a few pyres, and my personal experience hasn’t been as satisfying as he made it out to be. Yet, there’s a merit to that theory.

While the physical remains burn readily, it’s the memories that refuse to turn to ashes. And the quality of the memories don’t matter at this time. The good, the bad and the ugly stand steadfastly by your side. You have to gently nudge them towards the pyre to be consumed and you realise you will have to light many more in the days to come for those that won’t go away. But they do, eventually.

With dead people you are the only custodian for the memories; you can hold on to them or cast them off in the pyre. With those who are alive, you cannot be the only custodian; if you are – then you are better off casting them away, in their own pyre.

Next to the hunger to experience a thing, men have perhaps no stronger hunger than to forget.

~ Hermann Hesse, The Journey to the East

Therein lies the cyclical irony — perhaps — because every experience creates a memory. It may be a good thing now, to satiate the original hunger rather than dragging the larder.

No Answers

There is something about a childhood memory of a room that is deceiving. When you enter the same room as an adult, it seems much smaller. I am not sure if it is about your size – then and now. But there is something about the dimensions of a room that makes the room seem much smaller when you visit it years later as an adult. Your childhood memory and the reality of dimensions are in significant conflict.

-o-

I was once made to sit in a communications training programme, years ago. We were supposed to become better at communicating. As a rookie, I was quite eager to give it my best. I don’t remember anything of that programme that I paid so much attention to.

Except.

She asked us a question about how we communicate when we visit someone who has had a death in the family. There was a tense, dense silence in the room. She knew the answer to her question. There is an awkwardness that pollutes our minds when facing the one who is alive who is grieving for the dead. We vigourously nodded our heads.

-o-

Unexpected late night calls are the worst. Before phones were commonplace – it was the telegram or the trunk-call, if at all.

-o-

Thankfully I wasn’t drinking that night. I had to drive at 4AM, 60-odd kilometres out of the city to attend her funeral. I had to pick up a relative on the way. There were a million things swimming in the mental pool of confusion. Facts, reality, tomorrow and such are the ways we keep ourselves away from grieving.

-o-

She lived a difficult life. I never saw even a frown on her face.

-o-

Sometimes, there are no answers

-o-

Because I do not know any better, I hope you are in a better place than this. Be in peace.