Ritual or Real?
Sometimes I wonder how the death of a 80 year old family member affects us. I’m not sure. Yes everybody has memories, but sometimes, it is truly funny when all of a sudden it is seen as a huge blow. Even though the life taking disease is talked about since 2 years, even though ’serving’ family members really hated to serve the old person, even though inside their dark thoughts some wanted that person to be dead, and none actually hoped that this person would ever get up. These people become, as stale as any other ‘thing ‘ in the home, I’m not sure suddenly how their death becomes a huge blow to the family.
‘Friends’, who never called to check how that family member was when he/she was alive, come to your home, to be with the family, in the mourning. There are rituals, and there are people crying for the dead. In one occasion in my family, I saw a lady, crying out so loudly, and so dramatically, as if her young son died. And later that day she asked , how much the ‘dead one’ had actually left, and if this person had got a will?
You began to wonder if the crying was really honest, or was it just an indication of whats coming next? You just know them, by their names those people, and their attitudes, but they are all after one thing – following rituals. There are too many rituals to follow, too many songs to be sung, too many cries, and at the end of it, too many condolences, too many questions and too many fights.
In one such occasion, I had asked a person why so much ‘noise’ when a person, expecting to be died dies. He told me in brief – there are only three great occasions in life – birth, marriage, death. And you have to celebrate. I didn’t quite understand. If these were all so equally important, why are people crying on the third one. Why don’t they ‘distribute’ sweets? (Well, this I didn’t ask him)
But I know what he said was true. That’s why in India, whether we celebrate marriage, or birth or death, we celebrate it the same way – a party to all, dinner to celebrate/feel bad, and lot of ‘bitching about’ most unnecessary things in life.
Sometimes, I wonder if any of these occasions need so much of unnecessary showoff. I think I will never understand it, as these things remind of me ‘Sati’. Sati was a ritual, and so is marriage, and so are birthday parties or our deathday get-togethers. Or I wonder, if all these things are done with real feelings?
But then there are too many things I don’t understand. Why bother?