Weddings And Funerals

Sanchayya was only 52 when he passed away recently. He lived in the village nearby and used to work for us occasionally. We had known him for six years. An honest person in spite of being very poor. Dead Sanchayya looked just as if he was blissfully asleep, not worrying in his usual way. His sudden death rattled us.

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We immigrated to the US in the late 90's and lived there for thirteen years. During all those years we never went to any funeral or wedding. For us, funerals and weddings were events that happened in India. We had friends who were mostly of our age, not multi-generational. Unmarried friends traveled to India to get married. Growing up in California, our kids got to welcome many newborn babies of our friends. Typically grandparents would travel from India to help the young (working) couple during post-partum and with the raising of the newborns. Young Abhi once remarked that India was the land of grandmas. All the grandparents that he knew were from India. Death never figured in our lives. We got the news always over the phone from India. The kids either didn't know or remember the person I was mourning for. Not participating in weddings and funerals were gnawing at me. I felt that our (immigrant) lives were not complete.

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When we moved to India in 2012, Dev's dad was already bed-ridden for long. We decided to spend a few months with him. All of us got to see the process of dying, slow passing away. He died one morning when some of us were right next to him. Our experiences there brought forth many inevitable discussions about life and death with the kids. In the last few years here we have seen the deaths of many people -- relatives, acquaintances and friends. Things slow down for some time after these events -- remembering the dead, mourning and contemplating about the cyclical nature of our lives. 

Locally there is a very high level of participation whenever there is a death in the vicinity. First of all they call off work. The practice is to definitely pay homage to the dead, anytime and every time they hear such news -- however remotely they were connected. Thus local people would go to a funeral every one or two months. Even if they were to take these visits customary, they are constantly reminded of death and its lack of bias. I wonder if this helps them accept death when it happens in their own family; many times I have heard them say in a matter-of-fact manner "his/her time was up. no one can hold back such a person".

-- Hema