In Search…

When it was not crumpling as she cried, mother’s mouth was set in a firm line. To those who knew her, it meant she had made up her mind.

She sat close to the freezer box, touching it occasionally. Inside the freezer box was father, cast on a white sheet so the ice wouldn’t peel off his dead flesh when it was time to go; his head resting at an uplifted angle upon an old plastic bottle filled with water. Mother said it seemed as if he was sleeping peacefully after ages, a smile on his lips. I could see the smile if I walked over to where she sat. Not quite like the way he used to smile, but it was there alright.

It was there as long as he was in the freezer box. Once they took him out and laid him on the bare floor, it was gone. Without the glare of the lit-up box, you could see his skin was yellow with the jaundice that eventually did him in.

There was not much time to notice anything beyond that. A whir of rituals followed, calculated to put grief out of mind.

The priest was in a hurry to move on, to another house, another ceremony. The tasks vanished even as we were at them. Having given father his last bath and placed the mark of our people on his forehead, the priest asked how many were going to the crematorium, looking past mother. “I am going,” she said to no one in particular.

Almost everyone froze. “Our women do not go to the crematorium,” the priest said, condescending to the widow of the man he was speedily ushering on the last journey. Mother turned on him, her eyes flashing with unspilled tears. “I must go with him as far as I can.” The priest backed off. With the same condescension, he said, “Fine, but there is a certain point beyond which you cannot step.” Mother did not seem to have heard.

At the crematorium, she held my hand and walked right up to where the biogas monster took father in. The priest wrinkled his nose. “In half-an-hour,” he spat, “the urn will be ready. Take it, scatter the ashes in the sea. Afterwards, you must walk away without turning back.” He turned to mother and said unctuously, “You can go home now…”

Nobody argues twice with a priest, least of all a woman, so his jaw dropped. “I will scatter the ashes in the sea. I’ve been the only one for him these 35 years; I must be the one to do this,” she said. I nodded; she was right, as always. “But we are orthodox Hindus,” gasped the priest. ‘No one from our community has ever done this. I cannot allow it.’ And then, “My reputation would be in tatters!”

“Do the scriptures actually forbid women from doing this?” I asked. “Not really… But this is not our tradition…” We shared a look, mother and I, as we picked up the urn.

At the beach, mother flung a handful of ashes over her head into the sea; the frothy waves took them away instantly. “Don’t look behind, just walk away,” the priest was saying. The wind whirled his words away towards the sea that had just taken what was left of father. We stole a glance backwards, but there was nothing to see.

Mother, meanwhile, had walked away from us, her head held up against the wind. She didn’t have to look behind.