last sunday

numb. my hands. my feet. my eyes. my ears. there is no word that could better describe my feelings about my body parts, the weather, the venue or my response to the situation. i rub my hands together for warmth. i try to find the perfect posture for my legs, since they are terribly bruised from my recent staircase injury. as i shift my left leg slightly forward, i feel like yelping in pain. in less than a second's time frame, a very distant and equally overweight aunt of mine manages to sit on my foot. i squirm helplessly as she breaks into her "just right" posture, ignoring my foot. would it be rude if i point it out? i stop fighting it. my foot is underneath a fat woman's derrière. and the hymns begin. great. now i really can't point it out. it's like a social sin to say anything non-hymn related during a hymn. i'm stuck. on second thought, winters do drive you to a point where any contact with a heat source is considered a blessing. my blessing comes in the form of an old derrière.

the hymn ends. i fiddle with one end of my turquoise dupatta and start to dread the drawbacks of handling traditional clothing while a toddler whose name i don't know/once knew/is not worth remembering runs over the other end of my dupatta screaming the words to "Sheela Ki Jawani". The toddler is male, under 5 yrs of age, partially toothless thanks to a playground injury and seems to forget most of the lyrics except for the line "I'm too sexy for you", which he seems to be extremely proud of remembering and repeats the line over and over. i wish somebody could make him understand that these are not the songs you sing at this age. and certainly not the kind you sing at funerals.

i ask my mother the reason behind today's ceremony. she wipes her tears dry and says "in our culture it is believed that the soul wanders around for about 11 days after it escapes the body. since today marks the last day of the soul's supposed presence, we call a priest to conduct the proper rituals to ensure that the soul leaves without any... baggage." i stare at the dozens of boxes of sweets. and for a change it is not because i wish to eat them. i stare because a part of me doesn't understand why at this occasion we care to distribute sweets. till this day i had always associated such actions with occasion of celebration or auspicious value. when i ask my mother why we do so, i can see the little girl within her asking me the same. she says "i don't like it either" and pinches the bridge of her nose trying to refrain from crying. she wouldn't be the first in our culture to follow rituals and traditions without any power to oppose them or even give her two cents on the matter.

i find reasons to stare at things at ground level because i don't want to look up. my eyes trace the carpet design. it is nothing special. i scan the room for the hundredth time. i see sad faces of neighbors. i see tears running down cheeks. i see women sob. i see a settled daughter. and settled son. what i see are the life earnings of a seventy five year old man, who now can only be captured in anecdotes and photographs. snippets of conversation float past my ears. they are all the same. "he didn't leave any duty unfulfilled" is what they keep saying. wherever these words are annunciated, heads nod, women sob and men stiffen their upper-lips in attempts to gather composure. crying out rivers and sobbing endlessly, they manage to put on a show. i stare for an abnormal amount of time at practically every person and object in the cold hall full of grievers. i stare at all but one object. i go over and over my head debating whether i am justified for not staring. whether it is alright for me to not cry right now. whether showing tears will make a difference. whether i can postpone the moment for a little while. i cannot. i look up and stare at the photograph that stands on the white sheet. i stare at eyes in the photograph. and my eyes begin to sting. i want my grandfather to walk into the room and take the string of marigold flowers off of the photograph. i want him to open his arms and smile. how else am i supposed to ever feel the warmth of his embrace again if he doesn't?

i can want and want all i want to. but the marigold flowers are there to stay. nobody can bring him back. not even the tone-deaf priest who continues to taint my memory of my grandfather's demise with his off-beat off-key and altogether terribly rehearsed hymns. at this point i'd rather hear the "sheela ki jawani" toddler. like bullets into uncovered flesh, i see the priest's chants hit my mother and her brother like sharp daggers. his words translate to "you build the palace, and take care of your garden. but you were always meant to leave//your once golden body now dissolves into the dirt. because you were always meant to leave". the priest's lack of tone modulation make the words sound even harsher. but i doubt this was a deliberate effect. my mother, still pinching the bridge of her nose, can no longer keep the sobs inside. all i can do is gently rub her back to remind her that she has more to live for.

as the priest exhausts all the possible methods of repeating the fact that my grandfather is dead, i realize that people have been staring at me. do they want me to cry? do they want me to be strong? do i care about what they want? i give them my ugliest posture. one that exemplifies my extra chin, my fat arms and frizzy temple curls. as i stare at my grandfather's smiling face i think about how he's the last person in the room who'd think i'm ugly. for once in my life i don't feel like conforming to my surroundings. these adults have mood swings. when they walk in, they sob. when they meet my mother, they scream in "pain". when i usher them towards the food arrangements, they ask me what's for dessert. and when my uncle bids them goodbye, they hug and smile. they joke about politicians. they crib about the weather. from time to time, they manage to somehow drag my grandfather into some insignificant anecdote of theirs. it bothers me that they never understood him. even though they had more time to spend with him than i did. these are his brothers. these are his sisters. they come here, complain about the journey, start the waterworks, share a few embraces, eat to their stomachs' content, collect their boxes of sweets, and return to their homes.