Funeral

My mother’s favourite topic of discussion is her childhood days stay at Mokama (90 KMS from Patna). She enthusiastically shares a lot of fascinating things. Especially, her interest in intruding into cinema halls at Mokama with her fellow friends. Though it was strictly unpermitted by the family patriarch. However, the matter which captures my mind the most is her vivacious depiction of Nazareth Hospital in Mokama which she used to frequent for recreational reasons. 

Secondly, my late grandmother’s favourite was her recount about a village called Shivnar (almost 5 KMS from Mokama). She used to tell me that we originally belong to Shivnar. Some 300 years back a feudal war fomented among the denizens of the village. They got fanatically engaged in proving themselves superior in terms of racial lineage among the subdivisions of our own caste. This led some of our forefathers to shift to a newer dwelling which is our current village located in the nearby Nalanda district of Bihar.

  

These two matters were somewhere deep-seated in my mind. To visit Nazareth hospital & Shivnar. Today in the wee hours of the morning I took my bike and headed toward Mokama. Curiosity was the crucial factor. The visit to both the places was learning as well as enjoying.

 

While returning, my eyes caught glimpse of a pyre beside the river Ganges. I felt an irresistible urge to halt. An old lady’s lifeless body, feet facing south, was placed on a pile of wood. As & soon as the body was set on fire, I went nostalgic when my own grandma was cremated & and I stood sobbing beside the burning pyre, seeing my beloved grandma’s body burning to ashes. An irretrievable loss...but it was the ultimate truth. This was a reminder of our inevitable disintegration someday.

Today I stood beside the pyre for some time praying for the soul to rest in peace and keep me reminded about this inevitable truth of life....so that it could maintain my empathetic connection to humanity which sometimes gets negated & buried in the mundane affairs of life.