gosmoking

never again

Peaceful. An ideal introspection generator. A place where every one is literally and figuratively left alone. I know I will end up there at some point. What I am dieing for every day will only stay for so long. Including all the memories of me in the 17 friends I have. A place where you get shook up enough to stop and reexamine your status as rat and feel the desire to be human instead. Where all the superficial stuff is claimed by the waves of the essential...

A freshly dug grave waiting for its occupant. A motley crew of 15 people stood around singing hymns, before throwing some mud on the coffin and symbolically start the process of forgetting the person: the process of healing.

A few meters away on the perimeter of the grounds are dumps of burnt bones and skulls. The remains of the people who had been evicted after exhausting their 18month grave lease. Space is always at a premium in Mumbai. In the memory of the people who had run out of grave time, rectangular slabs had been put up on the perimeter wall. Like stacked up coffins. Rectangles through which the ones who still remembered could reach out. With pictures of the deceased on tiles, which in turn were attached to the scripted plaques. The dead watching over their own.

Some of the graves were well tended, you could recognize the fresh ones by the flowers on them, some just overgrown patches of shrubbery. Two twins in 2 foot long spaces, next to each other, under a cross calling them ‘our angels’. Next to a 2 feet space whose occupant died the day he/she was born…

A strange odour hit my nose: was it the stench of the nullah right next door… of was it the smell of the burnt bones? The place was started getting to me. The brain couldn’t handle the jolt. This was a place of death. You go there when people die, it is NOT a park. I don’t want my ego to be shattered. To be told that I am not in control.

posted by goldfluke @ 8:37 PM