deponti

My brother was a very talented mridangam player, and if he had put his mind to it, he could (I'm not saying it because he was my brother) have become one of the top players in Carnatic music...but he was too easy-going for that.

For many years, apart from the traditional Carnatic concerts, he played for the musical group of Ananda Shankar . He had such immense fun during this time...a college student in those days had very few avenues to be flush with funds...and he was! He would bring extravagant gifts for my daughter, arrive in a taxi...go out with his red paintbrush for nights out on the town....

My sister-in-law sent my daughter a link to one of the songs:






and





Does the music sound dated? Remember, this was about 35 years ago! We were not very happy when the dancers started taking over from the music....but the dancers were talented, too, led by Tanushree Shankar.

When I watched the ceremony in Chennai on the webcam, I did not cry..but the sound of the mridangam in the first piece brought the tears streaming down. I wept for the loss of my brother...all over again, a year later...when I thought I had developed a hard carapace that nothing could breach. Music can melt the barriers one puts up....

I almost never gave a concert unless he accompanied me on the mridangam...even in Muscat, Oman, he accompanied me for my farewell concert. What a fantastic accompanist he was! He completely gave up playing in his later years, and I still feel, what a waste of talent that was...



Excuse me...I am still very weepy. Let me go dry my tears, and put my shell in place again.

Incredible, the way technology allowed us, sitting in the porch of a house in St Louis, to watch, live, the annual ceremony for my brother...we saw the puja, the food being served on plantain leaves, several of the guests stepped over and said hello, and they were able to see Eli, too....

How can the human mind, which has wrought such technology that's for the common good, also think of murder,terror, and other bestialities?

My thoughts are, more than ever, back home today...because in Chennai it is tomorrow... and a year ago, I drove down to see a bundle of clothes .

My sister-in-law has coped incredibly with her loss and grief, and the thousand mundane things that act as little daggers to a sorrowing heart. And she is alone there. Yes, surrounded by friends, but we aren't there with her.

Do I hope that my brother will be somewhere around? Do I believe in that, at all? I have no answers.

With his death, I lost all the people of the immediate family I was born into. I didn't expect him to die at the age of fifty....

Am I feeling miserable? Or guilty that I didn't know that he would die, and I went to Thattekkad? I am so mixed up, I don't know what I feel. Unusual...

Another unusual thing...I have never been able to have photographs of my parents or my brother or of Mohan's parents to look at. I just cannot look at them. I carry my memories in my heart.

Awful...I visited Chennai for the first time after my brother died, exactly six months ago. My sister-in-law was away, and I entered the empty flat...

I just do not know what happened. The tears suddenly came ...in a hurricane of something that I could not even identify as emotion or grief...never, ever, have I had this unthinking or visceral a reaction in my life so far (except,I think, when I heard that my daughter had fallen on her face from a height of about 12 feet, or when I heard that she had a fast-growing lump behind her knee that the surgeon did not like the look of). It took me several minutes of crying before I could even analyse that it was grief, bereavement, and missing that bratty brother of mine with his ready wit and generous heart, and that I should control myself.

My heart is somewhere in my toes right now. Today I feel I am an island.

Don't worry, this won't last long! I will bounce back soon. But, idahoswede, I *know* how you felt that day....

Three months have gone by.
Life goes on as before..
With unexpected and sudden
Dagger-stabs of sorrow.
I keep them hidden.
The wounds bleed into my heart...
Or is it my heart that bleeds?
Why do these seeds
Of sorrow tear me apart?
When will I cross the ocean of woe
And reach serenity's shore?
We didn't speak to each other often...then why
Do quick tears make my eyes sting and smart?

It's a kind of roller-coaster ride, this thing called bereavement. I never usually think that things like birthdays (after the first ten are over) are big deals, but I felt really low today, because today my brother would have turned 51. I remembered the lovely party my sis in law organized for him last year...KM and I went...did we even imagine that that would be his last birthday? Definitely not.

One nice anecdote out of the past: My parents had bought us both expensive badminton rackets, and during a quarrel, my brother broke mine. Weeping, I went to my mother to complain. My brother followed almost immediately, with a happy smile on his face. "Sorry, I know I shouldn't have broken your racket!" he said; "I felt very bad, so I have broken mine also, I hope you will be OK now!" My mother was most certainly not OK!


And the commentlessness...I keep my blog post public and even enable anonymous posting because I am interested in dialogue....today, my stat counter informs me that I had 111 unique visitors..did not even ONE of them feel like making a single comment? Expressing their point of view, plus or minus?

Oh well. Friends came by, and cheered me up again....and let me post, from my trip to Nandi Hills, this image, that I call "Stairway to Heaven" (isn't that a beautiful song by Eric Clapton?)





With all the crowds and cars and trash, Nandi Hills is still an incredibly beautiful place....

Someone is on a mailing list, on which a friend had posted about my brother's death. This person emailed, and said they never read that mailing list. So I emailed hem back about my brother's death.

This morning, s/he called, and once again, I heard those words which are so dreadful to me...WAH? (What Actually Happened?) I *hate* hearing those words nowadays. It's....7 weeks now, and I somehow cannot go over the details...but reluctantly, I told this person.

The response? "After a certain age, we have to die!"

My brother was 50. The person who was condoling is 60! Would this person have liked to die at 50? I wonder if s/he had the idea that my brother was 80+... or was the idea to comfort me? If this is the idea...well, it did not...it only made me say that if 50 is an age to die, one might as well die at 20 and be done with it much earlier!

Note to myself...I *must* be careful what I say, thinking that I am comforting someone in their loss...I could be opening their wounds again, and making them angry into the bargain. It's a better thing to say, "how are you feeling now?" and listen, rather than to try them high with philosophy....

The clothes you wore are gone
But not the person.
You left us, but I still find you
In the dim recesses of my memories
As scenes from our shared childhood
Flash across my mind.

Why should I feel sad about the clothes you wore?
When I walked in that evening
All I saw was the clothes:
You had gone.

When what's within is gone,
The human body
Is nothing but a set of clothes:
Skin,limbs, teeth, hair...
A discarded bag of bones.
A flute without its music, a house bereft of its owner.
How does it matter how the shells are disposed of?
Empty cartons need to be thrown away.

So I'll learn to be content
With my memories....and not miss you.
I'll learn to be content
With your presence in my thoughts....

I hope that my memories,too,
Will not become faint
With the passage of time...
An aging brain
Drops the clothes of its recollections
And stands bare, or is sometimes absent.

Ultimately, the people we love
Live within us.
They do not have a past tense
In our thoughts.

Why can the heart not accept abstractions
Of death, loss, and bereavement
That the mind can?
Why do we need to hold on?
Why can we not let go?

A huge fortune awaits the person who can show people how to completely control the rush of their thoughts....

It's been exactly one month, and though I *know* that thirty days as such are meaningless, today the thoughts are a torrent, rushing with cataract force through my mind. Worst of all are the thoughts of "Perhaps if I had..." and "perhaps if I hadn't..."

The human mind is the reason why we have philosophy, religion, the esoteric arts....we struggle to make sense of what we feel is beyond our scope to comprehend.

I suspect that more than space, the ocean, the universe or the sub-atomic fields...it is the human mind which will remain the final frontier, which humankind will never be able to analyze or understand fully.

I do want my mind to be like the lotus on the pond...even when moving because of the water currents, not losing its mooring, and looking calm and serene. Born in the filth and stagnation, it is yet so pristine and beautiful, and instead of looking at the mire in which it took birth, it looks up towards the sun, and draws its sustenance from above.

Enough lousy philosophy! Hoping to spend time with friends today....

How To Watch Your Brother Die
For Carl Morse

When the call comes, be calm.
Say to your wife, "My brother is dying. I have to fly
to California."
try not to be shocked that he already looks like
a cadaver.
Say to the young man sitting by your brother's side,
"I'm his brother."
Try not to be shocked when the young man says,
"I'm his lover. Thanks for coming."

Listen to the doctor with a steel face on.
Sign the necessary forms.
Tell the doctor you will take care of everything.
Wonder why doctors are so remote.

Watch the lover's eyes as they stare into
your brother's eyes as they stare into
space.
Wonder what they see there.
Remember the time he was jealous and
opened your eyebrow with a sharp stick.
Forgive him out loud
even if he can't
understand you.
Realize the scar will be
all that's left of him.

Over coffee in the hospital cafeteria
say to the lover, "You're an extremely good-looking
young man."
Hear him say,
"I never thought I was good enough looking to
deserve your brother."

Watch the tears well up in his eyes. Say,
"I'm sorry. I don't know what it means to be
the lover of another man."
Hear him say,
"Its just like a wife, only the commitment is
deeper because the odds against you are so much
greater."
Say nothing, but
take his hand like a brother's.

Drive to Mexico for unproven drugs that might
help him live longer.
Explain what they are to the border guard.
Fill with rage when he informs you,
"You can't bring those across."
Begin to grow loud.
Feel the lover's hand on your arm
restraining you. See in the guard's eye
how much a man can hate another man.
Say to the lover, "How can you stand it?"
Hear him say, "You get used to it."
Think of one of your children getting used to
another man's hatred.

Call your wife on the telephone. Tell her,
"He hasn't much time.
I'll be home soon." Before you hang up say,
"How could anyone's commitment be deeper than
a husband and a wife?" Hear her say,
"Please. I don't want to know all the details."

When he slips into an irrevocable coma,
hold his lover in your arms while he sobs,
no longer strong. Wonder how much longer
you will be able to be strong.
Feel how it feels to hold a man in your arms
whose arms are used to holding men.
Offer God anything to bring your brother back.
Know you have nothing God could possible want.
Curse God, but do not
abandon Him.

Stare at the face of the funeral director
when he tells you he will not
embalm the body for fear of
contamination. Let him see in your eyes
how much a man can hate another man.

Stand beside a casket covered in flowers,
white flowers. Say,
"thank you for coming," to each of seven hundred men
who file past in tears, some of them
holding hands. Know that your brother's life
was not what you imagined. Overhear two
mourners say, "I wonder who'll be next?" and
"I don't care anymore,
as long as it isn't you."

Arrange to take an early flight home.
His lover will drive you to the airport.
When your flight is announced say,
awkwardly, "If I can do anything, please
let me know." Do not flinch when he says,
"Forgive yourself for not wanting to know him
after he told you. He did."
Stop and let it soak in. Say,
"He forgave me, or he knew himself?"
"Both," the lover will say, not knowing what else
to do. Hold him like a brother while he
kisses you on the cheek. Think that
you haven't been kissed by a man since
your father died. Think,
"This is no moment to be strong."

Fly first class and drink Scotch. Stroke
your split eyebrow with a finger and
think of your brother alive. Smile
at the memory and think
how your children will feel in your arms
warm and friendly and without challenge.

Michael Lassell

And latelyontime's words below (in quotes) are my thoughts, too...


"P.S. I know it is long and it probably hurts the scroll finger like bloody ho but I am not putting it behind a cut. Something this beautiful needs to remain so that everybody can read it at first glance."


*********

Well...my brother died, too, a month ago...he wasn't gay, I don't have a wife, I *didn't* watch him die that day, so suddenly...but the raw pain of this poem....was reflected by my pain in asking him a few days prior to his death, "Shall I come and be with you for a few days?" and then, being practical, and not going, because he had no serious health problem that I could imagine he would leave us in a short time...

There are times when grief is composed of large dollops of guilt.

Q. If one has undergone a bereavement that still has that raw-wound quality, touch-and-I-wince, after nearly a month....what does one do that will provide a little comfort?

A. One sees an excellent play and walks back in the pouring rain, clutching one's bag close under the umbrella, for fear of the MLC, and the notes for the play review, and eating a chocolate ice-cream cone.

I walked in silence for the most part, letting the pouring rain give me some peace. As the dark clouds roiled overhead, I felt some of the dark clouds in my mind shifting...a little...

amoghavarsha sent me lovely pictures of my parents when he visited Chennai last time; little did I know that I would require one of my brother, too....sobering realization, that I am the only one of my immediate family left alive.

Am quite concerned about someone else far away, too...I never worry about money, but health is something that is just not under our control sometimes.


To cheer myself up a little more:


Here's another view of that beauty, the Scaly-Breasted Munia, it's got some food in its mouth this time!




Almost Cinderella time....going to use the Vonage phone now....

1. Do visit a bereaved person as soon as you can...but do call before you visit, if you can. Find out if the person is willing, and able, to take the visit. If not, postpone the visit after saying that your thoughts are with hem.

2. Please make your visit brief. Yes, you may be visiting the bereaved person after a long gap, of months, or even years. But at this time, your visit MUST be short. Trying to catch up on lost time, and touching base, is NOT a good idea now. The person is probably grappling with a lot of logistical details as well as emotional trauma, and is just not able to handle a prolonged social visit.

3. Explanations about why you could not come and meet the deceased earlier serve NO purpose whatsoever but to expiate your own possible guilt. And it becomes ridiculous if you start explaining health issues. You are visiting now, and your affection for the deceased (or your sense of duty) has brought you there. So that's enough. This is true even if it is a phone call you are making. Lengthy explanations of why you cannot make it in person are not needed.

4. Even if you meet up with other friends and acquaintances in the deceased's home, don't start conversations... keep the visit brief.

5. Do not visit during mealtimes or in the afternoon unless absolutely unavoidable. This might be the only rest the bereaved family is getting after several sleepless nights.

6. Try not to bring babies and children along in the hope that they will "cheer them up". And if the baby is napping, do not sit through the baby's nap..it's convenient for you, but certainly not for the bereaved family.

7. Talking about cheerful subjects is OK, but only up to a point. Beyond that, it gets too difficult for the bereaved to bear, or relate to.

8. Do NOT talk about other people who have just died. It's SUCH an insensitive and ridiculous thing to do.

9. Do not unload your present problems even if the bereaved family asks. This is not the time to share your woes.

10. Once again...keep your visit brief and crisp. Not saying anything is sometimes better than words.


Fantastic words we heard recently:

"What saree are you going to buy for the 13th day ceremony? Will your sister in law buy it for you?" (Don't I get to give HER something as well?)

"R...that was not the name of the girlfriend your husband was going around with when I knew him..." (I am NOT joking)

"You should not have been sitting in Thattekkad. What is the need to go and watch some birds when your brother is dying?" (Yeah, right, he told me he is sinking and I carried on to Thattekkad. Or...I must sit at home everyday, waiting for one of my relatives to die.)

"When your father and mother were such pious people, how can you have a memorial/shanthi homam/havan on the 5th day, and worse, call us for lunch during the 'tainted' ten days?" (They were all good people, but my brother is...was...different from my parents.)

"They never had any children?...so bad!" (wow, how does one answer that!)

"I wanted to come and visit many times but I have been having this uterus problem (said with a wealth of exCRUciating...and long-winded... detail about said organ.)" (You and your you-terus...go home, lady, I just CAN'T take your medical history in now.)

"Oh! V and K are also here! Oh, good to see you after a long time...did you know that E's daughter got married? They were asking about you..." (go HOME!)

"The body goes so cold immediately after death...did you find it hard to arrange it in the refrigerated casket?" (YEUGHHHH....)

"No, no, you carry on with dinner, we had an early dinner and came, we will just be here..." (that is exactly what we don't want...)

Thank goodness, there were more of the affectionate hugs, the thoughtful, well-chosen words, the presence when needed, the practical help given at the right time, the support that we could never have done without....

Many of my relatives were aghast when I decided not to do a professional course (particularly, the medical course that my parents were hoping I would do) and decided on studying English, and Philosophy instead, and took up music very seriously.

I think I had a Liberal Arts education....before the term was invented.

But today, whenever I have to face a crisis, these three things...the ability to express myself, the philosophy that I studied, and the music that I practiced so sincerely.....they stand me in good stead. They prevent me from slipping deep into the Slough of Despond that Chaucer talked about, and bear me up to face life once again, and start over with a smile.

"tum ithnA jO muskurA rahEy hO...kyA gam hai jiskO cchupA rahEy ho?" goes a beautiful ghazal by Kaifi Azmi.

Who knows how many tears others' smiles cover?

Those two overused words: Thank and You.

Your affection and your care comes through, and that's what matters to us right now.

Yes, Anjana is here, and Derek is arriving on Friday night (managed some time off from his demanding job!) so we will be together for a while....oh, it's going to be a long road to the new and altered normality, but we have started walking on it now.

I have been singing out loud a lot (we only had close friends and relatives yesterday and I was able to sing) and that has helped ME a lot. My common-sense husband, whose lack of emotion (actually, lack of display of it) I sometimes deplore, has been a rock since he came back.

I am sad, but also realize that I have so much to be thankful for....

Some reasons why I think we have all these rites and rituals:

The house will be full of people who each have hes own ideas of what should be done to a)give peace to the departed soul and b) will be the "proper" thing to do. The situation is great fun because so many of the ideas are at variance with one another. Thankfully, at least at my brother's place, one person's decision is respected. But normally, this would make for a lot of interesting situations. A set of given rites and rituals would--at least in part-- obviate all such differences of "how things should be done".

The relatives are often people who are not used to sitting idle, and therefore promptly start in on each other and use the occasion to settle several old scores (and begin new ones.) I have certainly seen this happen in several homes, where one would think that adults would behave like adults, restrained in the face of loss and sorrow. But no....so, giving each an allocated role, and a pre-determined task, would certainly give all of them something to do, and prevent much of the friction that could ensue. (Who is allocated what task and what role, of course, is often the source of more friction!)

Visitors, too, are better able to follow set timings to visit,and set things to do, when there is a pre-arranged set of rituals. Otherwise, one has the piquant situations of visitors who don't know which days are "good" or "bad" to visit, and the even more funny situation (it happened here yesterday) of visitors who come over, don't know when to leave, and stay for several hours as a result. (We gently eased out a couple of visitors four hours after their arrival, I am not joking.)

It is a pleasure to see my sister-in-law's relatives calmly taking up whatever immediate job needs to be done, and just doing it and abiding by the decisions the designated decision-maker is taking. They never fuss....and it is so heartening to see them being a source of comfort to my sis in law, instead of the reverse situation I often see elsewhere.

We had a simple and dignified Arya Samaj ceremony this morning, and the priest told us how, in our culture, the soul is believed to be permanent, and it is the remains that have turned to ashes. And most important, my sis in law felt comforted and more at peace....and that IS the entire point of a "shanthi havan" or "sacred fire ritual for peace."


We do need some ritual, I suppose, to give some sense of closure..though we couldn't help thinking of both my father's and brother's irreverent remarks... like my father's "Don't light up incense sticks in front of my picture, just light up a good Benson and Hedges" and my brother's, "If Dad knew what a bomb all these funeral rites were costing, he would just say, 'Hey, I've decided not to die after all!' "


I am planning, since I am on the net and the visitors seem not to require my presence just yet, to look at INW images, my usual source of comfort....and I snapped thisnice b&w scene of a drongo on a tree, at Mydenahalli....I keep thinking of the forests, and that gives me solace.




Today we took some food over to donate to some home for the destitute...and we were told politely at the first place that they had received a lot of food from a restaurant, and they couldn't use it. We then went to a second place, and THEY had received the excess food from the first place! The third place, a home for youngsters between 18 and 28, finally did take the food, and then we went to the Marina, and immersed some of the ashes and some from the "havan". It was rather a dirty scene, but yet the waves and the breeze and the sand gave my heart a lot of comfort. There was a sense of feeling that what had contained my brother was now one with the elements...

We had given an insertion in the newspaper, " A V passed away". It turns out there is another A V with connections to Calcutta, the city we grew up in, whose dad has the exact same name as my father, too...since the insertion appeared, we have been fielding calls from people who think this is the OTHER A V! I don't know whether to cheerfully announce, "YOUR A V is probably hale and hearty, drop that funerary tone from your voice!" or to say quietly, as I do, "In any case, I am glad you called with affection in your heart..do keep in touch with those whom you have lost touch."...there was a sneaky wish in my heart, once or twice, that it needn't have been OUR A V...but then I was horrified at what I was thinking....

It's rather funny to have to tell someone that they are needlessly condoling for someone..or it would be funny, if it wasn't this situation...

Why can't we have some music? That would ease my mind. The Christians have so much music as part of their funerary services...we just set aside music as only being for bhakti, or happiness...surely, surely, music can ease sorrow as well?

"How many people will be having dinner?" (Remember, the idlis we bought from the nearby restaurant ran out yesterday morning because eight extra people showed up.)

"Is there anyone else who needs to be informed? Goodness, I nearly left out that cousin in Mumbai...and his wife had open-heart surgery last week and I was supposed to call and find out how she was doing, too...."

"Please do come in (who on earth is this, is this my sis-in-law's official colleague, or someone who knew her dad earlier?)....yes...it was all rather unexpected..."

"No, I have not asked my sis in law what she wants to do about the ceremonies (you insensitive person, let her get over crying first), I really can't tell you what will happen, or when..."

"Bedding....do we have enough pillows?"

"Make the list of the various kitchen items that are required...where are the milk coupons? Is there someone to just go and get enough milk to provide coffee for all the visitors?"

"Hello...yes, this is A's sister here....yes, thank you for your condolences (you have been on the phone talking about your own illness for twenty minutes, lady, can you release the line, you seem to have known my brother when he was about sixteen...I do value your reminiscences, but they are upsetting me and I don't want to hear about your "uterus operation" and why it is preventing you from visiting, right now...) I am so glad you called; keep us in your prayers..."

"We DID try and take him to the hospital, and no, he was NOT ill...."

"Hold on, I'll pay the pall-bearers and the pundit, but why is he charging us SO much?"

"Did you get the death certificate? It has to be xeroxed umpteen number of times...."

"That aunt won't eat anything made with onions in it, and the other gentleman wants hot water..."

"Oh, it doesn't matter that so-and-so didn't come to see A. People keep away for different reasons..."


And then everything comes to a complete halt as I see my brother's writing: it says "Funti", which was his own Orrible Pet Name for my daughter, and her telephone number next to it....

The tears fall inside my eyelids, inside my heart. My voice doesn't waver. I don't break down. I am the strong person, I am the one who can cope, the one who can manage, the one in control.

It's necessary also to keep every guest in the house reasonably happy; I don't want any arguments or ill-feeling erupting or even festering quietly.


He just went off, my laughing, sardonic-sense-of-humour brother, he's left us to deal with this mess of how to conduct the death ceremonies, which he had no faith in, with a bunch of relatives he used to laugh at...

Crying inside is tougher than crying outside.

I had hardly entered my home after the Thattekkad trip when I got the news....I lost my dearly beloved brother....

I drove down to Chennai with a little help and a lot of support from amoghavarsha and it's SO unreal, that my brother, my little kid-brother with that incredibly happy, sunny outlook on life, that gifted musician with a great sense of humour, is now a pile of ashes....

Sudden, fast, unexpected...that's life.

It's only my brother's wife (who is as dear to me as my own sister) and I who have to take care of things here. KM is in the US....there is no other immediate family.

When one person is emotionally devastated, the other has to keep cool, take care of arrangements, see to the feeding of visitors and guests, and do a hundred and one things...there is no time for tears, maybe I can shed them later, maybe they will dry up unshed....

I will be back to some semblance of normality....in a while....

Keep me in your thoughts please.

It's like an open wound, a sore in your mouth which your tongue keeps running over...it stings every time, but you can't help doing it. This is what happens when you lose--or, to be precise, misplace-- something.

It can be something very small, like a set of house-keys; but it is essential to your daily life and though you can get along without it, you can only do so for a while. After some time, you will have to take some positive action about its absence. You are not sure if you have mislaid it or really lost it....there is the first frenzy of looking anywhere and everywhere, and that slowly peters out into going about your daily business, with the occasional poking and prying into more and more unlikely places as you hope that the unexpected sight of the lost object will suddenly reward you for your effort. Your thoughts,too, keep returning to the lost object in the middle of all your other work, and you also ponder about the difficulty of replacing it or getting something else....You wake in the night dreaming that you have found it somewhere and as you wake up, the feeling of relief gives way to anxiety again.

In the case of the misplaced object, the exercise ends when it is suddenly found...generally following a brainwave about where you might have left it, or a sudden, totally unexpected find as you are doing something else entirely. But if it lost....slowly acceptance seeps in and you set about doing the things necessary to cut it altogether out of your life...you try not to let your feelings get the better of you if it was something you had a sentimental attachment for, or thought of as highly valuable for financial or other reasons....it's worse when it's someone else's, and you have to explain its loss.

If this is the case with an inanimate object, I can only imagine how it must be to lose a member of the family, or one's spouse.... Loss, an inescapable, universal, and yet uniquely painful part of existence...

How different is reality from what we plan....The day before Deepavali we spent downstairs bursting crackers with my neighbours' family and the newlywed couple, who traditionally spend the festival with the bride's parents. We went to sleep at 11.30 pm and an hour later got a call that one of our friends in the family quiz group that we belong to, had died of a sudden and massive heart attack, at the age of 51. We went there and did a lot of arrangements as a tremendously shocked wife and daughter just could not cope. We returned home at 5 am and slept till 8.30, when I lit the lamps without feeling in the least festive.

I called my sis in law to speak to her before she left for Mumbai to visit her family; she told me that my childhood friends' father (both the parents and the son and daughter live in Bangalore) had passed away the previous night and that since they got the answering machine at our place they thought we were still in the US.

My friends' father was over 70 and his death didn't strike me as tragic in the way that the younger man's did, with teenaged children and the mother, and aged parents, left to fend for themselves. The guy refused to take care of himself after he had a heart attack several years ago and lived, ate,smoked and drank to the hilt. He had a quick exit...but his duties to his family remain unfulfilled.

It is strange situation, in that since these are friends and not relatives one has to carry on with one's festival and receive visitors as usual when one is not feeling at all in the mood for it...

Well, by now I am reconciling to the fact that such opposite things do co-exist in the real world and we have to deal with it. We decided not to visit either family in the evening but visited other friends who were celebrating. Tomorrow we will visit the bereaved families.

Weird how I could spend a festive evening while my mind was still running on the time when my husband had his heart attack and how easily things could have turned out very differently if we had not been lucky....

I am in such a funny frame of mind. I cannot articulate how I feel right now; it's all mixed-up and strange....one of the weirdest festival days of my life.