So the end is here: my grandmother Kama died a few days ago. She was in a lot of pain and half unconscious for the last few days – and when she could speak, she’d said that she wanted to go – so there are no regrets from her perspective. It’s those of us who are left behind now who have to figure out ways of going on living. I’ve been lucky so far in that I’ve not had to deal with someone this close to me dying… but now I don’t know how to cope. Every morning when I wake up and remember that Kama is dead, that that’s the reason why I’m here in India – well, it hits me all over again. Right now, I can’t see how to reach “normal” (whatever that was) again. How does one cope with death anyway? Is there a route back from here?
It hasn’t helped that it has been chaotic here since, well, it was pretty chaotic when she was in the hospital, too. But death brings with it a frenzy of activity that momentarily takes your mind off the actual fact of having lost someone forever… and that’s what the last few days have been like. There’s the sheer physicality of having to deal with a body – suddenly transformed from a living breathing person with a personality into merely a thing – the minimum shastras (religious rites) that have to be performed, pictures selected for obits and a ceremonial lunch organized for next week to mark her passing.
I’m a heap of relief (that she is not in pain and that we don’t have to see her so), guilt (were we right to wish for a quick end for her?), sadness (because she’s not here anymore) and anger (I can’t explain this one… I just know that I’m angry with the world). You can imagine what it’s like living in close proximity with five other people who are as upset as I am: and the thing about India is that you get no space to yourself – everyone is with you all the time, they’re leaning on you and hanging onto you and touching you when all you want is to be left alone. This is bad enough when you’re on holiday but it’s a million times worse when you’re dealing to deal with emotions. I suppose people derive comfort from each other at times like this but it’s not my way to share my grief with people I don’t know intimately (and just because they happen to be relatives or have known my family for eons does not make them my intimates) – and I don’t know how to tell all the relatives and family friends who insist on visiting and calling and crying and hugging that all I want is some peace and quiet, preferably in a nice dark room somewhere far away from everyone here!
I can't bring myself to write about it yet but my next post will be on the funeral rites – I’ve never been to an Indian funeral before so I found it all fascinating. Maybe I’m truly an academic at heart but thinking about it in terms of how and why the customs are what they are was one way of distancing myself from what was going on.... I’m still not ready to deal with the fact that my grandmother doesn’t exist in any knowable form anymore.
