Death in Slow Motion

In the course of one of my many sleepless nights recently, I did what I usually do when I can’t sleep: I watched television shows and movies, I read (or tried to read one of my books), I snacked periodically and I read the internet on relay. I don’t quite know how to explain the last one. When I’ve not slept for days at a time, I find myself reading something, an article in the news, a piece of analysis, something that links me to something else, which then links me to something else, and so on. Before I know it, I’m somewhere, lost in the recesses of the world wide web, reading something that I would normally never have stumbled upon. In just such a way, I had the chance to read the interview of a Hollywood celebrity, an extremely well respected actor, given a few years after the death of his equally famous wife. The actor, who, it should be noted, is several years older than I am, gives a devastatingly mundane account of reaching the hospital and trying to convince busy nurses, security guards and orderlies to allow him to see his wife. He also talks about receiving the worst possible news about his wife’s condition, all the while wondering just how young the doctors were. Something in the entire account, which is incredibly raw in his grief, moved me. A tragedy like the sudden death of a person is also an incredibly quotidian one for a million reasons: everybody dies, there are tons of tiny, silly details to take care of, everybody will want your attention so they can express their sorrow over your grief to you, someone will wear something inappropriate, people who perform services at the funeral have to be paid, there will be at least a dozen relatives who will ask about the inheritance at the most inopportune moment. At the time of someone’s dying, you expect the world to stop, as if it too has been stunned. In the movies, this always happens. There is slow motion, people step back in reverence, instrumental music plays as you walk alone in your grief and heartbreak. In the real world, none of this happens. When someone dies, they just die. Everybody else is still alive.

I remember clearly being told about the deaths of all three of the people who I have lost. (Those I considered close) This is bizarre to me. I can barely remember what I ate yesterday. I often joke that I would forget my own mother’s name if it wasn’t tattooed on me. I have no memory whatsoever. And yet, these memories are clear to me. Maybe not all the details, but enough to surprise me. I was 13 when my great grandmother died. The year before, someone I had been very close to lost his father. I remember being a bystander and being deeply, deeply sad. When it happened in my home… well there was quite a bit of comedy. In the final months of her life, my great-grandmother had to be institutionalized as we at home no longer had the tools to take care of her well; she needed full time medical intervention. When my uncle walked into our home that morning he spoke in whispers to my mother. I imagine they hugged, maybe cried, I can’t remember. He then said to me in my mother tongue that she had died. In that language, the phrase for she has died is very close to she has become well. My uncle and mother then proceeded to stare at me dumbfounded as I whooped and hollered in celebration. At her funeral, which was a very Hindu affair (despite my complete and utterly irreligious nature and militant atheism, I do come from a somewhat religious background), more hijinks ensued. It might seem to the casual reader that I am being disrespectful and irreverent. That is not my intention, but the behaviour of rather a large number of my relatives was nothing short of absurd. Screaming, crying women, who barely knew my great-grandmother, flung themselves on the ground and beat their chests with ‘grief’, while the immediate family of the deceased looked on in stunned silence. My great-grandmother was in her 90s. She had lived a full life, seen all her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She was a dignified old lady, the kind of person they simply don’t make anymore. Seeing her bed-ridden in the last few months of her life, had been all the more painful, because of the majestic way she had lived her life. Her passing, though awful for us, was also comforting; because she was no longer in pain and we could remember her the way she would want to be remembered. And yet, here was this strange relative of ours screaming in ‘shock’ at the sight of her body.

I have more fascinating, thoroughly unexciting storied like that one about the funerals of my father and grandmother. Perhaps at another time, I will share them. So, here’s the thing, this lengthy blog post was about making a point: there is usually very little poetry in tragedy.