Grieving
Day 3 now of our dear one Chitra Nagesh’s passing. And I notice how our relationship has changed for all of us. For some Chitra Nagesh has become a guide, for others an artist-mentor, another a dear friend and confidante. Somehow with cacophony of social interactions fading out, new facets of her are being revealed.
The nature of grief is also changing. For me it is thick and sluggish and I notice how I skirt what I am afraid to face-- the real tangible loss of a person, of turning tenses from present to past. Sleep is disordered. Appetite even worse. And it is so for others too-- flashes of memory, restlessness, listlessness, a deep discomfort, an ache. And for some old griefs emerging and streaming into this. And yet others a loosening enough to grieve.
In this space, far away from the demands of paper-loving beauracracy, from the demands of organising rituals and managing relatives, I have the privilege of noticing grieving.
Bayo Akomolafe had written once about bringing his father's body back to his hometown. His father was a diplomat. As the car carrying his dad passed through his home town, he noticed folks running by the car, crying loud. And wondered-- do they all know him?
To later discover that mourning is a way we acknowledge the sacredness of each life lived. Not as a social entity with a legal name performing certain set of functions, whose passing only evokes-- oh poor she and poor their family. But as an integral thread of the fabric of life, a thread now loosened from the sheet affecting us all.
Grieving is a slowing down of life process.
If the physical body returns to earth through a cremation or burial, then grieving is the larger composting process for the subtle body to return to the richness of its fragrances, to layer black earth on the community --to regenerate and nourish it. And storytelling the warmth that catalyses the process.
When I notice the horrors of this year's pandemic, it is not just the number of lives lost. But this fear that so many are lost that lives have become congealed into numbers filling one register or another to bemoaned as a statistic.
There is real danger of loss in this; a much bigger catastrophe waiting.
In a fast-paced must-multi-optioned world, where we discard a dress because it has a stain or a tear, a fruit because there is a spot in the corner, a furniture because well, the colours of the wall are painted anew, and ten minutes into the movie judge and discard it because there are other OTT options, a relationship upended because well, we can
Not because of the delusion that you can choose but because we believe that our choices affect only a direct set of individuals and objects. Only this and no more.
And then sit smug in the self-righteous belief that I use a cloth bag, and eat organic vegetables, and passionately blame them -- sit in climate change protests, celebrate World Environment Day by clicking green pictures, bemoan coal-mining and felling of trees and oh my park
While lives pass into numbers, unnoticed, unattended.
There is no That without This.
And I like to believe Chitra would have loved to sit with us here now as we compost. She writes in her blogpost titled "Web of Life" at the beginning of this year:
"The feeling of this connection to all creatures of this planet has been growing stronger and deeper within me, more than ever before. (This connection is magnified tenfold occasionally, when the outline of the physical body blurs in my mind.)
...
My connection reaches out to all beings in my environment. The ever present crow community, the pigeon gang, the chirping mynah on the kitchen window sill and my little squirrel friends keep me company through the day.
The tinkling leaves of the peepal outside my balcony add to the lazy somnolence of post lunch bliss. The huge cows lazily roaming the street, nod their head with a sudden snort and observe me sagely when I step out onto my balcony. And of course the ever vigilant street dogs guarding their territory, keep up a constant tune with their barks in the background. My special bond with all the plants that we have in our balcony, completes the circle of connectivity.
...
How can I not include the connections through social media, which brings many interesting and sensitive human beings into contact with each other and me. (I go slow with technology, taking tentative steps. However, there are some deep connections in this too!)"
Read her post here.
