SIX FEET UNDER

I entered the place and had a hertz welcoming me…! Is the funeral to happen later sometime today, I thought? No, it’d just begun as I stepped into the church.

It was yet another Sunday and as per my usual routine I reached the church (that I generally go to) at around 10:30 in the morning. I was taken aback to realize what was going on inside…went in, paid my respect, prayed for the family and for the soul to rest in peace, sat there for a while through the prayer session and moved out, with all kind of thoughts and questions in my head – those that have never been answered till date, and probably will never be!

The most unpredictable of things that can ever happen is ‘death’! None knows when we’ll be dear to God (an acceptable and subtle way of putting it)! Waking up to death news leaves you mentally paralyzed for the rest of the day, or perhaps for the many days that’d follow. The void of losing your near and dear ones remains and all that you’re left with is memories!

When tomorrow is a myth and life is so fickle, I keep wondering - why are people so rigid and why do many of their actions make little or no sense??!! Fights for/over money/property, honour killing, issues over love and arranged marriages, ego clashes, impatience over petty things, divorces, infidelity, harassments in many forms, discrimination on the basis of caste, religion, creed, etc.and I can just go on…! Weren’t things way too easier years ago? Are all the good virtues disappearing? Why are people getting more materialistic these days? Is money more important than family? Is one’s religion, caste, looks, status more important than the joy one gets from togetherness? And these are not just rhetorical questions, mind you!

Siblings, who have grown together, hate each other, because for some senseless reason one feels he deserves more than the other! How more fragile can relationships get? He/she does not mind having an illicit relationship with another post marriage; what about the spouse waiting at home? Oh… that ‘better’ half perhaps is in search of another half than the existing one (huh)! Well, are they born with a conscience that decay and die completely by the time they grow? Or was the marriage itself a disaster from the word ‘go’? Is infidelity the right answer to it? I do not think so! Why not put in genuine efforts to make the marriage work? I stood dumbstruck when a guy colleague of mine comes to a party with a lady and a kid - ahem hold on please – this lady is another colleague and the kid, her niece! They’d seem like a family to any stranger, and to us…well, we know what happens behind the scenes! BTW my colleague’s wife and daughter make a wonderful wallpaper on his laptop [ :­-@ wow!...What love!].

What pleasure does one derive from harassing people? Yeah…one good thing that’s happened is, it’s easier to explain who a sadist is – just point out to your boss (exceptions to be excluded from the category with utmost consideration and respect please) - one of the easier examples that could be stated.

A few years back, when I had just stepped into college and on one of those weekends when I was chatting with my father, he told me something that made no sense to me then. He said, “…whatever said and done my dear, it is the person that matters and NOTHING else! And you are remembered for what you are. Strive to be a better human being. Be true in whatever you say and do.”  Trust me, now, I swear by every word that he’d told me! I had this inscribed in my mind and eventually as days and years passed, every word that he’d uttered then made sense to me! Because at the end of the day, when you are six feet under, NOTHING else really matters…!