Sports have been the first and most beloved drug I have come across. Its saved me from the brink of many an abyss. I've had the privilige of meeting many personalities at the courts and grounds. Vivek (uncle) is one of them. Uncle in (brackets) because on the court, we were all just players and there was the score that kept us on level. Vivek was in his mid 40s i think when we first started playing together. Great player, impeccable footwork and a backhand slice shot that would just die in the dreaded corner and kill any dreams of recovering that shot and your dignity, if any.
Around this time, which was maybe 15 years back, Vivek's father one day walked onto the court. Maybe in his early 80's. Army officer. He steps onto the court and hits a few balls, has a rally with his son. I see the father-son mirroring, the gait, the swoop. I felt awe and tinge of jealousy.
Last couple of years, Sood Uncle (Vivek's father) would be wheeling around the complex, waving back or not waving, at his prerogative. I'd always wave. He passed away last week. At 94 years old.
The day of the last rites, with my parents over at uncle's, i sat in the living room, going about my tortured writer/director routine; which is basically a lot of caffeine and staring intently at a screen, wondering what order to watch my 56 tabs of Youtube.
Let's say I was in limbo. As I've been doing that last week, I pick up the bhagvad geeta, and open it to a random page; a trick told to me by another 'writer/director'. Most days it hadnt made sense. Today, it said something to the effect that a man who cannot do his duty is not much of a man, but merely exists. I think meaning is to be found in anything if you're really looking for it. If there's anything I pride in being; what if only in my deepest of core, is being a man. I decide I will go for Vivek's father's his last rights.
He, being a veteran of 2 wars, was bestowed with wreaths marking each of his posts and postings. After the 6th wreath, he wasnt visible, only the wreaths. All this while, Vivek stood patiently, knowing the order of things. Uncle's wife, fortunately not a war widow, her posture upright as she looked on from her stretcher, knowing her husband's life was taken by the only foe mankind is powerless against, the circle of life. Much pride glowed from her, her family and from the pyre.
As the pyre was lit, I dissociated from the gathering and stood at a distance. I felt the sunlight streaming in had a golden hue, even though there was a heaviness in the air, as happens when a soul departs. I recall there being three phases to the light and the heaviness, both exhanging their nature and being, as the light evening light dimmed, the air lightened, as the soul ascended its carriage turned to ash, dust and smoke.
It took me a month to come back to this post to finish it. Things in my own life are being processed and evaluated in an unprecedented way. But I do hope when I go, there is this exchange of heaviness and light and the natural beauty and order is restored in this poetic way, as I observed.
At such gatherings, I've seen the conversation is either surface level, or with a level of levity and joi de vivre which is our attempt at assuaging signs that this is to happen to us at some point in the uncertain future.
As attendees departed, while at the gates where the vehicles were, my friend's mother asks me what my plans were this remaining evening. I blurt "I'm so starkly aware at the finiteness of time that I will go home jogging just to feel alive'. The puzzled look on her face did not abate even while she got into her car and left.
I did not jog home, even though I said I would. Its been a month since then and I'm trying to do more of what I say i would. The days I do, i sleep deeper, dream vivider but waking is still decided by the side of the bed. Will take time but soon even that will be as Aurelius said, "what more is to be said when the eyes open but i am a man and I have a life to live.." . I paraphrase. Apologies again aunty.
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