August Lives

August, 1888.

Death is a busy affair. Tears get wiped away in haste, last respects are laid to rest at cold feet and the idea of a smile is forgotten. That day, I was the wife who had lost everything in life. I was pitiable. I should have wailed and been distraught. The last time I would see my man, before he burned, I shouldn’t want to let go.

But, I laughed.

It began when they adorned my fragile hands with glass bangles- bangles that they will shatter in a moment. While shards of glass rained down on my feet, I started smiling. They tore away at the flowers in my hair and I thought of what it meant. I was young and a widow now and my smile widened to show teeth. 

You must forget the colours from your life, clothes and ornaments and must always have a fully shaved head to mark your widowhood, the women were telling me. A sudden wrist swung towards my face and landed in the space between my brows. It wiped away the vermillion mark and left a red comet tail on my forehead. I accepted the last of colour being swiped away from my life. The force of the act made my heavy head sway back and forth and that’s when the laughter began.

I remember thinking they would all talk about me for months at end. They would say I was possessed or mentally ill. Some would think the tragedy was too much for me to bear, while the others would wonder if I am safe to be allowed to live at the agraharam (Brahmin settlement) anymore. But what caused that wretched fever poor Swaminathan suffered? Who would have imagined it would kill him so soon? They would ask each other back and forth.

The first set of houses around the ancient Sivan temple tank are a tough place for a widow: You must never be seen by a Brahmin anymore; you must accept not being invited to any social gathering from now; the instructions continued relentless. I listened in silence, repulsed only by the imminent loss of my beautiful hair. Raji, my eight year old girl stood beside me the entire time refusing to leave even when the women stripped me. She was crying and had not bothered to wipe the tears away.

While rites and tradition dictated how the unseen soul shall pass away, there must have been uncomfortable understanding in everyone's minds at the funeral. Did they send silent prayers to the heavens to put Death a little away in their own lives? 

That was the first day of the floods. It rained incessantly, with the skies thundering and flashing in anger and refusal. The funeral pyre lay doused at the burial ground, they told me in whispers. To most, it seemed the time hadn't arrived for Swaminathan’s soul to transcend. His mortal remains lay hidden between stacks of wet wood that wouldn't burn to release him into the universe. In death, he lay waiting. The same way he lay waiting each night for my little Raji.

I laughed louder when they told me he wouldn't burn.

A week went by with rains that refused to cease. Celestial anger flooded the river which overflowed into the village. The water rushed into the burial ground that lay abandoned ever since my husband’s death. His body had been continually denied the right to end the cycle of life. It swept away the remains of his body that not even the scavengers would consume. The flood water receded into the assuaged river and the village came together to discuss what might have brought this wrath on the people. Their superstition zeroed in on my husband and the head priest proclaimed, “Swaminathan died the death of a sinner.” 

At home, I held my little one close as she cried. We were the only ones who knew his sin. Nobody will touch you now Raji. The Gods are with you, I told her. Her face was streaked by thin lines where grief and relief mingled.