A Happiness There Was

Death sat right before the aunt who’d always had a big fear of death
Like a monstrous black cat it was clearly visible to everyone
and audible too
But even then until a few moments before her death
Aunt remained as cheerful as ever

She was recounting the whole of her past as if it were a brief comedy
This part of the scene should be enough – where Uncle fell dead right in front of Aunt’s eyes
There was no one in the village
It was as if birds too had fled to the fields and forests along with the farmers
How would it have been to have just one living and one dead in the entire village
How would they have faced each other
Before life departs
it is a custom to carry the near-dead from the bed to the ground
Aunt could not do this though she thought about it a lot
She was alone
and there was no way she could have lifted Uncle
I’m not sure what she thought of before tilting the charpoy sideways
and rolling Uncle onto the ground

Now there was no one to pay heed to her crying
For the first time in her life she wept with no one paying her any attention
After noticing this strange fact she couldn\'t help breaking into laughter amidst her sobs
In spite of her long experience and practice in crying
Aunt could not cry though she wished to
She sat alive by the side of the dead
waiting for the sunset
Thus when the aunt who turned life into a joke
completed her own joke of a life at the immaculate stage of eighty-five
a few people laughed, a few sang songs and a few broke into tears

The old aunt is still very much in our lives
just as absurd, just as naive, just as rustic
but not visible anywhere any longer
Like a tree fallen by the ridge of a field
this fact is itself four years old now

Four years ago
there was a certain happiness in life

A HAPPINESS THERE WAS