What's in a name?

11 July, 2006

Joy bubbled and effused the mood which prevailed that evening. The sun had started hiding its disc of rays causing the purple sapphire sky look greyish black. The bride, in her own way, chose to ignore the banters, while our home had already adorned the sensational vibe. The Kannans, should be highly relieved for they would soon accomplish the mighty task of seeing their daughter married to a worthy individual.

An event of marriage in a conventional south Indian town has perplexingly assumed a level baffling complexity, allowing families to cut corners in their pursuit of happiness and perpetually living in a world of stress and peer pressure. Why care about companionship and ponder the trivial question of life, its meaning and the role of marriage. We can blissfully clog our minds and immerse ourselves in mundane and trivial pursuits of getting into a wedlock before 26, bearing kids before 30 and live life completely before 40. Pursuing financial success shall be the only goal that we would carry until we rest in our graves. As the marriage is round the corner, it is worthwhile to bridle our minds and cease asking irresponsible questions and more so not stupefy elders by speaking your mind.

As one happy family, we were all gearing up for July 13, the "M-Day", and we would have never imagined even in our wildest possible dreams what the evening of 11th July would offer us.

Paappa - is how she is affectionately called - is one of the most responsible and loved soul in our compound. Short and dark, Paapa had the most beautiful incandescent eyes and her pink lips always curved in a smile like an inverted Australian boomerang.  Plaiting a curvy and curly hair can be a strenuous task and I believe she should have been spending an hour on it daily. I might be wrong. I once asked my wife - she was already on the second hour in straightening her hair, a rigorous intense daily ritual -  how much on an average does women spend on fixing their hair. Lucky me, my wife just had a hair drier in her hand and not an assault rifle. But unfortunately, I ended up listening to a long sermon on how should I try to be a gentleman. I would have definitely preferred the assault rifle. Paapa would have given me a beautiful smile, had I asked her this question. I wanted to ask her many questions and one among the many was to ask her what her real name is.

A mother of two beautiful and gorgeous kids, Paapa is always my mom's favorite for she would take care of our pondicherry home - when we are away - as if it is hers. Paapa is a house wife who has all the time in this world for her cute little kids and her husband Dharma who works for a small pharmaceutical company in the town outskirts. Seldom, the little family had visitors and all that Paapa had was her family while she was leading a content life which the Gods must have envied on.

Muffled cladestine whispers crawled our living room to pierce the clattering noises drumming out of joy and excitement. Flabbergasted, to find an infiltrated coup in our compound, my inquisitiveness turned wild. Short and dark Paapa, with her neatly plaited hair has no reason to be sitting on the streets with Dharma lying on the ground and comfortably burying his head on Paapa's lap.Like a strong wind blowing out a life in a candle immersing the place in a abysmal darkness, death spoke to us like a whiplash coming out a cruel master.

Chaotic frenzy filled the air and incomprehensible suggestions were flying around, Paapa was in complete control of the situation. When Dharma collapsed dead on the road, the unkind auto driver, refused her plea to carry him to a nearby hospital and whisked away cursing his ill-lucked customers and ended up throwing the corpse in front of our home. She had tried to undo Dharma's death by pounding and pressing his chest until she gave up and realized it has been a while before his life departed, waiting for none.

With help from a couple of family members we shifted him from the road to Paapa's home and laid him in the living room where the innocuous kids jumping on their dad, assuming he is in his deep slumber. The news of the death, in a compound that'll host a marriage in the next couple of days hit the superstitiously charged locality as a sign of bad omen. Few even spurted out their great theory rutted with inhumane attitude. A death can turn light into darkness and evade the mood of cheerful energy to cast its tentacles of gloominess and anxiety. Every death seems to be untimely. We have never lived enough!

Paapa's mind was racing fast and as she laid out instructions to people around her. She called for an ambulance to bring the corpse to Dharma's village. She packed basic essentials and fed her kids and made couple of calls to inform her family and friends. In all stillness, she sat in a chair looking at her home entrance for the ambulance to arrive. She calmed her friends and her old mom and urged them not to raise a whimper as that would forever spoil the exuberant mood of the impending marriage in the same compound.

While she prepared to leave with kids carrying her dead husband in the ambulance, she walked into our home and wished the bride good luck and apologized for the commotion. Not a word said, as people were taken aback on how swiftly she reacted to the situation in hand.  My heart bled profusely when Paapa apologized for having brought her dead husband into a house preparing for marriage, as she did not have any other place to go.  Haply, the terminated fate of his might change the destiny of the family, and the children might cease to witness the sacrifices that a father would dutily do, sealed is Paapa's dreams of building thier own small sweet home.

Paapa never returned back, but she had sent her brother to vacate the property, a month later. Among many other things, I wanted to ask him what Paapa's name is. I know I'm not going to receive the same smile that Paapa would have offered. I mumbled to myself and asked "What is Paapa's name? while the truck carrying the last memories of Paapa and her family quietly left the compound.