Short Story: Farewell at a Funeral

Srinivasan R. narrates a moving tale of how each one of us views death and the person who died differently.

He died early in the morning. It was quick and probably painless. In the seventy-odd years of his existence, almost all of which he spent grounded in the same place where he died, he had grown to be some sort of local legend. People came to him to settle disputes, valued his advice from matrimony to money, sought parental guidance, and beseeched him with those things which are normally reserved for men whose statues stood on pedestals at road junctions. And he gave his wisdom without inhibitions to all who sought it, including his most famous one, ‘Don’t go to America, all good things are right here.’ When pressed to point out where exactly, he simply replied ‘here’.

The family had about an hour or so for private mourning. His sons recovered from the shock and consoled their mother. An ambulance brought him home and laid him inside an ice box with wheels, in the drawing room of his small apartment. Once the ambulance orderlies departed, the family approximated the directions to turn the box so that his head pointed south, as custom demanded it, and lit a lamp near his head. Ironical for a man who hated air conditioning and disliked Vastu. His wife sat on a cane chair by his legs with the same puzzling expression on her face ever since she married him, as her two sons ran between rooms taking condolence calls and making funeral arrangements. Guests started pouring in almost immediately after he was brought home. In fact, they were already waiting for him as the news spread.