HALF MOON
This book is purely fictional in nature and all persons appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to any real person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
© Pritpal Kaur (Author). All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced by any means, transmitted or translated into another language without the written permission of the author.
CHAPTER1
Morning was heavy, hot and humid. Not too bad, but as hot as the first week of April in north India can be. Mehar was terribly tired and so was the whole family, which included her mother, husband, her twenty year old son and her five year old daughter. Covered in white sheet from head to toe, the dead body of her father Janab Singh lay on huge blocks of ice in the middle of the courtyard. His lean feet were visible, as she had always remembered them since her childhood days; long toenails with closely knit fingers, one of the nails blackened due to some injury he might have had during his childhood. She had never asked him about this blackened toe nail, but always looked at it and wondered what could have caused it.
The tangibility of life would soon become a figment of the past, forever merged into oblivion. Physical possibility of him being there, whenever she needed some balance, some resemblance of stability in her ever turbulent life would become a mere photographic memory in the portals of her mind. After suffering one of the worst forms of malignant tumor in his thigh, he breathed his last that morning at her home in Raipur. They had brought his remains to his home in GangaNagar in Rajasthan to perform his last rites.
It was the same house, where Mehar was born almost forty-five years ago to Surjit,who already was a mother to a twelve year old son. This second times she had the luxury of being attended by a lady doctor. However she later admitted that even the presence of the obstetrician did not lessen the pain of childbirth, as she had expected. Now the pain of losing her life partner of more than sixty five years was not really visible on her large weather beaten frame. She was talking incessantly. The topic of conversation pivoted around the last two months, which she had spent at her daughter’s home, where her husband was nursed majorly by her grandson Ranjit.
Ranjit had completed his graduation that year. He was not very sure of his future plans, hence was killing his time working for a news channel. This gave him freedom from the boredom of staying at home at all times and some money too to call his own. Althou
He had acquired some traits of his late father, which annoyed his mother sometimes to the extent of feeling a strong urge to blame him for acquiring them, but in many ways he had taken more after his mother. The most common trait between the two was being very straight forward in mannerism and speech, a state which generally did not attract much in terms of social assets.
The morning ushered in more relatives and friends. Those who had brought in the corpse had lingered on as a mark of solidarity and respect to the departed. Now everyone was waiting for Bhai Mohan Singh to make his appearance. He was to bathe and prepare the body and then help Ranjit perform the last rites of his grandfather. No one talked about the son of the departed soul. Everyone present was aware that the parents and their son were not on talking terms with each other.
Surjit had not slept for a single second through the night. She had spent it sitting on a chair beside her husband’s body. Her brother, Gurucharan Singh tried to get her to rest her weary soul for some time but she continued to talk with her relatives and friends who were more than willing to gather all the information. For the last two months Surjit Kaur and Janab Singh were at their daughter’s house and there were issues they seemed interested in. Since for the last two months Surjit Kaur and her husband Janab Singh were at their daughter's house and there were many things they wanted to know.
Around eight in the morning Bhai Mohan Singh arrived. He noticed that there were two sets of shrouds rather than a single one. In her perplexed state Surjit Kaur had asked two of her friends to prepare them. After some deliberation it was decided to use both the sets. As the sheet was removed from Janab Singh's face, the women gathered around his body to have a glimpse of him for the last time. Their faces gradually acquired traces of solemnity. Majority of them were old maidens. It was obvious from their body language that they had done this act many times in their lives. Death as well as the birth for them was not a novelty. This death too announced on them without touching them deeply. They observed the deceased closely and commented that Janab Singh looked exactly like his elder brother Nayab Singh, who had died of cirrhosis of liver about twenty years ago.
Bhai Mohan Singh asked for warm water and cleared a part of the courtyard for the final ritual bath. The women had vacated the
area for the men folk and had moved indoors. Bhai Mohan Singh examined the body intently. It’s condition was clearly uncomplicated. The cancerous growth at the thigh had turned dark blue. Its ominous color was enough to declare the cause of the death. Though Janab Singh had suffered many serious illnesses during his lifetime, he survived each one of them due to his strong will power and care of his equally strong wife. However the tentacles of the cavernous cancer took him away.
Bhai Mohan Singh started reciting verses from Guru Granth Sahib. He bathed the body with great care, and scrubbed each and every part with soap before washing it thoroughly with warm water. The onlooker watched in stoic silence. They were speechless, especially those who had not seen him work before. He wiped the body dry and dressed it. He used all the pieces of clothing that were provided to him- both sets of shrouds, both shawls and finally the black and white hand woven cotton sheet. Surjit had a couple of these got woven a few years ago. Now she instructed Ranjit to get one out from the large tin trunk and cautiously kept the other for her personal use later, when her time would come.
As a concluding gesture, Bhai Mohan Singh covered Janab Singh’s head with a saffron head scarf. The piece of cloth that served as a scarf was generally provided to devotees in Gurudwaras, that however during his lifetime Janab Singh had never worn. He was one real hard nut where religious matter was concerned. Although on the insistence of his wife he did visit Gurudwaras often, he was critical of the ways of Bhais in general. Now death in its final act had restored his dignity, at the same time making him immune to such trivialities.
Finally the men folk called the women out. The stretcher was made of wood and dry grass. The body was carefully placed over it and secured with strings. The pall bearers placed it on the road in front of the house .A strong sense of piety pervaded the ambiance. They asked Surjit Kaur to pay her respects to him. Others followed. They put various denomination currency notes at the feet of the body and bowed. After this ritual, Bhai collected the money and proceeded to perform ardaas for the departed soul. They carried the stretcher onto an awaiting vehicle. The pall bearers along with some relatives alighted the same vehicle. Surjit Kaur, with her daughter Mehar and her son-in-law followed in a car. Thus began the last journey of this mortal world for Janab Singh. As they drove on
Mehar felt a sense of familiarity with the road. It was the same road that led to their farm. It was the same road which Janab Singh had taken to go for work almost daily during most of his sixty years of adult life.
It was the same road Mehar had seen innumerable times in her dreams, sometimes running to reach the farm, sometimes being driven by Janab Singh, sometimes trying to drive herself and finding difficult to shift gears, sometimes trying to hire a rickshaw, sometimes even reaching beyond the farm and then turning back to reach the farm. Wherever she was, at any part of the earth, at any juncture of her life, Mehar never ceased to dream about this land of his father.
She knew this road almost by heart. On the right was the small tributary of Gang canal which provided water to their farm. On the left side of the road, as the town began to fade, she recalled memories of her childhood when she would invariably see this huge idol of Shiva and would wonder who the worshipers of Shiva were. But as she grew older and learned to read, realization dawned upon her that it was a cremation ground.
Now she remembered it quite distinctly and was at once awestruck at the harsh and prosaic realities of life.
Things which were require at various stages of our lives are nearly always available at an arm’s length. All we have to do is to reach out.
