SAMY'S OMNIPRESENCE

This is a narration in the first person about a series of encounters of the same pattern faced by the protagonist. This reinforces the belief that there are good souls around us always to protect us.

It had rained over the last few days. Though not a heavy downpour, the rains had been slow and steady, but with significant pauses in between. But on that day, the sky looked overcast, and it had rained lesser. It was a shade windy too, not of the disturbing or dislocating type, but something that was much slower, smoother and persistent. Everything around seemed gloomy. The sun was trying its best to pierce through the clouds to alleviate its hurt ego, but with little success. Every leaf drooped and looked sad as rainwater dripped from each. A hen and its little chickens, who would otherwise be occupied and brisk in moving around for food, walked in an orderly slow pace and it seemed to match the solemnity of the situation. Fish vendors who would usually shout out on their fishes and prices, went past the house silently after stopping for a while. The transport buses plying on the road in front of the house, slowed down as they went past. These vendors and the bus crew had known the house and the family for long. A large, flat-roofed tent had been put up for the burial ceremony in the forecourt of the house. Black cloth layers of the tent, slowly moved with the wind, while droplets of rainwater kept dripping from it.

The white sheet of cloth that covered the corpse of Uncle Samson (Samy) up to his neck, kept moving up from its regular position and was constantly attempting to cover his face. It was as though nature did not want him to see the unemotional things happening around him, although it very well knew that he had already breathed his last and that his eyes were literally closed. Jacob, his little grandson, stood beside the coffin, his eyes profuse with tears. Every time the wind drove the white sheet and closed Samy’s face, Jacob was diligently putting it back to where it actually was. One portion of Jabob’s shoulder was getting wet with rain as he was standing a shade outside the canopy boundary, but it appeared as though he was totally insensitive to it. I felt sad seeing Jacob cry. Samy was his grandfather. I did not see even a small part of that intensity of sadness in Jacob’s father, his siblings or their kids. The visitors were flowing in as the burial time was approaching.

Everyone in the family had stepped out of the home, and they were seated under the tent near the body. They were very normal and I could overhear them actively discussing about the will of the bequeathed property that Samy had left behind and how the next legal steps should be. Each of them was very well dressed and it really looked as though their focus was to present themselves very well in front of the crowd that was gathering there. I decided to stand near Jacob as I could not bear to see him be alone. All the servants of the house had also come out and were standing beside the family. The irony was that they looked sadder and more emotionally affected than the family. The people who lined up to see grandpa's body inched forward for paying their respects.

I noticed that Jacob’s father, who was seated a little far from where Jacob was, indicating and mentioning something to him. “Get the bronze lamp from grandpa’s room and keep it beside him”, he said again louder, thinking that Jacob wouldn’t have heard it due to the noise of the crowd of visitors moving in. Jacob was hesitant to move and so I told him that I would go and get it. I don’t think anyone noticed me moving towards the house as the visitors were still pouring in, and since the priest and his team had also arrived, everyone had got up from their seats as a mark of respect. I was very familiar with the rooms and corners in the house as I had spent a lot of time in there with Jacob, over the many years that I had known him. As I was getting into the house, I noticed that it was pretty dark inside, considering the overcast sky. I stood at the main door that opened into a hall and through the entry door of the middle room and the exit door in the same line, I could see a portion of the backside veranda, the door leading to the outside and a part of the well that served the house for all its water needs. I could see a very old person limp and walk away with the support of his walking stick with his back towards me. His gait seemed familiar to me. He was heading for the thick greenery that lay behind the house. I froze. I could feel a chill piercing through me. I could not move for a while, although behind me, in the forecourt, I could see that the whole crowd had got up again and that prayer had started. Who was the old person? What was I seeing? Was it Samy? I looked back to see if Jacob’s father was still looking out for what he asked for. He was. He was staring at me quizzically as though he was wanting to know what I was trying to do.

I mustered some courage and moved into the hall. Some sunlight was creeping in through a window on the far right, and I could see that the place was strewn with flowers, used candles, crushed plastic bags and pamphlets having Samy’s picture on them. I presumed that the body had been kept there from the day before until that day morning. Samy’s room was the second of the three rooms that were on the left side of the house. I moved forward through the dark pathway, lying between the rooms on the left and the rooms in the middle. I could hear the crowd singing the first song for the funeral service. I stepped into Samy’s room and could feel the unique odour that normally filled the air when he was around. I dismissed it that it could be from his bed on which he had spent several years. But the bedspread had been changed, and the room had been cleaned up. So, I felt a panic running through me with the odour dominating my thoughts. 

On the wall above one of the windows that was on the left side of the room, the stuffed image of the head of a theyyam artist (In North Kerala, there is an ancient ritual art form called theyyam, where performers, adorned in elaborate costumes and makeup perform trance-like dances that embody deities and ancestral spirits), stared down at me ominously. A taxidermy cheetah with a prowling mouth looked down from the top of the other window in the room. For a moment my eyes kept scanning these two images in quick succession. The sudden honk of a distant boat that was leaving the jetty on the Pampa River that was about a kilometre away, shook me. I moved further and spotted the lamp at a corner, close to the window that was on the left side of the room. Beside it was a cupboard, which was favourite for Jacob and me, as Samy always had something sweet inside for us to eat. Sweet thoughts of that, eased my tension a little. I moved forward and took the lamp. I thought I heard the gurgling sound that Samy normally made when he had accumulated phlegm inside his throat. I could also hear the tapping sound of his walking stick faintly at a little distance. It stunned me out of my wits. I suddenly felt a grip of someone’s hand on my shoulder pulling me back and I was drawn a few steps backward. Fear gripped me and as I was about to turn around and run, a huge full-size mirror that was part of a vintage dressing table, came down with a crash. It missed me by inches. The little energy that I had, drained out of me, and I almost fell, but the hand supported me. I looked up behind and in a flash, saw a man holding me. He had a long beard and an attractive moustache. I couldn’t recall of having seen anyone like him at our native village, over the many times I had been there. While I got up quickly and was about to run out of the room into the forecourt, I saw the man exit through the door of the middle room into the backside veranda and through the door leading to the outside. In a flash, there again was the same old person limp and walk with the support of his walking stick with his back towards me. Samy?? I could feel a piercing chill ride through me. I rushed out and joined the crowd again. An elderly person took the lamp from me and placed it close to Samy's body, after lighting it.

The burial prayer was on in full swing. The priest was leading it with his sonorous voice. Women from the neighbourhood and those women who were servants in the house had their faces partially covered with a part of their sarees, while they quietly wept. The two daughters of Samy and the daughters-in-law, stood like rock pillars sans emotion, each wearing beautiful modern sunglasses. The coffin already had so many beautiful wreaths kept around it. “Jerusalamen inba veede eppol njaan angnu cherum?......”(Jerusalem is my home of joy, when will I reach there?) went the Malayalam song. Some sang it so emotionally that they couldn’t sing it properly, a few murmured, a few just moved their lips while others stayed quiet. I was still coming out of the shock of the encounter in the room. The deacon was swinging the censer (a swinging vessel with frankincense used in Christian church services) in huge arcs as the prayer reached a crescendo. A cat that was sitting close by at a corner of the entry door, got its head swaying in tune with the arc of the censer. In a short while, the prayer was done. Somewhere on the right side of the house, I heard a huge ‘thud’. An elderly person went over to check and found that it was a jackfruit that had decided to call it quits. Everyone got ready to move to the cemetery which was a good one-hour ride by car from the house. I could hear wails as the coffin was lifted and placed into the mortuary van. Samy was leaving us. Samy must leave as he had probably very few who genuinely gave him love. I stuck with Jacob and got into one of the many cars that had come there for the prayer service. All these cars and the vans parked around, were to head for the cemetery for the final service.

The funeral cavalcade moved at a decent pace. On the road where the house was located, people thronged both sides to pay their last respects. The mortuary van moved further into a broader road that ran through a string of paddy fields. My seat was next to the car window. I was in my eighth standard that time and was at my native village in Kerala for my summer holidays. I never knew even in my remotest thoughts than my summer holidays would be this eventful.

As the car lunged forward, the wind was making love with my hair constantly as beautiful memories of Samy and Jacob, kept kissing me emotionally. My thoughts drifted and wound back to those moments I had earlier spent with Jacob.   I had known Jacob for a few years by now. Almost every year, my ancestral home in Kerala was where I would spend my summer holidays. My father and mother would leave me with my uncle and family, (my father’s elder brother and family) and return to Bombay which was our base. This gave me enough time and freedom to explore the native terrain. A big bunch of my cousin sisters would be there, a few who were part of the ancestral home and the rest who had come down for their holidays from different parts of India and from the Gulf. All of them were elder to me and I always found it very difficult to get their company, either for playing or for even a small conversation. There were no cousin brothers. And that is where Jacob came in and filled the void. He was a little boy like me, from the neighbouring house. He was someone who had spent all his life in our native village, unlike me, and had a very good knowledge of every nook and corner of the village. He was a diffident boy like I was then, and we had found it easy to connect with each other. Most of the time, through the one and a half month that I was there every year, was spent either at his home or along with him outside, as we roamed through the village. 

Towards the later years, we were outside more than at his home. Jacob had sensed that the climate inside his home was toxic and materialistic and being alfresco gave him solace. Our favourite spot was the river side where we would sit and watch the boats engaged in fishing and in sand collection. Sometimes Jacob would take me up a coconut tree that was bent and overlooking the waters of the river and we would sit and watch the sunset from there. We enjoyed roaming around in the village, through the paddy fields and the path adjoining the river studded with mango and cashew nut trees. We also climbed the little hills and walked through the long stretch of rubber and pepper plantations. When we were tired, we would sit under a mango tree and Jacob would fetch a few ripe mangoes for us to relish. He was quick in moving up and getting this done.

We both had had a special attachment for Samy. Although there were shades of sadness that dressed his face always, his fun-loving nature often showed up when in the company of Jacob and me. He loved giving us an audience when we played ludo or carrom. He would laugh in excitement and clap with his feeble hands. There was that small antique wooden cupboard near his bed in his room where he spent a major part of his life, once he needed assistance to move. Whenever we snuggled close to him and spent our time, talking to him or sharing humour, he would give the key and ask us to open the cupboard. We always had surprises inside as Samy would always stock the cookies, toffees and chocolates that every family who came down to visit him would bring along. I always wondered why they brought these for an old person who was diabetic.

It was Jacob who took Samy outside for small walks through the gradually sloping terrain of the plantations. I would join them often. Although he knew about the risk of walking through that terrain, he was very enthusiastic to join us whenever we went down to play in the brook. We supported him while he slowly walked on the gravel path with his walking stick, and with the little shrubs and flowers caressing him. We took his wheelchair along always as sometimes he preferred to sit on it and cover the distance. There was a brook than ran through the rubber and pepper plantation, not far away from the house and Samy loved this spot, to sit and listen to the winds, the birds and the crickets. This was our favourite spot, and we had been there, innumerable times. Once we reached the brook and settled grandpa on his chair, under a huge mangium tree, we would get into the brook and play in the water. We would splash the water on each other and some portion of it would shower on Samy too, which he enjoyed with the laughter of a little child. I remember the way he would laugh. I could see his decayed teeth and a curved scar on his face expand whenever he laughed. But these never dimmed the beauty of his smile and laughter.

Our last visit to the brook was what had shaken me the most. It made me realize that although Samy, who appeared to us, as a weak person, and who found it difficult to move independently, had a mental alertness of the highest order. Samy was seated on his wheelchair close to the pathway that was running right through the plantation, and I was standing beside him, closer to a large teak tree that offered a lot of shade. We were watching Jacob try his hand at fishing. It was early June and the rains had brought in a good flow of water in the brook and along with it a large swarm of fish. I was deeply absorbed into what Jacob was doing, as the small net he had spread was always bringing in a decent catch which he was emptying into a vessel he had brought from his home. I thought I heard a cracking sound, but I did not lose my focus on the fishing. The next thing I knew was that Samy had pushed me with his walking stick and I had rolled over on the ground, just in time to stay clear of a large dead branch that had come down with such force from the tree from a huge height. Once it hit the ground, the splinters spread and fell over a large area. Nothing hit either Samy or me. I lay there for a while, while Samy looked at me with a happy face that I was fine. I could not believe that he had heard the sound, looked up and reacted this fast.

I had a sudden jolt when the car went over a ditch on the wet road. I swam out of my past and realised that we had reached the cemetery. The place was studded with huge trees, and it offered a fine canopy. A large crowd who could not make it to Samy’s home had already assembled at the cemetery. I could see people from my home in the crowd. They had come to Samy’s house too for the prayer. Almost everyone in the crowd had brought a wreath along. The body was moved to the burial site in the cemetery and the remaining part of the burial service continued. It was short with a few more songs and a closing prayer. Finally, Samy’s body was lowered into the pit. I held Jacob tight as he broke down again. I could hear muffled wails around us. Samy bid goodbye to the mundane and materialistic world that surrounded him always with greed and selfishness. Nature took him back into its serene lap, filled with lush greenery, the chirps of birds and authenticity of the earth.

Jacob had just stepped aside to meet a few relatives, and I walked further into the cemetery, as I had an interest in studying the several tombstone designs that were there. There were many that had some beautiful and intricate work in marble and granite. It is ironical that we humans find it to hard remain ordinary even after we leave this world. Even the cemetery seemed to have the same rat racing tendencies inside it, with one trying to outshine the other. I realized that had walked some distance when I saw that I was getting closer to the cemetery wall. I was a little far now, from where the crowd was. I didn’t know whether it was just a feeling, but in that empty space around me, I thought I heard the tap of Samy’s walking stick close by. As I turned to check what it was, I tripped backward. Everything else happened in that span between my beginning to fall down and the moment when my back hit the ground. I saw a man with a thick stick raised and, in a position, to hit, and a huge snake halfway through from its tree drop. As soon as it fell on the ground and just when it took off in its lunge towards me, the man successfully hit its head with the stick. By the time I was sitting up partially, he followed it with few more strikes, and the snake lay dead in front of me.

Before I could come to terms with what had happened in front of me, I saw man walk away taking the snake with him. In a short while, he disappeared through a cracked opening in the wall that had been probably used by the public for long as a short cut pathway. At the far right end of the cemetery, where the grass had grown tall, as they had not been trimmed for long, I saw the same old person whom I had seen earlier, with a walking stick and having the same gait, walk away from me. I wanted to call out to Samy, but I was still feeling numb.

Jacob came running as I had been away for a while. He was stunned when I shared the happening with him. We walked back to the crowd slowly, with heavy hearts, full of the thoughts of Samy. It was sad for us to leave him behind. But then, we told ourselves that Samy would always be with us. He is omnipresent.