The Beginning and the End

 When the child comes to the world crying; the mother and the relatives would be smiling.

This is only occasion where the child’s tears bring cheers to the mother.

The End is entirely different. Except the deceased the others would cry (that also if the deceased’s deeds are to that level)

Both are of same nature – birth and death – same magnitude, same level – life starts and life ends. But the feelings are opposite.

Recently I attended a funeral.

Anatoly, one of our old employees, was the shop chief of Clay crusher. When we started the plant, his experience helped to stabilize the unit. He contributed whatever he could. After two years of plant operation he opted for retirement. Management was ready to extend his employment until he could perform. He opted to retire owing to health reasons. He was given a befitting farewell.

4^th of August 2014, he passed away. We went for the funeral. It was an old house. Around 15 ladies, some children and 5 men were there. The ambience told the sad story. All are waiting for the van. From the morgue the van came with the coffin. The coffin was off loaded and the cover opened for people to pay their last respect. Anatoly was dressed like a king. A cross is kept in the chest. Even the dead body also indicated the pain he came across. An Orthodox cross was kept there which will be positioned in the grave yard. The Cross which took the life of Christ became divine! The Orthodox cross contains three cross beams. The lowest foot rest one was slanted the top edge pointing the good thief and lower edge to the bad thief. Good and bad are always there and exist!

Two wreaths were kept in the foot side. His wife was standing in the head side; three other girls were also standing and sobbing. Everybody looked tired and devastated, but at the same time trying to adapt to the reality.

One woman had a bundle of hand kerchiefs and tying on the hands of the volunteers who would help in the rituals. There were only two men and the remaining were woman volunteers.

Anatoly was Godfather to Sasha. This Sasha met with an electrical accident and died; Anatoly was arranging for the funeral at that time in spite of his old age and sickness. I was there in that funeral also. I learnt what a genuine kind of man was Anatoly.

I asked Erlan, one of our shop chiefs, whether I could pay respect like our Indian custom. He said Ok. I went near to the coffin and touched his feet and brought the two palms together, the Indian way of showing respect. The wife and the others noticed this; I could not contain the tears from the eyes. The tears started rolling down uncontrollably. And I walked away from there to the car.  Modern society teaches us not to cry openly, but after all we are the weak human!