Dies NOBODY DIES

Sreekumar K

It had been a week but I hadn’t decided whether to visit the family not. Even if I visited them I would not go alone, Ramani or George would come with me.

Of course, the day of the funeral was the best day to go, but we all came to know about it too late. It was not exactly a rainy evening but it was still drizzling.

Now, a week later, I doubted if there is any point in going. I was not that close to him either. In fact, we were only acquaintances who met regularly at the city poetry club every month.

He was an electrical engineer, retired from the KSEB. I had a certain dislike for all those who worked for that department. But my tirade against his poetry had nothing do with it. Sasikumar had asked me one day whether I had known him for long. I hadn’t. In fact, I met him only after I joined the poetry club a month ago.

Both George and Ramani agreed to come with me. Sasikumar also felt that someone should visit the family at least now.

My car had been sent for service. So, I borrowed Sasikumar’s car. I am not used to driving auto gears, auto transmission to use the right term. But somehow I was managing.

“His daughter also writes,” said George.

“Yeah, she is a better poet than him. I met her at the Mathrubhumi Literary Fest. She recited one of her poems. Three collections already, she is only 23,” added Ramani.

“Twenty-three. His only daughter? But he was pretty old, right?” I wondered.

“.No, he married quite late and they got a daughter ever much later. The newspaper said he was only 66. That is young nowadays. My grandfather is turning ninety-four this month,” said Ramani.

“Did you like his poems. I could never enjoy his poems when I read them or heard them.” I turned back to see what their faces might tell me. I was willing to face it.

It was no secret that I used to change the poetry sessions into a cockfight whenever he was there. Not that I didn’t go hard on the other poets. I had earned a bad name in that too. But, he was my chief pleasure.

Even a few days before his death he had read out, rather recited, one of his poems in the monthly poetry meet. It was titled FLOW. I found it very pretentious. I was not sure whether he did live as he advocated in his poems. But they never do.

How many of the Great British Romantics really thought about the colonies? All of them were criminally insensitive. Even Rudyard Kipling referred to us as ‘the white man’s burdern’. I don’t allow my nephew to watch The Jungle Book. I hated his poem IF, but of course for other reasons.

“I had asked him to bring out a collection several times. He said no one would buy. That is also true. I am left with only four more copies of my short story collection. I printed 300 copies and sold only seventy. The rest were given to friends as gifts,” said Geroge.

True. I also got two or three copies of his book, ‘Both Ways Uphill’. Not a bad work. But who cares! Poetry sells more. Ramani had brought out four collections and won several prestigious awards. She gets invited to almost all the literary fests in India. She is fishing for some fellowship now. I found her poetry highly obscure.

The car left the city and went into the suburbs. Thiruvananthapuram is no big city. It is only a big town. Fifteen kilometers in any direction and you see pastoral life. Rural life.

There were paddy fields on either side hedged in by very tall coconut trees. A stream ran along our road and then disappeared under it at a culvert and came out from the other side. This would be where he used to go for walks with his daughter. Beautiful countryside. None of these appeared much in his poetry.

“He had had two surgeries earlier and so this does not come as a shock to his family. My neighbour used to work with him. One thing he said about him is that this man was clean. Not corrupt in any way. He has two flats in the city, but it is absolutely his own money. Ironically, for the same reason, no one in his office liked him,” said Geroge.

“I expect him to be so. He was a soft mannered person but very strong-willed too,” I said.

At the very next junction, as Sasikumar had instructed us, we turned into a narrow road. Not a residential area. Just like a typical Kerala Village. It was easy to find the house. A poster showing his picture put up by the neigbours was still there.

His daughter was in the garden, straightening up some flower pots that the visitors had upset. She greeted us politely and asked us to walk in.

We went in and sat down. No one knew what to say. So, I asked the daughter what she was doing. She had taken a PG in zoology and was preparing for JRF. I told him that she was known among us as a writer.

Her mother was rather quiet, dark patches were still around her eyes. She spoke in a soft tone and asked us who each of us were.

“He used to tell me about you all. He was very particular about attending the monthly meeting. He would postpone anything but not this.”

She repeated our names and asked what we were doing. Ramani said she was a Homeopath, George said he taught at the University, She called me by name and asked me how my business was doing. She said her husband used to talk a lot about me.

Then again there was nothing to talk about. His daughter, Susmitha, brought us tea and snacks.

While sipping the hot tea, I felt a searing pain somewhere inside as if the hot tea had found its way into some deep crevices of my being.

I coughed and excused myself and went out. I went on coughing outside in the garden.

The garden looked quite old, mostly exotic plants, rare ones.

I stood there a while longer and wondered why I was so hard on him as a poet. He was just an old man finding some solace and comfort in the applause he sought and got. Most people enjoyed his poems. They were quite metrical though the rhyming was laboured.

But there was no real reason to take on him so regularly at every meeting.

Anyway, now it is all over. I walked towards where the funeral pyre had been. Rituals were over and there was a young happy coconut tree, its baby fronds wet in the rain and swaying in the wind.

I stood there and apologized.

No, there was no excuse for what I had done. I walked back.

I went back in and finished the tea rather carefully. We asked a few questions about where he used to work. He had worked a long time at Idukki and the family also stayed there for long. Susmitha went to school there.

George stared at me signaling that it was time to go. As if on cue, we all got up and moved towards the front porch.

His wife asked me to stay.

She went in and brought out a folder full of poems.

“He was planning to bring this out. He wished to ask you to write the introduction. Will you have the time, sir?”

I took it from him as if it was her newborn baby. My heart skipped a beat.

“He has set aside some money to get it published. We would like to do that.”

“Oh! Did he really say I should write the introduction.”

“Yes, he wanted to surprise you, he once told us.”

I found it hard to walk properly. My legs had gone numb and week. I didn’t have the courage to look at the others.

We said goodbye to the family and got into the car. I asked George to drive.

I looked at the folder.

It did pulsate.

I was relieved when Ramani took it from me.