—Mysteries of the Afterlife

At the morgue, after the autopsy, the loss-of-blood examination, and the stitching back up—Harbart emerged wrapped in a sheet, looking quite neat and tidy, not grisly and grotesque like most suicides. Just before this, across the western sky, the slowly sliding sun’s enchanting crimson glow had touched every cloud with tenderness. The pond just beside the morgue, and behind that the long lines of the railway tracks, and along them, along that field, the wagon-breakers went flashing past like deer.

Gobindo, one of the boys, came from a rich home. Emptying a bottle of expensive scent all over Harbart’s body, he shouted, “Let the other dumb dead smell of shit. For our boss, only Intimate will do!”

The truck rolls on. And suddenly, the slogans begin:

“Long live Harbart-da!”

“Long live—long, long live!”

“Won’t forget you, Harbart-da! Won’t forget!”

“Won’t forget, never forget!”

The truck paused in traffic. “Which party was he a leader of?” someone asked.

“Band party,” someone answered.

Then the clapping started. Along with the whistling and weird cries and shouts. And thus, through the final ritual, grief was gradually transformed into a happy hullaballoo. No one noticed. They were not meant to. By the time the truck drew up to the crematorium, the lights had been switched on. It was night. Beside the gates waited a weeping Shobharani and a dumbfounded Lalitkumar. But as he heard the sounds of the mourners’ exhilaration, Lalitkumar could not help himself: “Why are you crying, Shobha? Look, look at this carnival!”

Dhanna, Phuchka, and Bulan, the neighborhood elders, they were already there. Someone ran off to sign the paperwork. Those who accompany the dead to the crematorium, they often like to make enquiries about how and why the other corpses died. One such man asked Koka:

“What happened, brother?”

“What happened to who?” asked a mildly intoxicated Koka.

“I mean, what happened to your brother?”

“Murder.”

Koka thought that the word for death in English was murder. In Bengali, people die. In English, they murder. Once this word was out, a huge crowd swarmed down upon them for a glimpse of the murder case. Even those maintaining ritual contact with their dead, even they began to fiddle and fidget, waiting for their turn to scramble over and see.

Dhanna, a drained and desolate Dhanna, said he couldn’t do it. Couldn’t bring himself to perform the last rites. So nephew Bulan was the one who touched the fire to Harbart’s mouth. The crematorium was crammed with policemen. Bits of talk, shouted slogans, sobbing.

“Yes, yes, the mattress and pillow go with him.”

“Harbart-da, long live Harbart-da!”

“Boss, you’re going away!”

“As long as sun and moon shall shine, Harbart—your name shall shine!”

“Please move, please move, the corpse is going in!”

Clatter clatter clatter—the door to the furnace rolled open—clatter. Harbart, sleeping his final sleep, waits for a few seconds. The slogans rise to a crescendo. Crash through the crematorium. As the bed of flames deep in the heart of the furnace blazed into view, an entranced Lalitkumar whispered, “Fascinating!”