The Tears of Pain

It was my cousin. She was eight years old when this happened. My aunt, her mother and my mother’s sister, was at her in-laws house at that time. It was the puja holidays of 2004. It was the year I fell in love for the first time (rather, I should say that I thought I had fallen in love, within a month I would realize it!). It was a good year nonetheless.

My aunt’s in-laws house is a big joint family in a village. She goes there with her family every year for the pujas before coming to our place in Durgapur. So, in 2004, my aunt and cousin sister were in the village when a relative died in her in-laws family. The deceased person was my aunt’s sister-in-law’s husband’s father. My aunt had met him some three times and was not very perturbed by the death. But his death meant a lot of rituals had to be followed, especially because it was in the village. First there would be the period of mourning, followed by the ceremonies and rituals to please the spirit of the dead man, and then another spell of mourning.

When the corpse was being readied for cremation, all the women gathered to wail and mourn the death. My aunt was in charge of providing refreshments to the mourners (they needed energy to mourn). As she was distributing lemonade, she noticed my cousin sitting cross-legged and wailing aloud. My cousin was almost choking o her tears. This surprised my aunt very much. The deceased person had met my cousin a few times and had even bought her toys and chocolates, but my aunt had no clue that her daughter was so attached to him.

My aunt took my cousin in her arms and coaxed her not to cry for the deceased person was going to a better place. Tears welled up in my aunt’s eyes too. With a choking voice my aunt asked her, “Why are you crying my little girl? Don’t cry, everything will be fine.”
Weeping profusely my cousin answered, “What will happen now? How will I go to Durgapur now?” And tears poured down her cheeks like waterfall.