A Eulogy to My Dear Aunt
I write this sitting on a plane as I return to the UK after a week in Kashmir and to the reality of a very strange existence due to a lethal virus that has engulfed the world.
A week ago, I took a brief break from my work in the Netherlands to reconnect with my ancestral home and dear family members, to be with parents with whom I am travelling back with now and to enjoy the peace of village life, and to generally loiter members of my extensive brethren, from the very old, i.e., over a 100 years old, to the pre-teen young kids riding their bikes, and, I am sure surprisingly to western audiences, their dad’s Yamahas, whenever possible.
My stay started with the funeral of a baby who had breathed life for an hour before passing in the early hours of the morning. I took part in her funeral prayers and physical burial and did my best to console the young father, although due to an issue of purdah I was not able to do the same to the mother, whom I am informed is 19. They are both young, and they will eventually recover. A personal loss like that will still be difficult to reconcile, especially with all the hope and expectation that this young couple would have had. The event made me think of death, passing, and the wheels of life. How dear life is, but how fleeting it is too.
I was adamant that I would try to enjoy my remaining time after this initial setback. And, so the next day, two young men in their late teens from the corners of the village popped over and suggested we go for a walk to the darbar, around 2km away. Both young men had lost loved ones in recent years — one a father and the other a grandfather. I had known both of the deceased all my life as the best of people, and their parting was a sad loss for me. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the walk very much and found their outlook on life to be encouraging. If they have an ounce of the spirit inherited from their ancestors, they will both grow to be fine men of the people.
As the days went by, my time in the village was coming along just fine. After staying for only a week, I was itching to go out with a bit of a bang. On the final day, with delays due to illness, there was still hope that my dear aunt Fatima and cousins, all of whom I have known all of my life, would make the 80-kilometre drive to visit us on our final day before we departed back to the UK to reminisce about the good old days. To discuss religion, politics, and corruption, endlessly rich themes in this part of the world. To theorise about covid-19 and all that it entails. And to enjoy what would be all of our last days together until who knows when, as we were all travelling to the UK in a few days, although on separate airlines and at different times. But there was a different kind of bang awaiting me that morning.
As I lay on my charpai, lazily reading John Bercow’s playfully acerbic autobiography, my mother approached apace to inform me of the saddest of news. My dear aunt had passed. Those few words uttered by my distressed mother, “Twari bubbo Fatima mar ghey’ (your aunt has died), will haunt me for months, if not years. Moments earlier that morning, she had passed, having prepared herself to make the trip with her sons and their wives to see us in the village.
For my dear father, now 83, the passing of bubbo Fatima, an elder sister by ten years, hit him hard. In an instant, we got a car and driver, and we took the 80-kilometre journey to her town. The journey seemed to go on forever as I stared out of the car window, eyes fixated forward, as the Kashmir hills and mountains danced before me. Time stood still as memories of my childhood days flashed by and I was surrounded by nothing but endless love.
Time stands still when a loved one departs. When present at funeral prayers, we offer our supplication for the onward journeys of the departed. We also get involved in the burial process. It is all part of drawing closure. It was my second funeral in less than a week, from a life only an hour old to a life of over 90 years. A mother is irreplaceable. A matriarch presiding over scores of people, loved by all, is truly the stuff of legends.
She was over 90 years old. She had been a widow since the late 1970s, but her children and their families looked after her every need and want. As the matriarch of one part of the extended family tree, she reigned supreme over countless grandchildren and great-grandchildren. All people respected and loved her. She’s the second bubbo I’ve lost, and both dear but now departed bubbos were special to me. Unadulterated love and kindness are all I ever remember.
I started my journey to Kashmir intending to spend quality time with my folks and to be as close to nature as possible. This is achieved. But now I return, still thinking of the wheels of life and death. My dear, dear bubbo is no longer with us. She is in a better place, elevated further into the heavens by the loving memories we will continue to share here on earth. We all go to the place from which we came. May her soul rest in peace. Ameen.
