‘Being in Mourning’ has an expiration date, Mourning doesn’t

People continue to die, of a variety of causes, even during a time of mandated social distancing and not every death is due to COVID-19. It's an uncomfortable but necessary topic to address amid the expanding novel coronavirus pandemic: How to handle, and commemorate, the dead.

Burial grounds, Crematoriums and Cremation Grounds face multiple issues: Deceased individuals who may have been sick with the COVID-19 virus; memorial attendees at the funeral who may be infected, and how to even hold the funeral services at a time when group gatherings have been prohibited.

Hindus do not avoid the subjects of death, dying, and grief. Seeing a funeral procession, most of them either halt or at least bow their head in conveying their respect to the unknown dead. Seeing a dead body heading for its funeral is actually considered to be auspicious in the Hindu culture. Hindus do not shy away from the truth in their daily lives, that, people die and it is normal.

But death does not just come alone; it comes with grief and the intensity of emotion that comes with loss, which, somewhat boldly, doesn’t fade away easily. Society’s tolerance for grief is finite, though this does not reflect the reality of how people respond to death.  Grieving takes time, something a busy society does not offer, despite the fact that each death is different, each mourner is unique, and everyone processes trauma differently.

“Everyone has to go (die) one day” or “the departed soul is seeing you from above and would feel unhappy seeing you in so much grief” are two common Hindu platitudes delivered to grieving loved ones; in part because the alternatives are too upsetting, and also because the Hindus read and hear these phrases throughout their lives. They are ubiquitous, even in inappropriate or downright ludicrous contexts involving unjust death.

Hindu rituals after death are endowed with a deep spiritual symbolism. The entire portfolio of these rituals is cantered around the directives which come from the Hindu mythology surrounding the immortality of soul and cycles of birth and rebirth. When in mourning, Hindus know where to turn, how to perform the rituals associated with death, and, critically, how to move on. Mourners in India are not let to feel abandoned in the aftermath of a loved one’s death, because the family and friends hover around to interact with them.

While no culture grieves perfectly, the Hindu culture and its religious traditions provide more room for people to grieve, offering opportunities to mark twelve days of mourning, then "pratimaas anushthaan" for next ten months, followed by the first anniversary “Barasee” and thereafter a collective commemoration of the days of deaths of all the family members “shraddha” during the “Pitru Paksh” and encouraging more open conversation.

Be it cemetery or the crematory, Government orders have already limited the number of people at any funeral to be limited to twenty. That will mean families having to limit attendees at the funeral to the most immediate of family members, and friends of the family. We are stepping into a time where funerals will be intimate family affairs while the “Chautha” or “Tehravin” or the public memorial service by whatever name called to be deferred until some better time when this pandemic gets behind us, or at least under control.

Every mourner mourns differently; grief is not an illness, mourners are not broken, and each passing day after the bereavement offers a way forward. Grief should not make us sick, nor should we be sick of grief.

I lost my mother some twenty months back.  Being in mourning for her has expired nine months back. But my father, my wife and my children continued to mourn her absence even after.

Going by the Hindu Vedic calendar, today, 24 May 2020 marks the fourth monthiversary of the departure of my father and we will ‘be in mourning’ for him for another seven months.

But I miss my parents and I miss their presence. I miss the ethos of my parents who wanted their children and grand children, me, my siblings and our children, to be always looking out for each other. I recall and rejoice the wonderful moments which my parents filled my life with. I grieve their absence and I will mourn their deaths for a very long time. This grieving inside my heart has no expiry date.

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My father left this world on Magha Shukla Paksha, Dwitiya, Vikrama Samvata 2076 during the auspicious time for ‘Pratah Sandhya’ and I repost this from the last monthiversary to commemorate the fourth monthiversary (monthaversary) of his departure. If there was no lockdown, there would have been other ways of commemoration as per out traditions and culture.

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