Death is a pain in the ass.
It’s just a lot of work. Rituals, food, family, people, people and more people.
Documents. Paperwork.
And then there’s the emptying.
So many things to dispose of. An entire lifetime of things, for someone who lived in the same town for their entire life. In the same house for maybe half, and have had the same cupboards forever.
Unlike me, who has not stayed put in a place for more than three years since adulting. I am sure when I die, my entire existence could be annulled in half a day. For the lack of people and stuff there in. And for the pristine documentation the digital age enables.
Yes. The emptying would be trivial. Very trivial. My death would be trivial.
These were the objectively witty dark things myself and I were talking about as I was helping mom clean up the house and dispose of stuff after dad’s passing. I won’t deny, it was an emotional roller coaster.
Do you know people’s clothes smell of them even when they’re washed and ironed and all?And smells are like teleporting devices for the mind – you know what I mean? It’s hard, actually impossible for me to describe the smell of a person. As strong as it’s impact is, it’s still hard to put into words.
Two months after the whole people stuff had quietened, mom and I spent an hour or two each night systematically boxing dad’s stuff. More on weekends.
His senior students had been kind enough to bring everything from his office to our place. So that was that too. Apparently he had been becoming popular with a litter of kittens that he had allowed to be born in one of his huge old govt office furniture metal drawers. Those they decided to not deliver to us thankfully.
Honestly I had no clue my dad was a cat person. There was never an opportunity to stumble upon that fact all our lives.But I’m digressing.
One such night of scavenging through his stuff, deciding which of his papers needed keeping and which clothes would be useful for this or that relative… my hands touched this soft, ultra soft fabric. And those neurons and the nervous system did their thing. Surges of memories flashed within moments as I tugged out the beige, handsome, soft as mush, winter coat folded and tied in a dry cleaning newspaper, from a dark corner of the creaking, rusting Godrej cupboard.
I looked in the half scratched, distorted mirror, finding myself hugging the coat tight, smelling it, a tear threatening to fall out onto the dry cleaners’ old newspaper. And I smiled.
For a moment I was five and wearing that coat, covering all the 3 foot of my existence, pretending to be a detective hiding kitchen spoons and ladles with my tiny hands in what seemed then, huge pockets and sleeves, going about the house imagining shooting people. Playing with my cousins, well aware that dad would not be pleased with his cherished possession that had just come in from London being close to getting torn by a sharp ladle. But I was 5. And I loved that cuddly coat.
And then I was 8 and dad was getting transferred to Ahmedabad and I was begging him to not take the coat, crying as 8 year olds cry. In gulps. Red eyed. Loud. Irrational. It felt as if, only if I held on to the coat, dad would come back, for the coat. I chuckled. At my 8 year old self.
And then I was 11, I had typhoid. I was shivering. All the time. The thermometer read 103. Mom was putting wet rags on my forehead, sad. My sister was glum. Dad came to my room one night as I was tucked under a bunch of blankets, peeled off a few and put that coat on me and kissed my forehead. I wrapped my hands around the coat, turned and slept through the night, after many nights. Warm and safe.
Then I was a teenager. 17. Off to my first international journey, dad had enabled, because of my score in twelfth boards. I had just finished packing the hundred things I had to carry for the NRI relatives. Leaving just enough space for the coat I was hoping dad would let me borrow. He came back after his tennis game in the night, saw the open bag, shamelessly occupying his bed with not one winter coat packed. The next morning the bag was ready at the door and I sneakily checked his creaking Godrej cupboard. The coat rack was empty.
I stared at my strand of white hair in the mirror, the photo frame behind me on the wall wearing that oversized coat of a 6 foot tall man – bad fashion, great smile, sitting in the carousel, right at the top of the London Eye.
And then the memories faded. Till I returned home one winter, heartbroken. 25. My first relationship had broken up. Dad never approved of the guy. In hindsight, for good reason. It was freezing. The coat was hanging on the hangar inside his room. I was crying on the sofa outside, shivering. Mom was on a trip. He brought me a warm choco lava cake, put the coat on my shoulders and sat in his Aram Khursi. We didn’t talk. We never talked. He started a movie. The Pursuit of Happyness. We watched the movie. I slept. From that point in time.
My favourite movie never changed.
I jerked back into the present as mom’s soft chappals crunched on the stone floor and her gentle push made the 5 decade old Government Quarters’ door creak.
She looked at me in the mirror and smiled. You know that’s yours right?
She came closer and embraced me as I sat. I unfolded the coat and wrapped it around my shoulders. I was barely 5’6”. It would always be oversized and out of fashion. It was beige. It had plastic brown buttons, one missing, it had huge cushy pockets. It had a high collar that covered half my head. It was four decades old but not frayed. It was loved. It was handsome.
And in the moment and the many sad moments that hit after, the coat was a warm safe place that smelt of dad and felt like a hug from the past.
*Written as part of Writeclub Bangalore’s session on something I forget.
