Death is a terrible affair, hardly ever affording us the time to be prepared before the irrevocable finality strikes. I had known that mother was going to die; it was an undisputed truth that was accepted after her final test results were discussed by a doctor with a solemn face, an outcome of all the years of his treating terminally-ill cancer patients. But now that she has actually died, I am at a loss. Mother had wanted to be buried in the backyard of her home, a property that she inherited from her parents and which now belongs to an eco-tourism group intending to convert it into a natural resort or something. Instead, she was incinerated in a matter of minutes, inside the electric pyre of the community funeral home in town. Her burning body left very little odour, in fact very little of anything. A handful of grey dust was scooped into an earthen pot, which was secured with a red cloth, to be lapped up by the holy water of Thirunavai, whenever we visited Kerala next. Until then, it would rest in front of a lighted lamp, alongside an enlarged black and white photograph that captured her beauty at its best.
Two days later, I am attempting to peel off my veil of sorrow and to move on with life. Mother had occupied the guest bedroom of our 3-BHK flat. It still smells of kuzhampu – the thick paste that she smeared on her body every day before bath – her herbal hair oil, and clothes that have not been used for a while. Surprisingly, I cannot yet identify the chemical smell of all the allopathic medicines which were her best friends in the last few months of her life. She seems to have taken it with her, which suits me. The room today smells as it always had, of her and things she had owned and loved.
I set forth, intending to remove all traces of my dead mother from the room, which I am planning to convert to a study for me to store my books and read in whenever I need a respite. I pull out her clothes first; I have asked an old age home representative to come and collect it later in the evening. I throw away her left over medicines, oils and powders along with the dentures she had stopped using years ago when her gums swelled up too much, and all those innumerable brochures and receipts of offerings to temples in Kerala. There is also a photo album, with her photographs with father in the early days of their marriage, my brother and me as toddlers, our wedding pictures and in the final page, a family photograph with father and her sitting and the rest of us standing and smiling happily. It may have been my father's last photograph, perhaps mother's too. Several forgotten moments captured into the black pages of a tattered book – that was something to treasure. Finally, in a polythene bundle, I find a stack of blue inlands, my mother's letters.
I move to the sitting room, turn the fan on at full speed and sit on the cushioned settee, my feet tucked under me, and lean on the soft fabric, eyes closed. I do not know if am expecting to uncover her anonymous lover, as so often happens in stories and movies. I wonder if these letters secure the identity of a special someone whose love my mother had preciously cherished in the form of letters. I untie the red cord with enthusiasm and the inlands fall down, flying here and there under the wind from a fan running at maximum speed. I pick them, stack them again and begin with the first letter. But I am soon disappointed. These are nothing more than regular correspondence between my mother and her mother. After skimming through a few, I am bored and almost giving up, when a particularly wrinkled inland catches my attention.