The artist’s day out with the dead

An intense week turns out to be even more burdensome if it ends with the death of someone very dear. Though I’m not a linguist, I doubt if there is an equivalent to the Bengali term atmar attiyo in English. No matter what language we speak, in a lifetime, we develop relationships of huge magnitude with people.
Day of the Dead festival, Mexico, remembers the departed. The incidence of death turns even more momentous when the departed is someone who has been adored by one and all — the magnanimity of their heart and spirit is so overpowering that it spares no one of their magical presence. Such people are rare and their departing creates a vacuum in our lives.
After spending a day doing tasks like pestering unwilling doctors to pay a visit to declare the person dead at early hours of the morning, to washing away the sour taste it leaves in your entire being after bargaining over bakshish with the dom to hand over the umbilical ashes, you are completely drained. There is little time left to pray for the departed soul.
At the magical hour of godhuli, we arrived at the riverbank to set the departed soul free on its eternal journey. The amazing golden light that spread across the width of the river’s bosom through the light mist seemed to wash away the boundaries of life and death.

As we stood facing the river, the dancing tidal waves rolled in the yellow light on its wings up till the steps of the ghat. Strangely, I seemed to be deaf to the blazing traffic I negotiated with mourning aloofness, and the chaos of the people inside the crematorium. Instead, a distant memory surfaced from the depths of the waters — the strumming of a Mexican mariachi band heard years ago in Oaxaca on Day of the Dead.
While most cultures shoo away the bodiless, the ancient Aztecs welcomed back souls of the dead, attracting them with the decorations made with orange Mexican marigolds. Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead is the most important festival in Mexico even today. It focuses on remembering the departed souls of loved ones in a spirit of celebration.
The three-day long celebration is planned for throughout the year, including gathering of gifts to be offered to the dead. The Mexican graveyards and personal home altars are decorated with gifts, food and drinks, including the muchloved Tequila, to entice the spirits of the dead back to earth.
As the strumming of the Mexican guitar and violin got intense inside my head, I peered into the depths of the river, wanting to reach into its womb. Just then, an image appeared from below the water’s surface. It gradually gained the clarity of a dark face. Was it an immersed Durga, floating away? No. It was far too lively to be that of a pratima’s.
It was the face of the person whose soul we just set free. It had appeared from the dead to smile for one last time.