Death of a Dead Body

It is a sad thing for an already very dead body to die again. But, there sure was an element of dark humor in the way we saw it happen long ago. We were living in Choolaimedu in Chennai adjacent to Nungambakkam railway station at that time. There was a crematorium close to our home and all the Hindu bodies would be taken there for cremation. This gory death of a dead body happened while on its way to the above said crematorium.

Now having immigrated to the United States and lived here for a little while, I see how rules are obeyed properly. For example, if you missed an exit on the freeway, then you keep driving for perhaps few more miles and then take a U-turn at the next exit. But in India flouting a rule is considered a very joyous act. Especially road rules! If you missed an exit, not a big deal. Just stop the car, change your gear to reverse and start going backwards in whichever lane you are! Imagine driving in Indian roads for 10 extra kilometers just to take a U-turn. What a horrible thing, especially given the petrol price of Rs 57 per liter and poor gas mileage of cars. You may shock the brown crap out of few of those other unsuspecting drivers. But why do you care? It is their problem for not expecting drivers to use their reverse gear, which the auto manufacturers have so generously made available for drivers to use for free.

Now the hero of today's blog, some unknown man, had died in the streets of Chennai that day. There are many like that all over the world, you see, those people with no family or friends, just orphans of the state, if you will. Those orphans do lose their last breath of their uncelebrated lives one day to exit the world ingloriously.  And then some good samaritans have to show up from somewhere to notice the death of the unnoticed life and then do the needful to dispose off the body. I am sure you have come across such dead bodies laying in the streets of your Indian towns, covered with dhoti, with a bunch of onlookers around. In Tamil we call them as "அனாதை பிணம்" meaning orphan person who died in the streets.

That orphan man died a death like that. That was his first death. The collective camaraderie of the Indian people is amazing when such a thing happens. The Hindus, Muslims and the Christians and Sikhs and all, everybody usually get into a very helpful spirit quickly, to do the right thing for the departed soul. And so, a bunch of people got together that day. They collected some alms amidst themselves and decided to take him to the adjacent crematorium and have the last evidence of that erstwhile life doused off.

That was where the Indian rule-bending attitude played a vital role in that man's fate. You see, if they had followed the rules, then they would have had to take the body over the busy road (Nelson Manickam Salai) to the crematorium. But that would have caused them to spend more time on the road. But there was a shortcut - ie, walking on top of the railway track, that would help them bypass the Nelson Manickam salai and go to the crematorium quickly. So, amidst the group of those people who carried the body of the dead, there was one unruly one, in the sense of not wanting to follow the rules. He suggested to the rest, that they carry the body over the railway track to save time. And the rest of the crowd agreed to that idea to not follow the rule.

Our dead man was made to lay on his last earthly bed (பாடை), the easily bio-disposable sturdy leaves interconnecting two 6 feet long bamboo shoot. Four people carried those ends of the bamboo shoots on their shoulders and the funeral procession started. Since they walked over the railway track, bypassing the road, it didn't take much for them to reach the Nelson Manickam salai railway bridge. And now the big question was how to carry the body over the railway tracks over the bridge? There were just two railway tracks, one to go hither and the other to go thither, on top of the busy Nelson Manickam road! The funeral procession people used their utmost cautious judgment and looked either way. They saw no train coming and hence decided to cross the railway bridge like absolute dare devils!

That was one heck of a sight to behold, 4 people carrying a "பாடை" with a dead body laying on it across a railway track over a bridge on top of a busy road. And that was when the jarring sound of a Chennai Metropolitan Electric Train horn hit the ambience. And much to everybody's surprise, suddenly out came the train from nowhere! It was coming from Chetpet to Nungambakkam and emerged majestically out from the distant curves of the railway track! That train looked like Lord Yama Dharmaraja himself coming at full speed to kill all the good samaritans, the team of funeral procession specialists that were enroute to do their charitable job!

Oh boy, the sight of the train sent jitters through the funeral procession people. They quickly did some mental math and realized that they didn't have enough time to run either forwards or backwards on the railway track to get out of the bridge especially carrying the dead man as well. So, to save their own lives, they just put the dead body on the track and quickly escaped out of the bridge fleeing for their lives. They were unmindful of the impending assault on the dead body by the oncoming train. The dead man, laying in his paadai, kept his cool, left his fate to the hands of God and looked up to the skies! What could he do anyways, pray for the life and well-being of the people who cared for him thus far and carried him, or worry about the safety of his own body that was going to be assimilated by the fire shortly anyway?

And there ends the story of this blog, my friends! I leave it to your imagination about what happened to that body after the train ran over it. My younger brother was coming back home from Loyola College and he saw this whole thing happen in front of him. After the train passed by, the good samaritans searched for the bits and pieces of the body to still go cremate the left overs, but they found them all strewn over along the railway track.

Until my next blog, have fun and cheers! And if you had to go backwards in traffic in Indian roads, don't worry, just pretend as though you are worried about global warming. Unguilty, just go in reverse, save greenhouse gas emission and save the world!