Chapter 12 - Funeral

 

12

 

            The bus was unusually noisy that afternoon.

 

            Someone near the front seat was watching comedy videos loudly on his phone. Two college boys were arguing over cricket statistics as if national honour depended on it. A child kept pressing the horn-shaped toy in his hand. The conductor shouted destinations without emotion. Somewhere behind me, a husband and wife were fighting softly about money…the kind of fight that repeats so often it no longer sounds angry, only tired.

 

            And outside the window, life continued its endless procession.  Fields moved backward.  Electric poles marched in disciplined lines.  Dogs slept beneath broken walls.  Women carried fodder on their heads like green mountains.  Nothing seemed extraordinary.

 

            Then the bus slowed slightly near a narrow village road.  I looked outside casually.

 

            A funeral procession was moving ahead. 

 

            Four men carried the bier on their shoulders. White cloth covered the body completely except for the feet. Elderly men walked silently behind it. A few younger men spoke in low voices. One old woman cried openly without caring who watched her grief.

 

            The bus overtook them slowly.  Inside the bus, nobody stopped laughing.  Nobody lowered the volume of their phones.  Nobody paused their arguments.  For a strange moment, two different worlds moved side by side.

 

            Inside the bus…hurry, noise, irritation, entertainment.

 

            Outside the bus…silence, surrender, finality.

 

            And both were travelling on the same road.

 

            I kept looking back through the dusty rear glass until the funeral became smaller and smaller, finally dissolving into sunlight and smoke.  But something remained sitting beside me.

 

            A thought.

 

Maybe life is nothing but this…

one vehicle overtaking another.

 

            One moving toward ambition.  Another moving toward disappearance.  And both believing they still have time.

 

            I do not know why funerals disturb human beings so deeply.

 

            Death itself is not new.

 

            Every person knows it with absolute certainty.

 

            Still, whenever a funeral passes near us, our heart suddenly becomes quieter, as if some invisible teacher has entered the room.  Perhaps because funerals remove all disguises.  A dead body never looks rich.  Never looks powerful.  Never looks famous.  A corpse carries no status.  The cloth covering a king and a labourer finally looks the same.  And maybe that is why human beings quickly look away from funerals.  Not because they fear death.  But because death speaks too honestly. 

 

            The bus accelerated again.

 

            A young boy standing near the door laughed loudly at something on his mobile screen. His laughter was full of life, careless and bright. For a second I envied him.

 

            There is great comfort in forgetting mortality.

            Children are happiest because they do not measure time.  Old people become silent because they do. 

 

            I leaned my head against the window.  The glass was warm from sunlight.  And suddenly an old memory returned to me from my Army days.

 

            Years ago, I had come home on fourteen days' leave.

 

            Whenever I returned to the village, I used to spend evenings at my friend's cloth shop near the market. Like most village shops, it was less a business place and more a discussion centre. People came not only to buy cloth but also to exchange gossip, politics, weather predictions, marriage rumours, and medical advice nobody had asked for.

 

            That evening my friend looked strangely serious.

 

            He lowered his voice and said, “I have to tell you something unbelievable.”

 

            I smiled.

 

            In villages, unbelievable stories usually begin after sunset.  But his face carried no mischief.

 

            He told me about a tailor from our village.

 

            The tailor was a quiet man who sat outside his tiny shop every day with a wooden table and an old chair. He mostly repaired torn clothes. Poor people came to him because he charged little. Some days he earned almost nothing, yet he still sat there from morning till evening, stitching other people’s damaged cloth while his own life remained full of holes.

 

            One morning, he did not open his shop.  By afternoon, news spread that he had died.  My friend went to his house to pay condolences.  Villagers and relatives sat around the body. Women cried softly. Men discussed funeral arrangements. Someone brought firewood. Someone informed distant relatives. Someone calculated the right time for cremation.  The tailor lay still in the middle of the room, covered in white cloth.  My friend also sat among the mourners, waiting for the funeral procession to begin.

 

            And then something happened that nobody there forgot for the rest of their lives.  The dead tailor suddenly moved.  At first, only a hand shifted slightly.  People froze.  Then the body slowly sat upright.  Eyes opened.  Breathing returned.  For a few seconds nobody moved.  Fear spread through the room faster than grief had spread earlier.  Some people screamed.  Some ran outside.  Some began praying.

 

            The tailor himself looked confused, as if he had returned from somewhere very far away.

 

            My friend swore to me that this happened exactly as he described.  At first I laughed in disbelief.  But later I asked my mother. 

 

            She quietly nodded and said, “Yes… it happened.”  And then she added something even stranger.  Exactly one year later…same month, same date…the tailor truly died.

 

            This time he did not return.

 

            After hearing that story years ago, I could never again look at a dead body with complete certainty.  And today, while watching that funeral from the bus window, a strange thought crossed my mind again…What if he suddenly wakes up?  What if the men carrying him panic and drop the bier?  What if death itself sometimes changes its decision halfway?

 

            Human beings know so little.  Doctors explain death medically.  Priests explain it spiritually.  Philosophers explain it intellectually.

 

But the truth is…

nobody explains it completely.

 

            Death remains the oldest mystery still undefeated.

            Outside, the road curved beside a canal.  The funeral procession disappeared toward another village path. 

 

            But my thoughts continued walking with it.

                       

            I noticed something strange about human life.  People prepare for everything except death.  We prepare for exams.  For careers.  For weddings.  For children.  For retirement.  For guests.  For festivals. For disasters.

 

            But almost nobody prepares emotionally for the certainty that one day the world will continue exactly the same without them.

 

            The buses will still run.  Tea shops will still open.  Children will still laugh.  Arguments will still happen.  And someone else will sit near this same window seat looking outside.  There is both sadness and beauty in this realization.

 

Sadness…

because we are temporary.

 

Beauty…

because life itself is permanent beyond us.

 

Perhaps wisdom begins when a person understands he is not the centre of existence.

 

            The bus stopped near a roadside tea stall.  Several passengers stepped down impatiently.  One man immediately checked his phone signal before even ordering tea.  Another complained about the bus delay as though time personally belonged to him.  An old farmer quietly drank tea while staring at the sky. 

 

            I watched everyone carefully.  And a strange sentence formed silently inside me:

 

            “Human beings live as if death happens only to neighbours.”

 

            Maybe that is why funerals shock us.  Not because someone died.  But because for one uncomfortable second, we accidentally imagine ourselves in that position.

 

            I remembered Army life again.

 

            Soldiers understand death differently.  Not necessarily more bravely…just more practically.  When you wear a uniform long enough, you stop imagining life as permanent property. You begin seeing it as temporary duty.

 

            I had seen men laughing at night and receiving tragic news by morning.  I had seen letters arrive too late.  I had seen unfinished conversations become permanent.  And perhaps that is why ordinary moments now affect me deeply.

 

            A bus journey.  A funeral crossing.  An old tailor waking from death.  These things may sound small to the world.  But sometimes truth hides inside ordinary scenes because extraordinary truths cannot survive noisy places.

 

            The bus resumed its journey. 

 

            Sunlight had softened now.  Fields glowed golden.  Buffaloes stood half-submerged in ponds like silent philosophers.  A boy flew a kite from a rooftop.  An elderly man cycled slowly with milk cans hanging from both sides.  Everything looked painfully alive.

 

            And maybe that is why death exists…to make life visible.  Without endings, nothing would feel precious.  If human beings lived forever, perhaps nobody would value evenings, parents, friendships, or love.

 

            Mortality gives urgency to affection.

 

            A limited number of sunsets makes sunsets meaningful.

 

            I looked again at the empty road where the funeral had vanished.  Somewhere ahead, smoke from a cremation ground would eventually rise into the sky.  And tomorrow, the same road would again carry weddings, tractors, school buses, vegetable carts, political rallies, lovers on motorcycles, and ambulances.

 

            Life and death never stop sharing roads.  Only human beings pretend they are separate destinations. 

 

            The conductor came asking for tickets.  I handed him money absentmindedly.

 

            For a second I wondered…How strange it is that even while travelling toward death, humans still argue over seat numbers.  Still compare salaries.  Still feel jealous.  Still postpone forgiveness.  Still wait for the “right time” to love people openly.  As if eternity has been officially guaranteed.

 

            Perhaps maturity is not becoming serious.  Perhaps maturity is simply understanding fragility.

 

            The bus entered another town.  Traffic increased.  Horns returned.  Noise swallowed silence again.  But inside me, the funeral procession still walked slowly.

 

            And one final thought settled quietly in my heart:  “Life and death travel on the same road, only at different speeds.”

 

            Some people are overtaking.  Some are being overtaken.  But all are moving in the same direction eventually.

 

            The difference is only this…

 

            Most travellers still believe the journey is long.