BIRTH

iii, A CEMETERY OF ALL OF ME

Long time ago I was afraid of graveyards. There were two resting places fashioned for the dead for their homecoming, in my neighbourhood. One to my left. The other to my right. The first one I have to walk/drive past to reach my aunt's abode. The second one I have to brace myself to face it, as the road to the city stretches wide and far from there.

The irony is that one of the cemeteries is long dead, literally. Abandoned. Forgotten. No one visits that place now. I'm not afraid of this burial ground anymore. Every year, in the month of January, a carnival is held to amuse the people of my village. I visited it like two to three times, until I no longer fit the 'seating criteria' of the many games. The other cemetery is dying.

I remember refusing to ride the Merry-go-round ponies because it was closer to the edge of the plain field, and tombstones rose there like jagged waves. One time I visited the carnival, the entire place was lit with fairy lights, fire, the smell of jalebi and colourful pet fish to take home. All of the liveliness encompassed the sky above me, and I momentarily had forgotten that the same families who were enjoying that night merrily had once buried one of their loved ones on the very ground we were standing on. The grass grew over their bones. The night thrived.

The third time I stepped foot through the gates of the fair - I can't now pool the memory out from my thicket of a head. I stopped at the fourth. After that, carnival never fascinated me, but every time I travelled past the place in the daytime, my eyes raked over the empty games to scan the tombstones, the resting place. I believed that whoever they had been must have felt dead inside, before the last pedestal had come. The final journey must not have scared them. Then what have I got to fear?

I am not fearful of graveyards now. I walk/drive past with a second glance and a soul shining with curiosity to know who they all had been before we were left behind. I wonder if a child is among them, somewhere. I wonder how many children have lost their fathers? Lost the chances of being happy with their mothers in a carnival? How many times did a son visit this burial ground to bring flowers to his parents? Or to talk to his sister or a brother about the new shirt he bought for his birthday? How many times did the water in a daughter's body break her?

How many times will I witness my own funerals? I have a graveyard built on the grounds of my existence. I walk carrying many dead selves on my back/heart/belly. They don't snap me into two. I don't bend under their weight. I am made up of the lost - the ones now turned into blossoms, wild grass, and tales that build us. I am no longer afraid of graveyards. Not the one on my left. To my right, it's a playground for leisure activities and a buzzing bazaar for Thursday vendors. And me? I am remembering to attend my funeral processions when I have to walk them.

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mahnnnnn. is this even good?