Where Memories Sleep...

(This was written two years a go when the mother of my favourite teacher passed away. i got my directions wrong and went into a wrong cemetary, which ultimately helped me realize my littleness. i found the surroundings overwhelm me... a deep peace, a peace that only a cemetary can offer, took over... differences mattered no more. The rich, poor, man, woman, children, black, brown, white...everyone lay there, having six feet of earth common between them. i had to write this down then, before the words were lost on me...... and this is it, what my heart whispered and what the paper took it on itself.)

-“There is in all this cold and hollow world no fount of deep, strong deathless love, save that within a loving mothers heart”. -Tombstone, CSI cemetery, Sungam, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu-

I walk amidst a lot of memories, laid to sleep. Memories older than me and my father and my grand father. The revv of the motor engines and the poisonous fumes of the outer polluted world seems an eternity away. The tranquillity and the peace I feel here, I feel nowhere else.

The once pure white solid marble angel weeps softly on the final resting place of Anthony Philomin Joseph, aged 81 days, 67 years a go. How would he have looked? I wonder silently, knowing that I would never ever know… I entered the resting place of so many souls, some young, some old, some forgotten, some not…

I feel the sadness, I feel the calm, I feel the wetness of the soil, and the wetness made of what? Tears? I don’t know. I walk forward. Amongst the graves, I find a bone and I see its human, still brown and fresh and teeming with ants, sucking away the last of the life sustaining bone marrow. I raise my eyes from the bones unto the heavens in despair and finally it comes to rest on the lighted lamp. Somebody had taken the pains to clean their loved ones final resting place. Four fresh red roses, with the dew still damp on them, sat atop the memory stone, in deep respect and mourning for the rested soul. I am touched; love is a feeling so eternal and pure…

I feel the push of the memories from all sides, as strong as a rushing river and as soft as the faintest rustle of leaves on the gravel path leading to the cemetery, Memories fresh as the morning soil dampened by the early morning dew and as old as the holy holy parchments. I feel the love and the care that has gone into each tomb and I see the souls deep below swell with the amount of love heaped upon them. it’s a special feeling to be loved, through time…through all eternity.

I feel the shades of the trees, protecting those asleep, from hard wind and rain and sunshine, and comforting them with the gentle music of their leaves. A lone yellow bird sings sadly to break the weight of the silence all around. I feel a million eyes and a million hearts, all around me, looking lovingly at me as a son, an uncle, a great grandson. I bow my head in deep respect for the sleeping…

I bow my head before love, before never dying ever lasting memories, before the power to move the toughest at heart, the power that makes you humbler than humble, the power of remembrance. I shed a silent tear to all those people resting here whom I have never known and will never know. But one thing I do not doubt, they were good people, good at heart and soul when they lived… To be here at this place where the memories rest, is proof enough.

I walk back, heart filled with sorrow and joy and humbleness. Sorrow at not knowing them, joy at knowing they are in safe hands and humbleness at the magnificence of it all.

Dear lord, make me a better human being that I too, when I die may be buried at a place of memories, where I will be remembered for my good deeds and not hated for my bad ones… amen.

(Written on the day of the funeral of my teachers mother, when I found time and peace on my side, to walk around and feel for myself the silent, powerful, moving gift, of the place where memories are laid to rest…)