Floodlights for a dark moment

Blogging at nights are for insomniacs, or for people who pass by grave-yards on their way back home.
I am an insomniac (only in the nights - not during meetings mind you - during meetings, I sleep like a baby). I hope my boss doesn't read this! Oh - if you are rolling your eyes already and thinking - "as though - the usual cliche huh!" Im not kidding you. My boss does. We need MSN to stay connected, and me being me, have a profile pic of DeeDee on the MSN Myspaces. She actually asked me about my Dee Dee pic .. and yeah, before you ask, she has a pic of Lt Data - I sheepishly replied that the DeeDee pic was strictly for my whacky set of friends.
So, having digressed enough, let me get back to what I meant to say ... What I WAS saying is that
a) Im an insomniac
b) I pass by ( almost wrote "through" there) not one, but three graveyards on the way home
c) I have nothing to write.
Which essentially means ....

Yeah - you guessed it - a blog post.

So, while you are adequately traumatised by these pics here of the graveyard Let me amble through some words and sentences before I end this post.

I cannot write about " you know what happened at office today?" essentially, because except for occasional and bizarre references to my work place, I do not want to write about it. Essentially, cos I am an employee at office, and a person outside of it. I am what is asked of me, and expected of me at office, while I may or may not be the same person outside of it. Whatever reflects the Me at office, goes into the blog. It would not be professionally right or personally fine for me to put up official stuff here.
I cannot write about the great stuff that happen in my life - for a simple reason that nothing does happen!
I could write about how great it feels to be in love and how happy I am wiping my kids' noses and bottoms, but sadly, love is on its way from the Andromeda galaxy, marriage(err.. do u need marriage for kids? nopes!) and kids are as far away as the alpha centauri -" hey kids, you better be here by dinner time! I dont want food I cooked to be going waste!"
Oh , there has been ONE WTF moment recently, but that cant be a part of a post, it has to be a post in itself. I shall blog about it, soon - as soon as the WTF moment fully sinks in.

Instead, what I SHALL do , is ramble about the graveyard, with the pic of which I just traumatised you guys and made the sensitive ones among you run to the temple with a "shiva shiva" on your lips, and the dopers among you reach out for that snort of crack again.

I pass by these series of graveyards, everyday as I travel back home. On the left the Muslims are buried, on the right the Hindus - there's a demarcation as to where the "higher" castes can be cremated, and the "lower" castes buried and then, there is a Jewish cremation ground, and then there is another for the economically 'lower castes' I think.
Since Im one of those "Damned if I care" Im not usually bothered. I mean , what difference should it make to dead if they are here or a few yards there? When it doesnt bother the occupant, why should it raise a storm in my mind? Im totally okay by it. Imagine a world without class and religion or any of those other demarcations that makes you "different" from the other - be it real or imaginary - I cant. Basically because these divides are the reason why man feels he "belongs" - no divides means no sense of belongingness.
But then,Im digressing again.
Whats so damn special about an acre filled with guys rotting under the top layer I hear you ask.
Eggjactly. The fact that all these graveyards have flood lights - No- I mean it. They do. Nothing like the graveyard where meenakumari lay in pakeezah. These have the kinds of flood lights you see in cricket stadiums.

This, though aint a reason too - though I must confess I wanted to write about this "floodlight in the graveyard" thingy for long now. I wanted it to be one post - shedding light on various aspects of flood lights in the graveyards.
Now that this blog has come far far away from where it meant to go - thanks to the shaadi.com friend ( who - if he is reading this - dude, fedex my Bday gift) who totally changed my "I-shall-write-morose-stuff" mood by discussing how his son would get married to my daughter and how my son-in-law would end up in an amreeki school in a rajni attire ( complete with yellow pants and dark green silk shirt and a receding hairline and over sized sunglasses)
I shall veer it back to what I wanted to write.

The major reason for all the focus on the graveyards is the fact that today - a huge number of bats were whipped up in a frenzy - going round and round in circles - small circles and huge circles and perfectly round circles and irregular circles- clockwise and anticlockwise , flapping wings and communicating silently to each other ( duffer - their voices are supersonic so obviously I couldnt hear it - Im not a bat*)- since it is unnatural of them to do so so early in the night, I was intrigued.
The source I was to find out later - all thanks to the infamous traffic snarls of the city, was that a body was brought in to be buried.
It was a sheer exercise in absorbing the life that death supports. And no, Im not talking of the bats here.
The police men ( Im assuming it was a suicide/ murder - else you usually dont have them around) standing around, counting money and keeping an eye on people,
The drum-beaters, who, on the other side of the road were practising the beats (maybe for the next funeral)
The hearse (?) carriers ... who were flexing their muscles, having carried a dead weight (is there a pun there?) for I dont know what distance.
The flower sellers - selling those morose garlands that you put on a dead body
The couple who, hand in hand, eye to eye - were so oblivious about the commotion around them.

One man dies and so many people can eat another meal at night thanks to him.
Its so curious to see so many people subsisting on death.I mean - look at those drum beaters, those stretcher bearers .... they earn when someone dies .. ironical but life I guess.

Amidst all this, one lost soul. I cannot find words to describe her otherwise. Sitting there, her saree wrapped around her head, almost crouching, bent inwards, like as though she wished to turn into a tight ball. Maybe, emotions within her were wrapped in a tight ball just then. Un speaking, devoid of tears, she sat there, next to the body.
Wife? Sister? Daughter?Mother?Friend? I will never know. All I will know is the palpable grief that reached out from her and touched me.
Ive known that grief and that numbness that surrounds sorrow- once too many. Death, no matter how many ever times you've seen it, never prepares for the shock and sorrow that it brings along the next time. The last glance, the final moments which dont allow you to even say a proper good bye, the final sense of "no longer" and "Im sorry" that sinks in, the void that sets in, the vacuum that engulfs you ... Ive known it, and well.
That one crouched figure sitting there among the multitude of relatives, policemen, priests and maybe the whole mankind, was so cruelly juxtaposed with the song "tere bin" that blared out from the speakers of the car I was in - that it made me wince and cringe in pain.

Life, is a phoenix, always raises itself from the ashes of the dead - I guess.

And then, the phone rang, and then, we were discussing the release of Himesh's new movie, and then traffic gave away, and then time moved on, and then I forgot all about her and her loss, and then ..... then what?

*bat - do you know the laziest bat? - its Sachin Tendulkar's :P