(no subject)
My sister was the eng-lit person so she was the one to ask.
“What’s the difference between comedy and tragedy?”
“Comedy is when you’re dead but tragedy is when you end up married, stupid!”, she said.
I pondered. “Surely it isn’t the other way round?”
“Trust me.”
I trusted her. It was a fourth grade project that I never quite moved past, a trust I could never break. My ten-year old mind quickly internalized the simple formula: death comedy marriage tragedy death death death. It was a difficult time, questions kept posing themselves to me at every new turn, unanticipated and unseen like cobwebs, and leaving me covered in the same sticky residue. That whole summer I plucked and clawed at my skin, trying to remove from it the muck of unanswered questions and unraveling lives.
Three days after my sister’s bold proclamation on life’s polarities, my father died. Having submitted a project in school that very day that extolled the comic virtues of death and dying, I felt incapable of mourning his loss very much. I was all of ten years old, and very much a man of my word. It irked me a little to see my sister’s red-rimmed eyes throughout the funeral and in the weeks that followed; it smacked of hypocrisy and many times it occurred to me to recite her flippant comic-tragic remarks back to her. I was ten years old, though, and not utterly insensible.
Once Father died, I was the man of the house. I understood instinctively the gravity of the role and slipped into it almost unconsciously; in my mind it glowed and shimmered with the importance of Death and Growing Up. Father had left me-albeit unwittingly-a veritable dreamcoat, a technicolour dreamcoat, which I donned with the precision and wild abandon of a child who had, for the first time, found a carved out nook in the family he could occupy for himself. I couldn’t decide how correct my sister had been-I had witnessed firsthand the stately pallor of death and seen how it was far from tragic, yet to name it a comedy seemed to faintly mock the profundity of its impact on my life. The association now seems shamefully trite, but in the days that immediately followed Father’s passing, I felt as if I had been gifted a tree-house, or a city. Something to call my own, to govern, to revel in.
For me, Father’s death was neither tragic nor comic. It was joyous.
The truth is, I had never quite known Father. In hindsight, I realize what a completely alien entity he was to me. I had initially attributed my misted-over memories of Father to the obscuring fog of his greatness, but gradually it grew apparent to me that this had more to do with the infrequency of our interactions. There were, of course, certain tender moments straight out of picture books, painted in such kitschy overtones that even I, eternal cynic, cannot help but muster up some few insincere tears. Here is one of my personal favourites-
I am six years old, and being packed off to the boarding school where I will spend the better years of my youth. My suitcases (all proudly monogrammed with my initials), have been placed in the car’s boot save for one small bag which I will carry on my person. Mother is bustling about the house frantically telling the servants to search for the one missing sock, a jar of candied raisins for her precious. I perch myself on the sofa waiting for a further command, and Father strides past looking vaguely displeased with all the fuss. As he passes me, he suddenly stops and gazes down with a queer expression between kindness and pity. I squirm and sink into the sofa’s upholstery. Neatly bending his great body, he stoops down till his eyes are about level with my forehead. I’m taken aback but decide not to make this apparent, and stare serenely ahead. My eyes rest squarely on the bridge of his nose. Father places a heavy hand on both my shoulders and for a moment I imagine he is about to shake me; there was always an undirected, almost undetectable violence in his actions. Instead he gently slants my shoulders such that I am looking directly into his eyes.
“Listen, Vikram. You’re going to do me, do us proud. My dad never told me that and it took me a little while to figure that out for myself. I don’t want you ever to doubt yourself, alright? Now run along and tell your mother that she doesn’t have to pack you any more food. God knows they’re going to feed you well in that school, with all their fees and donations. Oh and tell your sister to hurry…”
He trails off in a rapid stream of instructions that I don’t concern myself with. A little stunned from the rare intimacy of the encounter, I rapidly slide off the couch and scamper off. I recall now that this was one of the most unappreciated privileges of childhood-to dodge a problem, or an awkward situation, run. Most times I was not chased, and not once was I caught. I ran till the scent of father’s cologne no longer hung heavy over my head, sinister and shroud-like. Only once, in the middle of my mad sprint, did a gnawing curiosity make me turn back to see if father was still there. Had he noticed my absence, or was he still absent-mindedly spouting instructions and possible words of inspiration to the boy-shaped void before him? No, he was not. Instead he had settled heavily on the couch himself, smiling ruefully at the row of coasters neatly arranged on the glass table before him.
This is the most vivid picture of father that comes to mind, to me it seems as if his whole being is assimilated in this one parting glance. It is a faintly absurd mental image, and completely incongruous with a man who spent most of his waking hours being constructive. Even his eyebrows-fierce bushy tufts of salt-and-pepper that dominated his face-seemed to have assumed a muted, contemplative look. In the weeks and months after his death I searched for a father I could celebrate and whose shoes I could fill, but all I had to go on was this furtive shadow of a man. I scoured old photo albums whose musty pages filled the air with the unmistakable fragrance of nostalgia, smiling eyes and bad hair galore. There was no identity here, only kitsch. It seemed incomprehensible to me that a life-a life-should be so cursorily summed up, it’s loose ends tied up around sandstone pillars of secret smiles and forgotten jokes.
The funeral was well-attended, and all tears were shed in a manner most tasteful and understated. A few of father’s friends spoke to me gruffly, haltingly. They held hushed conversations on the family business and the strain on my mother, having to bring up the both of us. Everybody pretended not to hear unless spoken to; we carried on in our illusions of private conversation.
Sister was right, in my memory the whole affair is painted in the most vividly tragic hues of comedy.