Remains if the day

My spirituality and outlook to life has been challenged way too frequently lately and I wonder why. Because, you see, I believe that everything happens for a reason. And the last two weeks have been like a roller coaster of emotions.

Three people are dead, in just the space of these two weeks...

First, the son of one of our closest friends, almost family. He was coughing, so he went to the chemist with his parents to get cough syrup. He dropped right there... A massive heart failure.

A week later, I found out that a person who has been a constant presence in my life in Bombay, Janet Fine, has succumbed to cancer. She had sworn the few who knew into secrecy. I will remember her as one of the liveliest and most energetic people I have ever known. But most of all, as someone extremely enterprising and full of ideas. Another very rare thing about Janet was that she was so very unselfish about her contacts! If she thought someone could be useful or interesting for someone else, she would do anything to facilitate these two people meeting and being in touch. There were times she has called me out of the blue just to say that something she knows I would love is happening across town, and promptly offering to give me a lift. She also made sure I became a member of American Women of Bombay, which gave a brand new dimension of my life here. I will always be grateful for that, and will always fondly remember her CoHO Saturdays - some of the best spent in my life! I went to her apartment the next morning after I found out, to check on Janet's beloved cats. Looking at her apartment and not having her around was a hard, throat choking experience. The cats looked happy. Which reassured me. I believe animals have a sixth sense. So if they were happy, janet must have been in a better place.

But what really hit me was the way life was just going on...

The same evening, the son of my husband's company's VP, just 17 years old, died in the most tragic accident.

We were both stunned... What was happening around us? Why? What was life trying to tell us? Why so many coincidences.

We went to the hospital where the body was kept, just to see if we can help. The father was crushed. I don't think you EVER recover from anything like this.

The hospital looked terrible. I did not even want to go inside. Everything looked dilapidated and old. There was a stray dog coming in and out as if it was his home. Hospital staff was pacing up and down in dirty uniforms. Some of them were just standing around in lungis. a really old, shabby woman walked into the morgue... A wounded man was brought in by a rickshaw, and unqualified drivers and cops just helped him shuffle into his wheelchair. A prisoner was taken back to jail after treatment. Despite the tubes sticking out of him, he was just put down to lie on the bench of the police van, far from being long enough to let him rest comfortably. And I suddenly realised. That there are high chances I may die in this country, in a hospital like that, surrounded by completely foreign people. I will not even be understanding the language they are talking. I was terrified. And I just wanted to go home, to things I am familiar and comfortable with.

An even scarier thought occured to me. The few christian cemeteries I have seen here were in a complete state of desolation, with garbage dumps right next to them. The thought of cremation terrifies me. I have always been uncomfortable around fire.

The next day, life continued, I drove past movie halls showing mvies these three people will never see; heard songs they will never hear again... Life was going on... Is life really just waiting for death?