September 12, 1979.
Tucked in an envelope that indicated the urgency of its delivery was a dolorous message written on a pink paper
Sam expired!
- My brother.
It was the incredibility of the untoward that gave me the real shock rather than the revelation of a piece of paper. How on earth could I believe it?
Not even a month passed since I had his last letter which as usual carried all his sentiments of affection and concern. A letter that he used to ride roughshod over to the proposed engagement of our youngest brother John and his fiancée Rita, a professional model. Though Sam had spent last few years of his studies in the States his intellectual pursuit did not yield to recognise his brother’s engagement with a modelling girl. This relationship appeared to have been taken by Sam as, “The culmination of a brother’s delirious chase for owning a curvaceous product that has been whimsically displayed in commercial market places.”
Scrawled across the page in a few lines were a brother’s disgruntled, noiseless utterances which irrefutably projected the profile of a moral zealot. In his last letter he mentioned he was grossly engaged in the preparation of a thesis on Genes, specifically on ‘Dominant inheritance’, which he expected to complete by the end of September. This was his second major work since he obtained a Doctorate in Genealogy from Harvard University.
I did make a point to send a greeting telegram to John and Rita when they announced the wedding.
“Now you are one…
In love
In laughter
In living
And everything in life
Is twice as beautiful…
- Felicitations!”
The message might hardly have reached my home town in Kerala, here comes a message of death with a gentle tap at my apartment door.
Solemnisation of marriage was to be held in Thiruvananthapuram, the death occurred in Mumbai, and I was in Singapore. Both the deceased and the bridegroom are my cousins. The relationship established among ourselves was more like siblings, since I was orphaned at the age of eight.
Proposing an elaborate celebration with carousal, I drove home with a variety of foreign liquor to boost the evening party on the day of marriage at my residence having invited a select band of friends and distant relatives. Buying a surprise gift for my daughter has been one of the priorities of the occasion. A flicker of astonishment rose and died in her eyes when she gleefully received my gift. With her usual giggle she said, “I wish there were many marriages to come in dad’s family.”
Up came the lunch call. At the lunch table mother and daughter were engrossed in their waggish discussions related to their new dresses that I bought for them the other day to signify the occasion.
My thought, however, took wing gliding merrily across the ocean, tiny rivulets, stretches of lush green pastures and coconut palms. In my ears chimed the church bell with its hymnic rhythms. Amidst the glow of countless candles, on a flourishingly decorated aisle stood my brother dressed like a prince of the province. Sporting a radiant smile he held his fiancée who stood beside him holding her head up gracefully reciprocating with her professional charm that was extravagantly supplemented with her jewellery.
My murky mind appeared to have found some sparkles of immeasurable joy. I have been fluttering in the lambency like a firefly that has no sparkle left on its own wings.
A quaint knock at the entrance door of my apartment gave me a jerk from my silvery dreams.
I grumbled: ‘May be a friend of my daughter, or that nosy Chinese couple in my distant neighbourhood.’
Irresistible to a thrust of ire I shouted at the door:
“Who the hell is that?”
The doors sprung open.
A grim-faced Chinese bloke in khaki uniform stood right in front, stretching a pink sheet of paper. Seemingly unperturbed, he said in his local Malay:
“Ma’afkan saya untuk manggangu tuan. Telegram untuk kamu. Salin di sini.”
(Sorry to disturb you, Sir, a telegram for you. Please, sign here.)
- “Sam expired.”
I felt a blow of a chilling wind, strong enough to extinguish the glow in my spirit. All my sweet dreams tumbled…
Suddenly I felt bewildered and lost as if the ground had been cut off from beneath my trembling feet. I stared out into the street until the outline of the messenger’s moving figure on a motorbike dissolved into the density of buzzing street of Singapore.
I sobbed like a child. My wife and daughter soon joined me wailing uncontrollably.
We quickly started for black cloths.
Certainly death follows birth.
But, should the pall of destiny befall upon this young man so soon? And, should it be on this auspicious occasion of his beloved brother’s nuptials?
Message was sent out to all my relatives and friends. Arena of a commemorative dinner party was slowly transforming into a place for the mourning of the bereaved.
A requiem mass was arranged in Queenstown Sacred Heart Church.
“Grant that we who are nourished by his body and blood,
May be filled with His Holy Spirit,
And become one body, one spirit in Christ.
Through him,
In him,
In the unity of the Holy Spirit,
All glory and honour are yours,
For ever, and ever….
Amen.”
Condolence message was published with an obituary in the late edition of a leading newspaper.
What might be the reason of his sudden demise?
The reason really did not matter.
- Sam is no more!
Through the silence of many days I thought always of Sam who once held all the hope which a gift of intelligence ever proffered, from whom all our family members expected such a magnificent future….
All at once everything is reduced to a few fistfuls of ash…
Ever since that staggering untoward, it has been as if everyone in my apartment has forgotten to talk. An eerie silence was creeping through every corner and holding back every pace….
It was a week later my daughter picked a letter for me from our letterbox. That was of our uncle. In his laconic way of writing he just summarised the whole events in a few lines.
“One cannot survive the stakes of God’s penultimate punishment, for we are to face the consequences of our own deeds. The marriage had to be postponed indefinitely due to the unexpected end of Sammy. Johnny and Martha, your sister, have taken the next available flight to Mumbai to collect the dead body.”
Another letter followed immediately. This time the consigner was the bridegroom.
Dear brother,
Believe me! Though the purpose of our flight to Mumbai was to pick up Sam’s body we were utterly astonished and boundlessly rejoiced to find him alive. This most weird episode had been a cliché Sam employed to have stopped my marriage…”
I read those lines again.
I could not name my sudden emotion and had no words to state its cause.
I saw the thin branches of a pine tree in a distant park being waved like jubilant arms. Surprisingly happy though, I felt hollowed in my mind.
Strangely I received an unexpected stab of agony….
Sam is alive, no doubt now.
But, he is dead….
Tucked in an envelope that indicated the urgency of its delivery was a dolorous message written on a pink paper
Sam expired!
- My brother.
It was the incredibility of the untoward that gave me the real shock rather than the revelation of a piece of paper. How on earth could I believe it?
Not even a month passed since I had his last letter which as usual carried all his sentiments of affection and concern. A letter that he used to ride roughshod over to the proposed engagement of our youngest brother John and his fiancée Rita, a professional model. Though Sam had spent last few years of his studies in the States his intellectual pursuit did not yield to recognise his brother’s engagement with a modelling girl. This relationship appeared to have been taken by Sam as, “The culmination of a brother’s delirious chase for owning a curvaceous product that has been whimsically displayed in commercial market places.”
Scrawled across the page in a few lines were a brother’s disgruntled, noiseless utterances which irrefutably projected the profile of a moral zealot. In his last letter he mentioned he was grossly engaged in the preparation of a thesis on Genes, specifically on ‘Dominant inheritance’, which he expected to complete by the end of September. This was his second major work since he obtained a Doctorate in Genealogy from Harvard University.
I did make a point to send a greeting telegram to John and Rita when they announced the wedding.
“Now you are one…
In love
In laughter
In living
And everything in life
Is twice as beautiful…
- Felicitations!”
The message might hardly have reached my home town in Kerala, here comes a message of death with a gentle tap at my apartment door.
Solemnisation of marriage was to be held in Thiruvananthapuram, the death occurred in Mumbai, and I was in Singapore. Both the deceased and the bridegroom are my cousins. The relationship established among ourselves was more like siblings, since I was orphaned at the age of eight.
Proposing an elaborate celebration with carousal, I drove home with a variety of foreign liquor to boost the evening party on the day of marriage at my residence having invited a select band of friends and distant relatives. Buying a surprise gift for my daughter has been one of the priorities of the occasion. A flicker of astonishment rose and died in her eyes when she gleefully received my gift. With her usual giggle she said, “I wish there were many marriages to come in dad’s family.”
Up came the lunch call. At the lunch table mother and daughter were engrossed in their waggish discussions related to their new dresses that I bought for them the other day to signify the occasion.
My thought, however, took wing gliding merrily across the ocean, tiny rivulets, stretches of lush green pastures and coconut palms. In my ears chimed the church bell with its hymnic rhythms. Amidst the glow of countless candles, on a flourishingly decorated aisle stood my brother dressed like a prince of the province. Sporting a radiant smile he held his fiancée who stood beside him holding her head up gracefully reciprocating with her professional charm that was extravagantly supplemented with her jewellery.
My murky mind appeared to have found some sparkles of immeasurable joy. I have been fluttering in the lambency like a firefly that has no sparkle left on its own wings.
A quaint knock at the entrance door of my apartment gave me a jerk from my silvery dreams.
I grumbled: ‘May be a friend of my daughter, or that nosy Chinese couple in my distant neighbourhood.’
Irresistible to a thrust of ire I shouted at the door:
“Who the hell is that?”
The doors sprung open.
A grim-faced Chinese bloke in khaki uniform stood right in front, stretching a pink sheet of paper. Seemingly unperturbed, he said in his local Malay:
“Ma’afkan saya untuk manggangu tuan. Telegram untuk kamu. Salin di sini.”
(Sorry to disturb you, Sir, a telegram for you. Please, sign here.)
- “Sam expired.”
I felt a blow of a chilling wind, strong enough to extinguish the glow in my spirit. All my sweet dreams tumbled…
Suddenly I felt bewildered and lost as if the ground had been cut off from beneath my trembling feet. I stared out into the street until the outline of the messenger’s moving figure on a motorbike dissolved into the density of buzzing street of Singapore.
I sobbed like a child. My wife and daughter soon joined me wailing uncontrollably.
We quickly started for black cloths.
Certainly death follows birth.
But, should the pall of destiny befall upon this young man so soon? And, should it be on this auspicious occasion of his beloved brother’s nuptials?
Message was sent out to all my relatives and friends. Arena of a commemorative dinner party was slowly transforming into a place for the mourning of the bereaved.
A requiem mass was arranged in Queenstown Sacred Heart Church.
“Grant that we who are nourished by his body and blood,
May be filled with His Holy Spirit,
And become one body, one spirit in Christ.
Through him,
In him,
In the unity of the Holy Spirit,
All glory and honour are yours,
For ever, and ever….
Amen.”
Condolence message was published with an obituary in the late edition of a leading newspaper.
What might be the reason of his sudden demise?
The reason really did not matter.
- Sam is no more!
Through the silence of many days I thought always of Sam who once held all the hope which a gift of intelligence ever proffered, from whom all our family members expected such a magnificent future….
All at once everything is reduced to a few fistfuls of ash…
Ever since that staggering untoward, it has been as if everyone in my apartment has forgotten to talk. An eerie silence was creeping through every corner and holding back every pace….
It was a week later my daughter picked a letter for me from our letterbox. That was of our uncle. In his laconic way of writing he just summarised the whole events in a few lines.
“One cannot survive the stakes of God’s penultimate punishment, for we are to face the consequences of our own deeds. The marriage had to be postponed indefinitely due to the unexpected end of Sammy. Johnny and Martha, your sister, have taken the next available flight to Mumbai to collect the dead body.”
Another letter followed immediately. This time the consigner was the bridegroom.
Dear brother,
Believe me! Though the purpose of our flight to Mumbai was to pick up Sam’s body we were utterly astonished and boundlessly rejoiced to find him alive. This most weird episode had been a cliché Sam employed to have stopped my marriage…”
I read those lines again.
I could not name my sudden emotion and had no words to state its cause.
I saw the thin branches of a pine tree in a distant park being waved like jubilant arms. Surprisingly happy though, I felt hollowed in my mind.
Strangely I received an unexpected stab of agony….
Sam is alive, no doubt now.
But, he is dead….
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