Articles of the year 2015
Published on November 20th 2015
This is the story of an old man who was very poor and lived in a graveyard, where he was employed as the gravedigger. His family was very poor and they had to make do with the charity given them by the mourners who came to visit their dead relatives.
The mourners never bothered except for the times of a festival when they visited their graves. Their only time of rejoicing came when a funeral was brought to the graveyard to be buried. The Gravedigger’s family used to celebrate quietly for the funeral brought money which was given by the bereaved to be distributed amongst the Grave diggers And so it was that the only happiness enjoyed was the arrival of a new body. After the burial, and the departure of the mourners, the graveyard would resound with the merrymaking of the Gravediggers whose happinesses were few and far between. When the cheap liquor had worn off they would all go back to their life of cruel misery, and want. The poor gravediggers family used to look forward to the death of a villager for it would bring some relief to their otherwise miserable lives.
It so happened that this gravedigger’s young wife gave birth to a little girl who was brought up by her mother playing amongst the graves for this was their home and they spent their time amongst the dead from whom they had no bother or fear. This little child grew into a comely young thing, and grew up according to the custom of having to do without due to their poverty, and rejoicing only at the arrival of a new body to bury. The child was well accustomed to their conditions of want and to their short spells of happiness.
One day she was married off to a cousin whose family lived in the graveyard of a neighboring village. Both husband and wife lived a blissful life, as newly marrieds do, and in time were blessed with a beautiful baby boy. The young mother doted on her baby, scrimping and saving so that she could provide for her son hoping to give those little sweets and toys that she had done without. Her determination was boundless for she wished that her boy would one day climb out of the poverty they lived in and learn to read and write, something her Father and uncles could not do. Her every living moment was woven around her son and her ambitious dreams for him. She even enrolled him in the village school that was run by the local Mullah which was under the Banyan tree with the huge roots that fell to the ground, and were climbed daily by the children.
And then one day her precious son came down with a high fever and died in her arms. Her husband and his family were too poor to afford a doctor, so they were at the mercy of Mother Nature who can be very cruel indeed. She wept and wailed refusing to be consoled, cried and cried some more. Her son was taken by is Father to the local bodywasher for his last ablutions, and then wrapped in a shroud and brought for his burial. When the funeral turned the corner towards the graveyard an involuntary gasp of happiness escaped her smiling lips till she realized it was her own sons’ funeral and she collapsed in a sobbing heap.