What's The Point?

I have been dead long enough to see my great-grandson get married. That means I had a son - who had a son and then who had a son. It should feel like a long time ago, but it still feels like yesterday when I entered the ancestral house at the tender age of sixteen.

My mom had told me I was fortunate as my husband's house had a well in the backyard. The year I got married, we expanded the house. My husband's business boom coincided with our marriage, and everybody started calling me his lucky charm. And the lucky charm label was solidified when I gave birth to seven healthy sons. None of them died in childbirth. You know what the funny thing is - I never thought I was lucky.

I wanted to play with other girls instead of cooking in the kitchen. I never wanted to raise seven sons but wanted to explore other towns like my husband. But women those days never left the house. And then, it was a joint family in which I was the youngest of the three daughters-in-law. And the other two detested me for being 'lucky'. So, I got the worst house chores - cleaning dishes and drawing water from the well. I never complained - the only respite I ever got was under the pear tree. I would sit there in the evening with a cup of chai before folding clothes from the clothesline. Even with seven sons and a joint family, I never felt at home except under the pear tree. It never asked me for anything; just let me be. It gave me a shoulder to cry on when my husband was away on business tours, and I was missing the comfort of another human. And everybody thought I was lucky.

Things changed. My sons grew up and left the village to go to other places. A few of them went to America as well. One by one, other family members died too, and it was just my husband and me. And it felt like I was living with a stranger. We did not know what companionship meant - I was his wife, and he was my husband. And we both had our roles to play. I remember when one of my daughters-in-law had asked for some couple time with my son. And they had gone out for a movie. All I ever did was sit under the pear tree. And after my husband died, it was just me in the big house. People still thought I was lucky as I had seven sons who had modernized the house. And now I had an attached bathroom, a sump pump, fan and electric bulb. All other rituals changed except drinking tea under the pear tree. Even now that I am dead, I still sit under the pear tree at tea time.

Being dead for almost three generations had given me perspective on life which I never had when I was alive. We do so much in our lifetimes - build a house with a well, run a successful business, bring up kids but three generations down, none of it matter. And now I wonder what the point of it all was? What is the point of being alive when we will all die? After being an outsider for so long, I believe that our lives are like a drama on repeat. And our job is to play our part in the theatre with gusto without forgetting that it is just a role. And if we do that, then we become an audience to our own life's show. And then the boredom, the politics, disagreements, celebrations, ups and downs all become a passing show.

There are two ways to look at life - one is as an actor, and the other is as a person doing the acting. If you are the actor, you are so caught up in the drama that it is all real to you. But if you are the person who is acting, then you know it is a role, and it will pass. And you realize that the only constant thing is the theatre in which all of this happens - the rest of it keeps changing.

Like when I was alone in the house for good thirty-odd years, I was at peace. A lot of villagers gossiped about how my sons had left me alone. How could I tell them that I considered myself lucky for once in my life because I could live my life the way I wanted. And when the pear tree also grew old and died - I cried. I watched them take my dead shell and burn it.

I consider myself lucky that I was dead for three days before the milkman found my dead body and contacted my sons. Because in those three days, I tethered myself to the stump of the dead pear tree. The pear tree has been my sole companion in life and death.