One Funeral and A Few Nearly Dead

 

My family Whatsapp group has an unwelcome member. His name is Shankunni. I used to call him Maman (uncle) even though he is around my age. He is my mother’s cousin. After marrying his elder sister, I have called him Chettan (elder brother). He did not like that, the marriage and the change in status.

Last March, his Whatsapp message was: ‘In the next one year, we will lose three members to the coronavirus.’

Even though most of us hate him, most cannot do without him either. When my cousin’s son got involved in campus politics and received death threats from the opposite camp, my cousin called on Shankunni to ward off the evil. Within two days, three opposition student leaders were in hospital with dysentery after having stale shawarma.

My wife and I might be the only ones in the family who have not approached Shankunni and wife for such help. I remember their wedding. In front of a packed audience, he slit the throat of a fighter cock and applied the animal’s blood, instead of sindoor, on his wife’s forehead. Some say it was she who initiated him. He used to be a party member in his younger days. In the eighth standard, he went for the recitation competition in the District School Youth Festival and asked the judges, “Tell me a page number. I will recite that page of the Das Kapital.” One of the judges, the son-in-law of the Minister Against Neo-liberalized Industry, was impressed. Shankunni’s recitation became a constant act at every party convention. Years later, around a year before his wedding, when the police booked a FIR against Shankunni for a viral online post about #BlackMagic, the same son-in-law (of the minister who was then Minister for Neo-liberalized Industry) saved him. That post was not bad actually. I remember one line: ‘Black magic has one danger, the boomerang effect. Most often, the intended victim gets hit; but, not too rarely, the spell can return to sender like a boomerang.’

The family did not take his March 2020 Whatsapp message lightly. They asked Shankunni to do something. He said the virus is beyond his powers. We followed all the covid precautions very strictly.

When my father was admitted in hospital with Covid in late December, the first Whatsapp message in the group simply said, ‘One.’

Ten days later, the hospital informed us that he is no more. They told me to identify the body at 4 pm. We booked a cremation slot at 5:30 pm. As per protocol, only two from the family could be there at the crematorium, that too in PPE suit and all.

It was a Sunday. Shankunni told us that Rahu-Kaalam (inauspicious hour) started at 4:30 pm and that we should conclude the last rites at home before that. He decided that it should be done before I went to identify the body. He told me to take bath and to be ready by 3 pm.

At 2 pm, my wife and I went to our bedroom. I was overcome with grief. I sat on the bed. She stood in front and held me against her. Inappropriate or not, we fondled each other, undressed, tried one of our games, I wearing her panties and she in my underwear.

At 3 pm, we joined the others in the courtyard where Shankunni had arranged everything. He was in a state of great agitation, shouting, “Something really bad has happened. The heavens above have gone blacker than black.” His wife too was in a murderous state, “Who has engaged in such a despicable act here?”

No one dared to ask them for details. The couple refused to perform the last rites. Someone pleaded for the family’s sake. They conceded and quickly went through it, muttering gibberish all the while.

I went with my sister to the hospital. We were in PPE suits. We were taken to a hall with bodies on stretchers. The body we were shown was not my father’s. We protested. The hospital staff seemed to be used to that. A bored policeman on the premises told us to wait. After an hour, we were told that there had been a mistake and that the person who had died was not my father Sivarajan but another poor soul Savarajan.

As compensation for the mental duress endured, we were taken to the covid ward and shown our father. He was still in the ICU but looked better. We showed thumbs up to him and returned home. Shankunni and his wife did not share our joy and left with more muttering.

My father returned home five days later.

That was not the end of that affair. The younger members of our extended family conducted an investigation, strictly offline. What could have been the despicable act? The answer, strangely, seemed obvious to all. Who engaged in that? By the process of elimination, the fingers pointed at my wife and me. No one reproached us. 

One month later, my cousin in Manchester discreetly requested my assistance when her husband developed complications with Covid. My wife and I tried out another role-play. My cousin’s husband had a miraculous recovery.

Then, in April, my aunt caught the virus. Again, another act with great vigour and she was back home without any post-covid symptoms.

Shankunni and his wife declared war on us with another Whatsapp message, ‘There WILL be one death.’

He had posted that same message on my wedding day too. My wife got her periods that day, a bit off schedule. That did not stop us. The morning after, we got to know that Shankunni was admitted in hospital during the night with appendicitis.

We knew what we had to do when we got the message the second time. That night, my wife was breastfeeding me. I shrieked with pain when I shifted from the left breast to the right. I was sweating profusely. I held my pounding chest. I managed to reach the toilet before the runs hit me.

“Must be the raw jackfruit curry,” my wife said calmly.

Two days later Shankunni caught the Covid, probably at a vaccination centre.

In the family Whatsapp group, a message popped up instantly, ‘One.’

His wife called my wife.