Take a close look. Some people look positively cheerful, as though they’ve just received an invitation for a picnic on the Marina. Some others, having received the same invitation, appear unable to rejoice over the invitation, owing to constipation.
And there are others, who having never enjoyed congenial company, look positively surprised that they should be invited at all. And there are some others who convey nothing; you know the kind that abstains from all sorts of voting and generally keeps a stiff Wodehouseian upper lip.
To balance this kind, there are those who give the impression that their effort at Churchilian bolivation suffered a lightning truncation right at the very beginning, leaving them with their mouths open!
I even saw one holding the telephone; no doubt he’d received an urgent call home. Some look like they always wanted to make it to the newspapers, and here at last is their chance! Parodoxically they are not there to see their names in print.
Sad.
And so much for facial expressions.
As for their economic situation, you can bet that all of them were well to do. The mere fact that they have made it to page 4 proclaims that fact loud and clear. Of course even in that select gathering of the dead, some are more equal than others: they either appear in colour or they are magnified – and in extreme cases take up the whole page! In life you may have missed them, but they make sure their presence (or rather absence) is conspicuous when they are gone !!
Those whose bank accounts and cupboard hoardings are nothing to write home about, can not have their departure publicly proclaimed. At Rs. 500 – 700 per square centimetre (black & white), it may not be worth while to go through the process, only to bring the event to the knowledge of the circulation figures of the particular edition which includes tens of thousands who never knew you from Adam. A WhatsApp boadcast is so much more easy and it is practically free!
You can also look at them in terms of their age. There are faces with wrinkles, eyes that are dim and you know that while it is no doubt sad, it is not tragic; having lived life to the full, they have seen it all. Then there are youngsters – a real heart wrench. With so much to experience in life, why were they snatched away? It is left for you to take the view philosophically that life in any case is essentially tragic and it is a blessing of sorts that they were spared its long running miseries.
Looking at young women, you begin to suspect that their mothers -in-law did them in. Why didn’t their husbands have the courage to stand up for them and show their support? Why didn’t the women simply up and go to their parent’s place? Couldn’t they have shown more gumption and have stood up to the whole thing? Why, why? Questions, hard questions.
Oh, their attainments! Academic qualifications, professional accomplishments; service ranks, ribbons, epaulets, medals. athletic prowess, political positions, government appointments, social service record and the like printed there. None of it is any good, nothing matters any longer. Dust unto dust, ash unto ash! The sum of it is worth – zilch . Job was on the ball: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall depart” (Job 1:21). Mind you, Job was a Zamindhar!
Some times you find scripture verses – hopeful, sad or merely descriptive. Kudos to the family for taking the trouble. Their tribute of honour can no longer be read or heard by those revered. Coming to think of it, quite pointless really.
So, what gives? You are blessed indeed if you can say with Paul “for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day”(2 Timothy 1:12), the pronoun “he” of course standing for Jesus Christ. If this (committing your life to him) is not something you have already done , what are you waiting for? “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation”(2 Corinthians 6:2).
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Good one
Hilarious