WOW: Everyone Else Was Grieving

I remember a real incident, that happened long back. That time I was a young person, in my initial service in private sector, at a very low salary. It was the circulation department of a group of magazines in Delhi, which has got a very negative reputation of paying low salaries. But people work there initially to find a way in this industry.

Anyway I was there at the initial level of table work, in circulation department, maintaining registers of orders and supplies of various magazines etc.

This incident happened at that time, as the circulation manager, the in-charge of our department Mr. Rajiv Gupta,(name changed) suddenly died and all of us had to go to his house for expressing grief and we all went. We always find some people who are made to lead in all types or may be some special types of circumstances, and we found one for this occasion also. As we went there for expressing grief, the best I could do was to sit there silently.

Now I would narrate the incident, as the father of Mr. Gupta, the person who died. So now the description of that residence, as Mr. Gupta senior!

I am facing a very grave situation since last evening as my son Rajiv, who was working in a private company, died last evening. My grief is where it is, but I have to keep explaining to the visitors about what happened and how happened!

In the morning when my neighbor and very nice friend Mr. Gulati came, he kept his hand on my shoulders and asked – Why did it happen Gupta Ji! Now logically it was a very silly question, he knew that my young son has died, and he asks me ‘why it happened!’, but knowing how deeply he was hurt by this happening, I embraced him and we kept weeping for quite long time.

However that was early in the morning, quite long period has passed since then, I have been meeting several visitors and replying to their questions about how and when it happened and how we finally came to know that my son is no more.

A little time back, a group of people from the company, where Rajiv worked has come, some 10-15 persons, most of them are sitting in silence and one Mr. Tiwari amongst them appears to be their leader for this visit, when they arrived, Mr. Tiwari told on behalf of all of them that they felt very much hurt on listening the sad news, he also told me how hard it is for a father to see the dead body of his son. He then asked me –how it happened, and I kept answering to his questions, telling how my son Rajiv took dinner last night, and after a while told that he was feeling severe chest pain and how we rushed him to hospital and how the moment we reached the hospital, the doctor on examining declared him brought dead.

I had become seasoned by now, people were coming, asking questions about how it happened, I was mechanically replying to all the questions, people kept telling me how hard it is to go through such situations, they kept expressing their grief in the best possible way, they could, and I kept listening to them, almost without any emotions visible, reacting, replying mechanically.

In a way I can say that, ‘Everyone Else Was Grieving, but I had nothing to express except giving details of the happenings, as pure news, without emotions mixed in that.

‘This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.’