Nirmal Singh Spuddla had passed away a few days ago and I thought it best to go do the old avsose, pay our respects at his house. I dreaded these things especially when he was a relative although we were never close. So now one has to go through the motions that are required at these occasions.

I was sat in my armchair trying to get comfortable. We had thrown a flowery sheet over it now as it was getting a little frayed around the edges now, “but still as comfortable as ever” I thought as I was about to have my roti on a try in front of the telly. I looked down, it didn’t look very appetising. “Karellay, yuk!” I thought, “have they ever tasted good, ever?” With the appearance of a stuffed dead green animal it always tasted a little bitter. I forced it down and then pushed away the tray and decided to switch channels, endless images flickered by. Something caught my eye and I stopped it on the TV Gold channel, maybe I was getting old but Dads Army looked quite appealing.

I wearily got out of the chair, I wasn’t looking forward to going “Are you ready yet?” I shouted up the stairs.
“Coming” came the reply. I had got that same answer three times in the last half hour. Pritam Kaur came down dressed in a pale suit and white chunni, and with hardly any makeup, she looked like death warmed up.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
“It’s avsose isn’t it?” she said
“Yeh”
“Well, you have to dress in white”
“Okay” I said as I grabbed my coat and wondered off to the car.

We set off towards Nirmals house just as the sun started its daily descent. We bowed our heads as we passed the Havelock Road Gurdwara and headed towards the M4 motorway. Past “Guru” Ravidas’s gurdwara with all the coloured rope lights outside, over the canal hump bridge, past Toys R Us and Tesco’s.

“He was a nice bloke” I ventured, “mild mannered, and always helpful.” I looked over and saw a puzzled look over Pritam Kaurs face. “Well, he was” I insisted “always helpful.”
“No he wasn’t” she said.
“Shhhhh, don’t say that” I whispered. I didn’t want to speak ill of the dead.
“Yes you can, and he was quite obnoxious, and a drunk, and you couldn’t stand him and tried to avoid him ever time you saw him” she lectured.
“Yeh, well there is that, I suppose” I mussed as I played with my beard, which I had decided to let roam free.

We reached his house, which I suppose is technically his ex-house now, I thought, as he has now passed over to the other side. Cars lined the street on both sides so we parked about 50m down the road and slowly walked up. Pairs of shoes scattered at the front door greeted us. We took off our shoes also, and I regretted not having changed my socks which had a large WWF emblem and a picture of “The Undertaker” on the side with the slogan “Showtime!”

As we nudged the door open we were met by a mass of people all sitting on the floor. The large double room had been decked out with white sheets on the floor with the men on one side and the ladies on the other. A few wooden statues of Elk and Gazelle lined the mantle piece together with dark elongated figures with large earrings, Nirmal was from Africa. The obligatory Sukhmani Sahib played on the audio system gently in the background. “I bet they had to borrow that tape” I thought as I walked in and sat down next to Ballty, Nirmals eldest son.

No sooner had I asked Ballty what had happened that I heard a loud wail coming from the women’s side, a loud and unnatural wail that altogether didn’t sound too unfamiliar. This was accompanied by a series of other wails and sobbings. I looked over and saw Pritam Kaur in full wailing mode as she hugged Auntie Ji. This lasted a good few minutes and they then parted company and sat down. “Wow”, I thought, that was a pretty good show from Pritam Kaur, considering her words in the car. But apparently this is the norm, it is considered disrespectful if the ladies do not go up to Aunty and give her a good cry. The men on the other hand will ask what happened and once the formalities are over start chatting about this and that, and then someone will crack a joke and all the guys will roll about in fits of laughter, much to the puzzlement of the ladies who look on in mild bewilderment and dare I say it, a little envy.

“So what happened with Uncle Ji” I asked.
“Oh it was a heart attack.” He said.
“Damn, not the dreaded Big A” I thought as I started getting a tingling sensation up my left arm. I made a mental note, no more Allo Parthay in the morning.
“I think it was the allo prathey that did it” he continued.
“Damn.” I thought.

Thankfully the funeral was in the morning and as we sat in the gurdwara the raggi in somber mood and the close relatives congregating around the coffin, I stretched up a little and ventured a last look at old Uncle Ji.
He looked waxy.
This body, once so full of life, with its hopes and dreams, and all his close family who couldn’t live without him were now looking on with a mixture of sorrow and just a tiny bit of revulsion. This person who they hugged and laughed with was now just a pile of dust that they did not want to get too close to. I wondered where he was right now, or where is Atma or soul was, no doubt in-front of Dharam Raja giving an account of his life.

He had come over from India in the mid 60’s and worked in the steel foundries. The work was hard, hot and thirsty, maybe this is where he got his taste for the old fiery liquid, but it stuck with him all his life and brought many a disgrace on the family over the years. He had been one of the founding fathers of the gurdwara in Southall all those years ago doing free joinery and brickwork sewa in the beginning. Holding minor positions in the gurdwara committee gave him a certain air of respectability but rumours of missing funds and dodgy deals surfaced every now and then but nothing proven. He was also involved in the great raucous in the 80’s when the committee split into two factions and the inevitable fight with dholkie, bajas and shenay broke out in the main hall. This led to the emergence of a number of gurdwaras in the area. All through the years, on and off, the drink persisted. But there was never a firm commitment to his Guru, no undertaking of the true path of his Guru, rather a half hearted attempt at being a Gursikh, but only when it was in his interest to do so. His whole life wasted on frivolous and meaningless things, running around trying to amass a fortune and trying to gain influence and power over his colleagues, and now it was all too late.

Not much naam-jaaping from what I could tell, not much true selfless sewa, not much simran, and now, standing in front of Dhraram Raja he will be regretting it as the old shittar is brought out and he will get thrashed to kingdom come, and that is just the half of it. Endless lives, birth after death after birth after death. Out of one animal body into another endless and ongoing until God again graces him with another human form. It made me shudder to the core. I looked up and tried to shake off the feeling, the president had stood up to make a speech.

“Sardar Nirmal Singh was such a good soul, he did great sewa for this gurdwara and was well respected amongst us” he started. “Mild mannered and always ready to help, he did tireless sewa in the parbandak committee and was a great sewadhar of this sangat, I am sure Guru Sahib Ji has bestowed much blessings upon him, surely he is now a Satch Khand nivaasi – residing in heaven.”

I smiled wryly “sure thing, Pardhaan Ji.”

It was a cold and wet morning as we stood outside the “semitry” or cemetery to you and me, looking at the smoke rise from the main chimney, “there he goes” I thought. People piled into the three coaches that had been laid on for the occasion, much to the bemusement of the local goray. “That‘s it” I thought, as people rushed past me, “another life has passed on and like a dream all we have are his memories, soon even these will fade away from most peoples minds apart from his close family, and what has he to show for it?”

As I surveyed the area, the dark headstones looked cold and damp and the air hung wet and heavy, the lifeless trees hung sad gently dripping from their branches, I felt like a person who was being slowly swept away in a mass of water without a lifeline. It was as if I was desperately trying to grab on to something but there was nothing there, no help, no comfort, just a dark void. It was then that it hit me, like a small explosion in my head. A vision so devastatingly amazing that it caused a warm glow all over me. Suddenly my anxiety, my fear, my dark dark thoughts seemed to disappear just by the vision of one man who caught my eye.

In the distance among the dark skeletal trees and bushes stood a young person with a flowing beard and round navy dastaar, dressed all in blue his kirpan hung by his side, although no sun could be seen in the sky his chakaar around his dastaar sparkled. Just for an instance our eyes met and it was as if the dirt and sins of so many life times were being washed away, I squinted to see clearly shielding my eyes, just then the damn coach swept by splashing large amounts of muddy water to either side. It felt like an age for the coach to pass and when it did I rushed forward. But he was no more, I looked in desperation to and fro but nothing. I hurried forward looking past the headstones and the dark leafless bushes, but nothing. For a long time my eyes darted this way and that hoping to catch a glimpse, but to no avail.
“Ki hoe gya, tu kisnoo dhake dha hey?” someone shouted from behind me, it jolted me back to reality. I reluctantly walked back to the car. As I got in I took one last lingering look back, in this place of death maybe, just maybe I had found a new life.

As I sit here in my armchair blinking occasionally, all thoughts seem to have vanished in my mind, a curious calmness has descended upon me, almost as if I am removed from myself. The worries, the anxieties, the pressures of daily life
seemed to have ebbed away, albeit temporarily. Pritam Kaur walks in, she knows something is up as I don’t normally stare at a blank TV screen for 30 minutes. I look up at her as the sun rays catch her glistening Amla oiled hair and cause a little aura around her head. “Pritam Kaur-ray” I say “will you do me the honour of shaking Amrit with me?”

She smiles “I thought you’d never ask.”