BLOG 14 The saddest day

January 26th

Today has been a sad, sad day, as we were woken at 6 by a call from a very distressed Balaji, telling us that Nagadevi had died in the early hours. For her it must be a blessed release from awful pain, but for her family and friends it is a great loss. At 7.30 Sekar rang me to say that of course now all the meetings we had planned with the people of Seetaramanpet for today, and our lunch with Padmini, would be cancelled. We asked for advice about how we should respond and Sekar suggested we buy a large special garland to take to put on her body and to show respect to her and the family.

Around 10 o'clock, this being Republic Day in India, we went across to the Tailoring Societies building for the raising of the flag (by myself, with some guidance about which string to pull from Arul) followed by the singing of the national anthem. I was then invited to distribute sweets to those present. We mused a little on the fact that the republic of India is almost the same age as Pam and me.

All of us felt somewhat subdued and spent the rest of the morning quietly, with the exception of Marilyn, who held her first sample lesson, for the best pupils. After lunch we went with Selvi, Arul and Dandebanni to Seetaramanpet, taking the huge garland with us, and some firecrackers. When we arrived we were greeted by Balaji, looking very sad, and taken to sit in the next street along from Nagadevi's house. There we found all our friends from the village; Padmini our teacher, Balaji's mother Santa, and brother Shankar, Raghu's mother and older brother, all exhibiting distress and welcoming with hugs and tears. As we watched a procession went by led by drummers and a very wild dancing man, and attended by the boys of the village who were obviously enjoying throwing very loud firecrackers. One can see why Indian children play at funeral processions in the same way that English children will act out weddings. They are so much a part of the fabric of their lives.

We followed the noisy procession down the street to the courtyard in front of Nagadevi's house, where we found a crowd of relatives surrounding her body, placed with garlands inside a glass case, on a table. We went forward to show our respects and Pam placed our garland on her. Nagadevi is from Ooty and so her family, her brothers and her mother, had travelled through the night to be there. Her poor mother was weeping and telling us she was her only daughter. Her mother in law, with whom she must have lived for 20 plus years, was equally distressed. Her two teenage daughters, crying, hugged us as we tried to express our own sadness for them and for their mother.

As we walked away, back to have coffee at Balaji's house, Padmini told me she thought Nagadevi was only 40 years old, less than I had thought. We then saw in the crowd Govindaraj, who used for several years to be the RCO for the village, and who has very strong relationships with many of the people still , even though he left RUHSA some 2 years ago for a government school teaching job. Several of them had called him this morning early with the news. It was so good to see him. We had supposed that we would not be able to fit in a trip to see him this time.

After talking quietly with Balaji's family, and learning from Santi his mother that Nagadevi was her closest friend, we bade them all farewell, and cycled home, all of us feeling very wrung out emotionally. Govindaraj came to call at 5.30 and stayed to share our supper and to regale us with his usual store of hilarious tales. He was just what we needed to make us feel a bit more cheerful. We all agreed together that a very special light had gone from the world, and from the small close-knit community of Seetaramanpet, in particular, with the death of the funny, bold, lively woman and strong community leader that Nagadevi was.