The news, when it first came, was shocking. One moment, he was sitting at the dining table having his lunch. The next moment he had collapsed onto the floor, where he died moments later. Of a massive heart attack, the doctors said. But he had never had a heart attack before although it seems he had a problem for which the doctors had recommended getting a pacemaker. But they had not said it was urgent and he had postponed getting one to the next opportune moment. Otherwise he was fine, he had given others no reason to worry about his health; he was not even 60 years old; he would walk more than 10 kms. most evenings and he led a busy and very active life.
He was widely known and much loved and respected. The news created a storm. How could he just drop down and die like that? Of course for him it was immediate release -- the best possible kind of end. But for his friends and family, the suddenness of it all was just too much to handle. Many of his friends were still in shock. As were his immediate family. I could see that everyone was still struggling. Even if he had been ill for a few days, people around him would have had the time to come to terms with the thought of what could or might happen, but this way, there was just no warning whatsoever.
People tried to find various possible explanations for his sudden death. True he liked to eat well, was very generous with his drinks and was rather heavy for his age and height. For the more rationally inclined all these factors and the weak heart was enough of an explanation for his death. Others spoke of destiny, of karma, of dreams and premonitions... it was clear that they were clutching onto every little straw...
All the children were far away in Guwahati when disaster had struck that afternoon; they had to travel through the night to be back home in time for the burial. All of them were still studying -- their father had not prepared them for the duties and responsibilities that lay ahead of them. For my friend had single-handedly managed an entire empire -- rice fields, tea gardens, logging and timber, road construction, and what not... he had not taken anyone into confidence... and now he was not there to guide them to show them the way...
'He appears in my dreams every night,' his eldest son, told me, 'and he guides me about how to proceed with the problems I have. He gives me specific instructions, even tells me names of people who I should contact, tells me the names of timber factories where I should sell the logs, he is there with me all the time. He has not gone away.'
That sounded almost too good to be true. But strange things happen. And if the father was helping the eldest son to get the hang of the job that had so suddenly been thrust on him, it was all good. The elder son had the same nature as his father. Both were happy, caring and patient individuals who carried their own burden silently. The elder one had had no time to grieve or to recover. He simply had to jump in at the deep end and start doing what was expected of him. The younger son was different. It was clear he was still under shock, it seemed as if there was some grief bottled up deep inside that needed to come out before he could start getting back to normal. The daughter had already gone back to Guwahati to resume her training -- she needed to keep herself diverted and busy to be able to cope.
People tackled their grief in different ways. The widow was still very unstable and would break into tears and start blaming herself for everything, every few minutes. She just could not accept what had happened. She was miserable and unforgiving. 'Why did I have to get up and go before him from the table that day? I feel so guilty.' She just couldn't forgive herself for what had happened, even though she knew that she would probably not have been able to prevent it, simply by her presence. After all she was educated enough to understand and appreciate the scientific reasons for what had happened.
I tried my best to help her to cope. And not keep blaming herself for everything. But with very little success. 'I feel so angry with myself,' she continued. She was angry because all her various illnesses, the treatment for which had kept her away from him for weeks and months together, had completely vanished, or were at least under control, since he left. 'I should have been with him, and taken care of him, instead of being away getting treated for my illnesses. He was the one who needed care, not me. But I will not get a chance to do that any more...' she told me breaking into sobs yet again.
I asked about the old father who was still alive. How did he cope with the news? The old man came to Nampong on hearing the news, stayed till a couple of days after the burial and then went back to his village. He was sad but apparently all right. But the newly bereaved widow thought otherwise. 'He was not in his right mind,' she informed me. 'He kept saying that someone had shot him with a gun or with an arrow through the ears. He kept asking me look at the neck and the ears and see if I could find any marks, or if it had got blackened. He was talking nonsense. Who could shoot him in his own dining room in broad daylight like that? There were so many people around him. Would they not have seen anything? That old man seems to have lost his head after losing his eldest son.'
But something told me that there was more to the story than just that. That old man was very special. If he was asking such a specific question, there was some reason for it. It was not madness. And since my dear dead friend had married an Assamese girl, there was also a chance that she might have misunderstood something. After all, she was not a born Tangsa, although she had become more Tangsa than Assamese in those many years of living with her Tangsa husband in Nampong.
We went to visit him in his basti a couple of days later. He was in bed when we arrived but not because he was ill. He was close to a 100, so he did not sleep too well at night. Therefore he took short naps every now and then. But he was fit as a fiddle. And still actively caring for his own goats and chicken, besides his fields and besides doing his job as Gaonbura of his village. He was overjoyed to see me.
'Why did your son have to die so young?' I couldn't help asking. He was so wise. But he did not take it as a rhetorical question. He replied immediately.
'Someone shot his tiger through the ears and killed it. So he had to die too.' It was all crystal clear to him. He did not sound too excited or upset. He was just stating facts, for what they were.
Suddenly I understood -- his tiger? 'Do you mean the animal that his soul resides in? How do you know that it was a tiger?'
'I don't know for sure, but think that it must have been a tiger. He lived like a king -- and the tiger is the king of the forest.'
That was true. 'That is why I asked my daughter-in-law to check for marks on his body. If someone shoots his tiger and kills it, then he will also have to die. But there will be the wound marks on his body at the same place as where the shot or arrow entered the animal's body. But she could not find anything.'
Suddenly it all seemed to make sense. For the Tangsa believed that the soul of each person resides in an animal with which it is paired -- a snake, a chicken, a tiger, a kite,... their destinies are bound together, if one of them falls ill, so does the other, if one dies, so does the other, there are many stories of people being brought back to life by transferring the soul from a dead animal or bird to that of a live one.
Your daughter-in-law was too upset to understand what you meant, I wanted to tell him, but stopped myself. There was no point in creating this needless tension between them. After all, they would all need to rally around one another even more closely now that the king tiger was gone and had left them to their own defenses. It seemed to me that each one had found his or her way of explaining my friend's death to himself/herself. That they did not necessarily agree on the cause was besides the point. They only needed to believe in the explanation they had found for themselves...
