I have been exploring how to keep the memories of my sister, Harry, alive, especially in the week of my cousin sister's wedding which synchronicitily fell on harry's death anniversary, 17th november. I am aware that in the joint family that I exist in, the general decorum is that of meting ignorance towards any eccentricity that might wear it's head up, higher or lower than the agreed benchmark. Upon my return to the family home after an obsolence of three years, the same being the time interval between harry's passing, i was quite surprised to encounter the resistance of the entire family in talking about the one who has gone before us. This resistance transpired into an absence of her photograph from the altar in the living room , where my dad's picture hung with my paternal grandmother's(who incidentally passed away three years after harry..so in order of precedence...her portrait should have followed harry's), leaving the obvious vacuum in the hall as there was the missing portrait of the one in question, to my fresh foreign returned, eyes.
After having a healthy discussion with my aunt and my mother over this dilema that continues to haunt me, i came upon an epiphany..which i haven't written about earlier.but when i read this essay,"Silence and Invisibility" by Giti Thadani in a collection of lesbian writing,"facing the mirror", it brought home the realisation, what is not talked about, is forgotten. "Ignorance.When something is ignored, it will gradually lose any vitality it once had, first becoming invisible and then finally disappearing altogether. If memory is not passed on in some coherent way, that which is not remembered no longer exists, and it can then be said that it never existed."
Whilst thinking about those who have gone before us, there are many tribes, who practice this ritual of not naming the dead. They believe that the souls get perturbed in their abodes and if they are not named, these souls would continue to exist in another dimension and not be invited into ours. William Mcdonough in his book, Cradle to Cradle, talks about the ultimate recycling practiced by a north indian tribe of bengal or orissa, where the ashes of the dead are cooked with a ceremonial dinner, which is eaten by all.
I feel the stark absence of harry's picture and even her name from daily conversations in the family, and when i bring up a happier memory in a bid to celebrate her life and acknowledge her presence in this family house for twenty five years of her life, it is greeted by an awkward pause or requests to leave the negative energy of her be and not invite it back into this house. This brings me to realise how harry's suicide and passing over has been swept under the 'great big indian carpet'.
John Berger, says this in "Ways of Seeing", "When we see a landscape, we situate ourselves in it. If we 'saw' the art of the past, we would situate ourselves in history. When we are prevented from seeing it, we are being deprived of the history which belongs to us. Who benefits from this deprivation? In the end, the art of the past is being mystified because a privileged minority is striving to invent a history which can retrospectively justify the role of the ruling classes, and such a justification can no longer make sense in modern times. And so, inevitably it mystifies."
After having a healthy discussion with my aunt and my mother over this dilema that continues to haunt me, i came upon an epiphany..which i haven't written about earlier.but when i read this essay,"Silence and Invisibility" by Giti Thadani in a collection of lesbian writing,"facing the mirror", it brought home the realisation, what is not talked about, is forgotten. "Ignorance.When something is ignored, it will gradually lose any vitality it once had, first becoming invisible and then finally disappearing altogether. If memory is not passed on in some coherent way, that which is not remembered no longer exists, and it can then be said that it never existed."
Whilst thinking about those who have gone before us, there are many tribes, who practice this ritual of not naming the dead. They believe that the souls get perturbed in their abodes and if they are not named, these souls would continue to exist in another dimension and not be invited into ours. William Mcdonough in his book, Cradle to Cradle, talks about the ultimate recycling practiced by a north indian tribe of bengal or orissa, where the ashes of the dead are cooked with a ceremonial dinner, which is eaten by all.
I feel the stark absence of harry's picture and even her name from daily conversations in the family, and when i bring up a happier memory in a bid to celebrate her life and acknowledge her presence in this family house for twenty five years of her life, it is greeted by an awkward pause or requests to leave the negative energy of her be and not invite it back into this house. This brings me to realise how harry's suicide and passing over has been swept under the 'great big indian carpet'.
John Berger, says this in "Ways of Seeing", "When we see a landscape, we situate ourselves in it. If we 'saw' the art of the past, we would situate ourselves in history. When we are prevented from seeing it, we are being deprived of the history which belongs to us. Who benefits from this deprivation? In the end, the art of the past is being mystified because a privileged minority is striving to invent a history which can retrospectively justify the role of the ruling classes, and such a justification can no longer make sense in modern times. And so, inevitably it mystifies."
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