Tuesday 30 / April / 2024
While we were queuing up to wait for our turn to condole the family of the deceased, a man behind me said in a low voice,” do they have a VIP lounge in this graveyard?”
I thought he was joking. I turned around and said quite irritably,” this is not an airport. It’s a place that reminds us that we are all going to be eaten by worms, no matter how important you were in this world.”
An elderly man in front of me shushed me up and asking me to be sensitive to the family of the deceased. The man behind me tapped me on the shoulder and raised his eyebrows towards a small, white building on top of a rock. An usher was politely guiding half a dozen important looking men down the steps. He parted the queue to allow the VIP to pay their respect first while the rest of us just waited. They looked embarrassed as they were coming down knowing that they were breaking the ethical codes that separated decency and vulgarity. Yet, they allowed it to happen.
I thought if we walked half an hour in the sun to carry the coffin, watched the body being lowered in its final resting place, offer our prayers as a sign of respect, then waiting just a few more minutes would not take anything away from us. There was no shame in that. As a matter of fact, we would go back to our homes knowing that we walked the distance and did not take a short cut to a road that we will use for our final journey. I am not sure how the VIP people would justify themselves for being in a luxury isolation from the rest of the crowd, talking and joking, insensitive to the memory of the dead person.
I took this debate beyond the grounds of the cemetery to a couple of wise old men. Their argument was not just unacceptable but shocking. They explained to me, in such a way, as if I were an imbecile, that we are not all the same. God meant to separate us in different social classes. I had to restrain myself from being rude to the two gentlemen. But at the same time I could not let it pass without protesting. It was no use but I thought I should mention that worms would also feast on dead ‘VIP’ lying six feet down. They just glared at me and brought the curtain down on the debate.
I am not exactly confused but as I shake hands with the royals, dignitaries and their Excellencies, not to mention people with a few millions in the bank, I wonder if a common man like me would miss something important in the Day of Judgment.
If the two old gentlemen were right, then I am missing some riches in this life and a lot of blessings in the next for just being a commoner. I also now wonder what is happening to the old theory that if you live a hard life now than heaven will be your permanent abode when you move on. Perhaps it always has been a wishful thinking for the poor and that successful people we see now would have the best of both worlds.
As a psychiatrist friend of mine once told me, there would be no mad people in heaven. And he would be jobless once he reaches there. He might as well overcharge the rich now while he has the chance because such people would be beyond his reach in the afterlife. Well, in conclusion, all I can say is that VIP lounges at the graveyards is an insult, not respect, to a dead person.
