For those on these lists who've been wondering about whether it was justified to attend or organize a New Year's bash in the midst of the tsunami tragedy, here's a nice piece that came in on New Year's day in the Times. Personally, I did not go for the GB party, though not because of the tsunami. I had planned on spending New Year's with close (and admittedly, straight) friends. In any case, I think I would agree with Jug Suraiya here, especially when he affirms the importance of not losing hope as opposed to dwelling on the tragedy, and thus concentrating on life more than on death.
Happy New Year!
Much love,
Mario
Partying is such sweet sorrow
JUG SURAIYA
When is it going to be politically correct to tell a joke again, go to a party, admit you're enjoying life? Post-disaster, how long should collective mourning—as distinct from the individual grief of those who have lost loved ones—last?
A lot of people and establishments, in India and elsewhere, cancelled their New Year's eve celebrations to show solidarity with the victims. Others decided to go ahead with the festivities, often with the proviso that part of the proceeds would go towards the relief fund: Partying for a good cause. Both views are valid and deserve respect.
Disaster creates an aftermath of moral ambiguity. The initial shock of horror gives way to an insidious sense of guilt. Of course we genuinely grieve for the victims. But at the heart of that sympathy there is a small but irrepressible inner voice which says: Thank God it wasn't me. This is the guilt of the survivors, a haunting disquiet, as affective as it is irrational. That those who have died have somehow died in our stead, by some inexplicable calculus of mortality lost their lives so that we may live. Survival is tinged with shame. That we the living have, after the fact, allowed others to die on our behalf, death by proxy. Guilt sharpens grief, gives it a jagged edge.
If we recognise this guilt we exorcise it as the specious spectre that it is. Thank God it wasn't me. The thought is as normal and natural as breathing. Or indeed as dying. Where in this is there cause for shame? Or of sorrow for the sake of sorrow.
Life absolves the living. Thank God it wasn't me. It is not a secret wish for another's death. It is an affirmation of a celebration called life, of which death is also an inseparable part. The show goes on, with or without us.
When will we know that it is time to start picking up the pieces? When we see that what we are searching for are not mementoes of mortality but fragments of hope.
In the midst of death we are in life. This is a common theme in all religions and communities. After funerals, the Irish have 'wakes', a celebratory feast in honour of the departed. Mexicans have the annual 'Day of the Dead', when children are encouraged to gorge themselves on sweets shaped like human skulls.
In Latin America, funeral processions stop en route to and from the cemetery to eat and drink at wayside cafes—a practice not unfamiliar in Varanasi where the narrow alleys around the ghats are lined with halwais who do brisk business serving people returning from funerary rites. Among the mourners is inevitably a self-appointed jokester to provide graveyard humour: Haven't we left someone behind?
Death, it seems, is too important—or insignificant, take your pick—to be taken too seriously. Zorba the Greek dances on the edge of the abyss, upraised arms invoking the music of life that is sweetest on the brink of the precipice. Whistling in the dark? Or rejoicing in the light of a liberating sky?
Lost in his dance, the dancer wouldn't even hear the questions, let alone waste his breath on an answer.
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