Uthamna

Attended a friend's father's uthamna. This is like wake and usually happens three days after a person's demise. It is called Uthhala, Besna or Chautha in Hindi. The family gets together at a hall/auditorium. Relatives, friends and business associates come and pay their condolence to the family. In Mumbai, they get professional singers to sing Bhajan/ soulful songs/hymns. The late person's photo is kept facing the audience. Incense sticks are burning and some flowers are kept around. The bhajan singers and musicians sit on a stage. The close family sits on white plastic chairs with their backs to the stage. The visitors sit in the audience. The timings are usually 4-6pm. The visitors come in and sit. The Bhajans/ religious hymns are being sung. They sit for two or four songs and leave. While leaving they fold their hands in Namaskar to the entire family. The entire family does Namaskar to the guests who are leaving. All this communication is without any words. The family and the audience are in pure white clothes. The musicians also follow the white dress code.The men who come from office are in their office wear. One can walk in to pay their last respects any time after 4pm. The singers give a gap between songs and that is your cue to leave if you want to. In this gap, the singers talk about the departed soul or they talk about how great the person was when alive. Bottled or packaged water cold and room temperature is kept at the exit. Most Mumbaikars drink water once out and carry a bottle for their onward travel too. Mumbai offices work late, a working person has to take a half day leave from office or leave work two hours early. For women it is a time to travel together. The rush hour traffic starts at six and it hits all the visitors who attend it.
 Giving you a whole background to how this event is. Depending on the strength of the family and friends, the hall/venue is booked. The family is mourning. Earlier, they used to just play some bhajans on a music system. In Dhanbad, the visitors would read Bhagwad Geeta chapters or chant the 12 adhyaay/ chapter shlokas. Most women would know it by heart and could chant without looking at the Bhagwad Geeta. In Dhanbad and Jharia, it would be from three in the afternoon. Because there the sun sets by five pm. After the uthamna, all visitors and family would go to the nearby temple for Darshan and then go to their respective homes.  In Jharia, there were three wedding halls in Fatehpur Lane where we lived. These halls were multipurpose and used for the mourning ceremony too. When visitors  returned from uthamna, they did not visit other people's houses. All went home and had a bath or a wash and change of clothes. How do I know so much? I saw my Grandmother Gauri Bai attending these events. She would have her afternoon tea early when she had one to attend. She was always there  to support when people passed away. She knew what to do with the dead body, the bathing and dressing up ritual and the Pujas to be performed by the family members before the last rites.
The uthamna had grace to it. Each person was given a printed sheet of paper which talked about the 18 sins in Jainism.The singer was not just singing hymns but he had a context to it. Rupesh was his name and his  context was not to praise the departed but to add value to the lives of people attending this session. He talked about how our lying or hiding the truth has increased since the Mobile phones have invaded our lives. Attending this for even those two songs will keep us away from our daily humdrum for half an hour. That stolen peace of half an hour will add to world peace.He made the crowd sing the chorus with him. A gentleman who was handing the paper, walked up to us and explained the meaning of the printed words as one of us was not familiar with the language. The way he said the gist in Marathi was so profound. He said that even knowing once again that anger is bad will help us reduce the intensity of our anger. All guests were given a CD with Jain Hymns. On the cover of the CD was Uncle's smiling pic with a Hindi Shayri/couplet that he loved. I could not help but leave the place a bit lighter and with a little sunshine.