What Lies In Wait

Warning : Speculates on death.

What happens to the dead?

No one knows.

The theologean says we go to heaven or to hell.

The practical man says, we don't exist anymore.

What Swamiji said was, we are eternal, our souls only shed skins when we are reborn again.

Meena was five when the concept of death was explained to her.

Her paternal grandfather had died. Her maternal grandmother explained to her, "It will happen to everybody. Everyone dies."

A little selfishly, Meena asked, "I am going to die too?"

She said, "Yes, of course."

Meena started crying. "You have to tell me I won't die."

After a while, irritated, she said, "Okay, you won't die."

Meena stopped crying. She now knew she would die someday, too. But hearing it said once from her grandmother that she wouldn't, relaxed her.

Thinking of it the next day, she thought what her maternal grandmother must have thought about her - something like, children can be so selfish.

So that was the first time she thought of death; and the way she saw it - one day something would snuff out the light in her, she would enter a dream-like state and awaken in another body - body of a baby - and she'd remember nothing. Much like those dreams you have where you can't remember what happened once you woke up, she would wake up, and she would not remember anything from her past life. The past life would pass away like a dream dreamt.

That was the image of death that she had.

***

Meena was nine years old when her father first took her to a butcher.

She saw the chicken try to peck the butcher and cluck away madly as their neck was snapped and after convulsing twice they died. She saw as the goats bleated away and the butcher killed them too.

She told her mother she wouldn't eat meat.

But that vow didn't last for long. Just for a year.

***

Meena vaguely remembered the day she was first told of what happens after death.

To die was to end life as one saw it.

She wasn't so afraid of what happened after death as much as she was of what happened in the last moments that the person dies.

Was she going to convulse like the chicken people ate, afterward? How much time would she stay conscious and feel her self fade away?

Was there going to be pain? Would she curse everyone as she died? Would she pass away in a jiffy or would the time feel like minutes or hours as they were passing away? Would her soul cling to her body, not wanting to pass away, or would the transition be smooth, like waking up from a dream in a jolt? These things, no one could say, for no one who had experienced it had lived to see another day. And how would they? Death is permanent. At least, for a single person's life.

Even though she didn't think or talk about such things, they were present in the back of her mind.

How did people, or even animals die? And what happened to them?

***

Were ghosts real?

Do souls who can't find their way really come to haunt the ones they knew in life?

If so, all the chicken she had eaten would have surely come to haunt her? She made a wry face. Ill-begotten humour, she thought.

Maybe only human ghosts could haunt humans.

She wanted to know. She needed to know. She wanted to know what could ease her way out into the Other World and if anything could be done in life to help the transition.

***

Meena was twenty-two years old today. She had grown into a beautiful lady. Her hobbies included singing, dancing, reading, writing, drawing. She had studied Theology. No more did thoughts of growing old and dying bother her as much, even though they were buried deep inside of her, she knew. She was happy-go-lucky, took things that came across her practically, never overthought anything through.

The best news was, she was getting married.

She was getting married to her high school sweetheart.

His name was Ananta.

The feeling of a first love was incredible.

The feeling when the other person noticed you stealing glances at them. The happiness when you notice the other person doing the same. The way his hand snaked and entangled your fingers when and where no one was looking, making you flush with quiet excitement. The love that blossomed within you when he called you "my dear" once in a blue moon.

This was the early stages of love.

Later on, when both had confessed feelings for each other, did the laughter and joy feel warm and cozy around each other. The holding of hands, never mind what others thought. After a day, meeting him and being able to tell everything to him as he listened intently. Even when nothing was there to be said, just resting her head on his shoulder, being near him. Everything felt heavenly.

The date of their marriage was coming along.

After a lot of pomp and splendour did they become husband and wife.

It was on the day of Fulshajja did Ananta tell her that his abdomen hurt above his umbilicus.

They urgently took him to the Emergency. The pain radiated to his back. He felt just slightly better as he sat with his knees to his chest. They diagnosed him to be having acute pancreatitis. Soon after reaching the hospital, he developed shock.

Meena sat in the waiting room. Worried though she was, her heart and mind were surprisingly clear.

Her mother was pacing up and down. Her father was asking the doctor questions on his prognosis.

Two hours later, as Meena had fallen asleep, she was woken up by her mother who spoke to her in an urgent tone.

Ananta could be dying.

At first she didn't believe.

But then she saw the doctor looking grim and he delivered the same news to her.

Meena felt like she had been hit. Tears flowed.

His mother and father arranged for her to go to Dakshineshwar to offer a puja.

She didn't believe in this, but having nothing else to do, she agreed.

In the back of her mind, she wondered if she could get hold of a psychic. Even though she was skeptical, she wanted to try.

As she stood in line with the dala for pujo in the massive line, someone in red dhoti called out to her...

"I know about your husband."

Meena avoided the voice, the person.

"He may not die. Let me help you."

That was all she needed to hear.

She lowered her ghomta and handed the dala to her mother as she left the line.

"Quick. Tell me how," Meena said.

"You will be afraid, if I tell you," the man said.

Meena thought he might be the pujari of some nearby temple.

"May be I will be, but still I will try to save him," Meena said.

Then listen, he said. Above this plane, is the astral plane, where souls wait till they are taken, as if by some force, to the Other World. We don't have access to the Other World, but we do have access to the astral plane.

People's souls who die an unnatural death or commit suicide become stuck in this astral plane and are forced to repeat the scene of horror that make them get stuck there. Ravaged by terror, sometimes they hover around us as ghosts, often those which cause harm either knownst or unbeknownst to them.

Ananta's soul is simply waiting in that plane, he hasn't died yet.

If Meena's soul went searching for his soul and brought him back to this plane and held onto him as such, he could be saved, with the doctor's help in recovering his body.

But there was the problem of encountering other souls on that plane.

Meena agreed to try, and urged him to do all he could.

The pujari made her sit in Padmasana in front of a small temple for daily worship and lit incense sticks before taking a small red hibiscus and placing it on her lap. He held her hands and asked her to close her eyes.

He told her not to be afraid.

Meena felt like she was being drifted off, the transition was not swift or even, she got stuck in between. It was probably because she didn't believe or trust enough.

The pujari encouraged her to move, let caution go, as of yet.

Slowly, she encountered something thick but transparent. A small string connected her mind to her mind as she knew it, but the rest of her felt eerie and airy. She pushed against the thick transparent wall, and easily she drifted through it. Distantly, she thought she heard stotras being chanted.

The first barrage of feelings she encountered was of terror, angst, and a horrible choking feeling which kept mounting till she couldn't breathe.

Something made her retreat all at once as Meena opened her eyes and coughed out.

"You went elsewhere. That what you felt was of a ghost who had hung herself or himself when she or he was alive. You have to be more careful," the pujari said, calm and composed.

The second time she did it, Meena carefully crossed over, and instead of flying into someone, she carefully touched the edges of the various personalities. Her mind touched Ananta's. She knew because of the mild pain it felt and him thinking, "I am being such a burden on Meena".

The pujari had said to coax him into following her once she met with his life force.

Despite the warnings on staying for too long, Meena decided to slow down and let Ananta reach down slowly with her help.

***

The astral world is a place unknown to most, almost all.

No one had seen all of it.

No one could fathom all of it, even if they were to see all of it.

To touch its edge was one thing, to cover as much as Meena had was another, altogether.

Meena must have known it in the back of her mind.

The pujari knew it was no small feat, of course.

A small girl's soul was trapped inside.

The very and only morning she had forgotten to sing the Hanuman Chalisa, she had met with a bus accident.

Every few seconds, the impact would strike her, over and over again, replaying the scene.

The terror that had seized her when she saw the bus coming, the slight moment of confusion as she tried to decide whether to move to the left or to the right, the horn blaring at her like the call of the ambulance, and then the shear pain from her muscles getting torn, her lungs and heart getting squeezed till they burst, her brain feeling a moment of alarm, doom and resignation.

Her scream was drowned.

And the same thing repeated itself.

The pujari's daughter.

After Ananta recovered, the pujari turned to Meena to remind her of her promise.

Her promise to help his daughter out of her misery.

With a small nod, she started to feel out his daughter.

But what they didn't know, was what would happen if they failed.

***

What nobody knew was the existence of demons beyond that plane.

When children slept, they called forth nightmares.

When people cried away in misery, they played with the shadows, and their minds, and urged on their grief by making nights appear darker, by making death look simpler.

And they wandered below the astral plane, assigned to each of those who died unnaturally.

And the pujari's daughter had one demon assigned aside.

It laughed, and it was on the watch, every day, every moment of her torture.

As Meena felt its presence, she recoiled.

She touched the girl's terror, tried to pull her back, but could not.

The pujari looked grim after Meena came back, sweaty after her third attempt.

Hearing everything, he couldn't stop the tears flowing.

***

After having chanted the Hanuman Chalisa, the pujari thought to try it himself, but Meena stopped him.

By going into the astral world again, she found her way to the girl and softly chanted the Mantra.

For a second, the terror turned to joy, on listening the familiar chanting, and in that moment no one could hold her back. In one go, she left the astral world back to the Other World where all souls come from, where all souls go to before coming down on the Earth again.

The demon, slightly afraid of the Chalisa, had lost.

Every night, when someone dies, their soul leaves. Their loved ones' souls need one push to follow them. Whether painstakingly overcoming grief or drowning in grief, people need to live.

Evil is often persistent.

It vowed to be after Meena's life when she died.

That frightens her even now.

Especially of the demon in this Age.

It stays in prostitution-homes, where people gamble, it lives where ignorance among people dominates.

But as Meena goes into the Hanuman Temple and rings the temple bell, she thinks Someone will be there to save her.

Did you know... that no one has seen the face of hell, of eternal hellfire after dying?

Every Hell is temporary.

Because no one deserves to live in Pain forever.

And the Gods will be there to help you out of seemingly eternal pain.

Thus demons will never be satisfied.

So the demon waiting underneath the astral plane for Meena wondered.

What if in the Next Domain Evil always wins over Goodness? The demon thought, its evil happiness lighting up, enjoying its line of thought.

The demon shrunk in size as it decided it would follow Meena every step of the way.

Have to give them that. They are persistent.

***