The Cemetery

 









On a Sunday evening, my friends and I visited the cemetery in St. George’s cathedral. We knew that we weren’t allowed to enter that place. Nevertheless, we went ahead. We saw many types of graves; some were built with marble and some had nothing more than a rusty cross marking the place of rest. The graves were aligned perfectly. It was my second time visiting a cemetery – as I am a non-Christian I don’t get to visit them on a regular basis – and I felt very calm.

It was a pleasant afternoon and it was the perfect place to take a walk. My friends and I never understood why people harbour a prejudice towards the dead. Dead people were once living people – like you and I – who had hopes, dreams and ambition. They were just people.

As we walked further, we entered the part reserved for the English. Those graves were different from the ones we saw earlier. They were made of stone with intricate carvings in it. Some of them had cracks in them but they had withstood the test of time. I was amazed at the craftsmanship of those graves.

One of my friends pointed out how young those people were when they died. He was right; people used to die young back then. I saw a magnificent headstone of to a sixteen year old English girl. Her headstone said that she lived a very pious and virtuous life. 

I had a cynical thought when I read it; did that girl ever got to live like teenager? The words ‘pious’ and ‘virtuous’ on the headstone of a sixteen year old looked very polished to me. Seeing her elegantly carved headstone, I suddenly realised that it was probably built through the exploitation of my people.

Another part of the cemetery contained short, small graves. They were the graves of children. I saw one belonging to a one year old toddler. It struck my heart. The fact that there was a time in which life could be snuffed out even before it could begin was jarring and unreal for me. My friend said that she saw the graves of a pair of two year old fraternal twins.

On the other side of the cemetery, I saw a banyan tree growing and justifying it’s existence in a death filled place.

Death couldn’t be more real anywhere than here. It was here that I was able to grasp that the English actually lived amongst us once upon a time, that were living people with loves and lives. I realised that they were just as human as me and yet it was these humans who had caused so much suffering to my people.

I suppose in the end, there are no monsters. There are only humans.


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