Thirteen Days of Mourning and Music, Death and Life
Seema Pahwa’s directorial feature Ramprasad Ki Tehrvi is a realistic narrative in the face of death, peppered with grief, comedy, and epic performances by an ensemble cast.
In 2019, my sister-in-law called to inform me that my Nana—my mother’s father—had passed away. I was in the office, some forty kilometers away from home. Ma, of course, was devastated. Having lost a parent myself, I knew how children grieve for their parents’ untimely and unnatural death. And in that loss, Ma had suffered the loss of her partner, too. With the news of Nana, I asked my sister-in-law to take care of Ma, and left for home right away.
By the time I arrived, my mother and her brother had already left for Meerut to be with the rest of the family. I, along with my uncle’s family, followed suit, but we were hindered by a huge traffic jam on the national highway leading to Meerut, stuck for what seemed to be eons.
I figured it was Nana’s way of getting some posthumous revenge. A week before his death, when he was in Delhi, I had promised to meet him, but I never made it on time: he would leave for his son’s place as soon as it was dark. Gurgaon-to-Delhi traffic in the evening is the worst kind. I would call home to inform the delay. He must have muttered under his breath: Remain stuck forever. Over the phone, however, he was kind as always. “Koi nahi, aaja.” (Don’t worry. Come soon.)
We reached Meerut four hours late. But, after the customary wailing and weeping, it felt like everyone was having a ball. My Nana’s ten children—Nine with family, and one without it—were making a ruckus. It was a moment for his daughters to tease each other, having united after a long time. The eldest one cribbed and inquired the reason why the rest of them missed a funeral in the village, as they could’ve met earlier then.
“Aaj sab hain, toh baap nahi hai,” one of my aunts said. (We all are here today, but he is gone, our father.) “Toh pehle jud jati, kaun roko?” replied the eldest aunt, and everybody broke into a guffaw. (Who stopped you from organising earlier?) When it got a bit too loud, my eldest uncle reminded us of his tenants living on the first floor—but we had no sharam. The extended family kept coming in at odd hours, and everyone recounted their share of tales of village life and anything they could remotely associate with Nana.
It was dawn soon, as if in a flick of a second, and it was time for reassembling to mourn and take the body to cremation.
Ramprasad’s funeral is also a site of dramedy, brimming with emotion and laughter, and it touches upon the nature of relationships that one tends to grow (and outgrow) in a family setup. It also tables the question of performing grief: who, when, and how one gets to demonstrate it?
In the Hindu tradition, thirteen days of mourning is observed by the family of the deceased. This is the plot of Seema Pahwa’s directorial feature Ramprasad Ki Tehrvi, now streaming on Netflix. Watching it, I couldn’t help but find the semblances of my Nana’s funeral in this story, making the narrative realistic with shades of both grief and comedy. The film’s sheer cinematic appeal, epic performances by its ensemble cast, and a crafted balance of realness and storytelling made it a delight to watch.
As often it’s the case with the funerals of elderly people, Ramprasad’s funeral is also a site of dramedy. It is brimming with emotion and laughter, and it touches upon the nature of relationships that one tends to grow (and outgrow) in a family setup. It also tables the question of performing grief: who, when, and how one gets to demonstrate it; when it remains under the acceptable limits and when it breaks away and treads into the ‘too much’ zone, inviting rebuke from others.
Bauji (Naseeruddin Shah)—a music teacher—doesn’t want the ‘saaz’ (musical equipment) to remain off-tune or discordant after practice. He insists to correct it, when someone playing the piano leaves it tuneless. Amma (Supriya Pathak), visibly annoyed by her incorrigible husband and tired of begging him to sleep and not cater to his music-fanatism, engages herself in everyday chores.
But she is shocked at the sound of a thud: The patriarch has fallen dead on the instrument. The dim lights, fading walls, and a huge piece of real estate—signaling seemingly intergenerational inheritance—were all premonitions to this tragedy.
In the event of this surprising death, the uneventful and doleful house begins oozing with energy and drama, as people soon begin to file in to offer their condolences, to help the widow gather strength and make sense of her loss, and to wait for the whole ‘family’ to arrive. It seems like death anchors a unique momentum in everyone’s lives in this family. It pauses the monotony and presents them an opportunity to break away from the mundane.
Curious people—a class that one encounters only in weddings and funerals—begin inquiring with nosy questions of how Bauji died. Amma, an aggrieved widow, recites the incident with the same alacrity and precision each time. She is neither bored nor offended by this recurring query. She entertains everyone. Watching their helpless grandmother repeating the same story, her grandchildren break into laughter.
Even in the midst of death, Ramprasad leaves a smirk on the face of the viewer as the bereaved family begins to observe the thirteen-day period of mourning. There’s Mamaji (Vineet Kumar), who takes pride in arriving first. This claim is contested by the eldest son-in-law, Jijaji—played by one of my favorite actors, Brijendra Kala. But more than that he is displeased remaining unattended, sitting all alone all this while. He, after all, is the son-in-law. Sons-in-law and brothers-in-law are different species when it comes to weddings or funerals in a Hindu household. Qualitatively quite different from the ‘curious people’ clan, they expect to remain the principal focal point of the family’s attention; surely Jijaji couldn’t tolerate being deprived of attention due to him.
As the family awaits the arrival of Bauji’s beloved, and youngest, son Nishant (Parambrata Chattopadhyay, who also plays young Bauji), the eldest son Gajraj (Manoj Pahwa) insists the third son Pankaj (Vinay Pathak) wear something in white when the latter appears in bright blue t-shirt. Nobody, of course, gives two hoots about Manoj (Ninad Kamat), as according to them he has become a ‘sasuraliya’: one who likes his in-laws.
When Nishant arrives, everyone raises eyebrows in suspicion as he comes dragging his suitcase alone. His wife Seema (Konkona Sen Sharma), an aspiring actress hailing from an influential family, is nowhere to be seen. The pitch of mourning is on an all-time high upon his entry, as Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi wrote in his memoir Loss: “Grief is not a record of what has been lost but of who has been loved.” But even in this atmosphere, Nishant’s sisters-in-law couldn’t help but take a jibe at his wife Seema’s absence: “Sasur bhi unke standard se nahi mare.” (Her father-in-law didn’t die per her standard.)
According to the customs, cooking is prohibited in the house of the deceased. Near-and-dear ones and neighbours are often expected to help the bereaved family by providing uninterrupted supplies of tea and food. Alas, they, too, have other priorities. As it is winter season, at nighttime, the family calls for a round of tea. Amma thinks of the inconvenience it might cause to her neighbour, but her children insist on not asking for a favour but to cook themselves. After registering a milder protest—“Waise choolah jalta to nahi hai par bana lete hain” (though it isn’t practiced per customs, you may cook)—she succumbs to her children’s demand. What surprises Amma, however, is when people start sharing their preferences: Gud-wali chai (jaggery tea, please). In the words of Amma, it feels like it’s not a funeral but a gathering best suited for a wedding or a family function.
I remember another death in my family—my grandmother’s, and Nana’s wife—back in 2007. Family and friends worked together, laughing and cheerful, while preparing boondi-ke-laddoos for attendees. When a village elder interrupted my aunts to make the laddoos round, one of them replied: “We’ll get to eat round ones in your funeral only.” This cheeky humor and sense of casualness around a period of mourning is also observed in Ramprasad’s house.
The only person whose face is marked with acute loneliness is Amma. This was the loneliness that my Nana felt in 2007, his eyes showing no glimmer of hope. Even in the presence of his ten children and their partners, along with many of his grandchildren, he felt alone. I wonder whether, like Amma in this movie—who, while mourning, revisits and relives memories with her husband—my Nana must be recalling some wonderful times she must have spent with my Nani, even though they lived most of their lives in dire poverty.
The energy ebbs in Ramprasad’s house when the children learn that they will have to spend thirteen days here. Gajraj reluctantly offers “Jaise Amma chahein”—whatever Amma wishes—though it’s visible from his gait that he is unhappy with the decision. Letting go of one more customary ritual, Gajraj who has given mukhagni—lit the pyre along with his brothers—leaves for the asthi-visarjan (immersing the ashes of the deceased). Tauji (Rajendra Gupta) tells them to “enjoy the ride,” much to Mamaji’s disappointment. The latter registers his dissent: Are they going for a tour? He feels disgusted with all that’s happening at this funeral.
After completing the ritual, on their way back, the vintage car in which the brothers had left gives in. The brothers stay back in a cheap hotel, inebriating themselves to their heart’s content, and start sharing memories of their childhood. The eldest claims to have seen his parents naked multiple times and calls her mother “ghunni”—a cunning lady. While, back in the house, when the food for the ‘Thirteenth’ had to be prepared, Jijaji wants the food to taste simple, but Mamaji insists that it is for “zinda aadmi,” so kachoris must taste well. It may remind many of this statement that is hurled at anyone commenting on food in a funeral: “Inhe swaad ki padi hai, humara aadmi chala gaya.” (They’re concerned about how the food tastes, and here we have lost one of our own.)
In Ramprasad, it isn’t love that vexes the character in the middle, but solitude. During all this commotion, Amma is wondering why she continues to feel alone in the company of the larger family.
When Seema also joins the family a few days later, the house becomes boisterous, filled with gossips, secret-revealing, and leg-pulling talks. There’s a romance between Rahul, Gajraj’s son (Vikrant Massey), and neighbor Sheila’s daughter (Manukriti Pahwa), and fresh, sensual tension between Rahul and Seema. It adds to the conflicts that drive this story rather than making it a jarring digression.
One who has seen Pagglait, which is also set in Lucknow, is bound to compare it with Ramprasad Ki Tehrvi, as both movies deal with questions of widowhood and performance of grief. But the principal way they break away from each other is, as they say, it’s a ‘jawaan maut’ (young loss) in Pagglait, but an elderly one dies in Ramprasad Ki Tehrvi. The inevitability of death in the latter presents a myriad of possibilities before the ones who are alive, and each basks in their privilege of making that happen: selling off the land, shop, etc. While in the former, it’s more of a quest of a young widow’s newfound utterance of living her life on her terms and learning to love oneself, after accepting the absence of love in her arranged marriage.
In Ramprasad, it isn’t love that vexes the character in the middle, but solitude. During all this commotion, Amma is wondering why she continues to feel alone in the company of the larger family.
Meanwhile, her daughters-in-law discuss among themselves the ultimate conundrum: Who will take care of Amma? “Jo bole wo kunda khole”—the initiator must take the lead—one among them says. Others laugh at the hidden truth behind this idiom. It also marks the event of a new conflict: Bauji’s loan. All sons except Nishant are trying to brush off their responsibilities. Amma doesn’t attempt to resolve this conflict and chooses to remain silent. She asks them to leave, leaving her children baffled.
When Amma finally verbalizes her realisations for her brother and sister-in-law, she stresses that we remain ungrateful and show little to no signs of affection when a person is alive. She emphasises how simple acts of saying ‘sorry’ and ‘thank you’ work as manure to amend relationships. These things are so easy and simple to follow and say, and can be done without the occasional performance of a relationship, like an anniversary or a birthday.
I recall how, during my grandmother’s funerary functions, my Nana had refused when all those discussions started happening in our family. “Khichdi hum bana lete hain, humare pass khet hain, tum baal-bacche wale log ho apne-apne ghar jao…” (I can cook khichdi, and I have crops to take care of. You guys have your own lives, please carry on.) Though my Mamas sulked, but none of them even meekly tried to protest against Nana’s wish.
A couple of years later, when I was an engineering student and had met Nana at my home, he inquired if he made the right decision back in 2007. You know best how you feel, I answered. He smiled, coughed, and said: “Jeevan hai.” It’s life!
He had his reasons for not relying on his sons, just like Amma had hers in Ramprasad, and I think their decisions served well for both of them. One must be willing to make sense of their life and start it anew, especially in the event of loss. My Nana and Amma found their music of life. Someday I wish to find mine, too: because in its absence, much of it feels jarring—more noise than music—as if I’m stuck in never-ending traffic.
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Saurabh Sharma is a reader and a writer. He works as a writer in an IT research and advisory firm in Gurgaon. He reviews books and pretends to write on weekends. You can find him on Instagram: @writerly_life and Twitter: @writerly_life.
