All Farewells Aren't Fun

It confounds me every time I see people raise raucous cries while carrying a corpse to the crematorium. They don't softly weep or wail in their hour of bereavement which would be the natural thing to do but literally take the Lord's name in vain. The otherwise eerie monotony of the "bolo hori....horibol" assumes such uncouth a tenor amidst their frenzied clamoring that onlookers are both scandalised and disgusted. Such shameless is the show of revelry in some cases that the uninititated alien might well feel an urge to join the picnickers in their joy-ride. Some even go ahead and hire cymbal-clanging kirtaniyas to test the patience of the dead on their last journey. Some of these "processions" seem similar to the chaotic janazas in the West Bank where grieving men and women beat their chests in despair while others wield their Kalashnikovs vowing revenge. Only here the dead stands wronged by his own who allow this sort of dishonor.

I wonder if any self-respecting human being if given a choice would assent to such loud and ludicrous a farewell. Such a show only craves attention when it is least wanted and makes a mockery of death which in all its somberness demands respect not ridicule.