I Came Across a Corpse Yesterday

You may be wondering what is so unusual about seeing a dead body these days. People die, and there is nothing particularly new about that.

Well, the reason I mention this particular incident is because this was not an ordinary dead body, laid to rest in a satin-lined, wooden, decorated coffin. Neither was it a body swathed in white and respectfully surrounded by mourning friends and relatives, awaiting its last rites so that the soul could peacefully pass on to the netherworld.

There were no flowers. Neither were there tears. This was just a corpse on the street.

The pathetic death of this unknown man must have occurred at an unknown time. His body was lying beside a filthy ditch on the side of a busy road.

At first glance, I mistook him for a drunk, lying totally sozzled and without a care in the world. There is a bar nearby that caters to the ‘common’ man, and such sights are not unusual there. But the small crowd of curious onlookers and three policemen with remarkably uninterested faces, trying hard to look unduly important, confirmed my suspicion. I knew for certain that I had come across an unknown corpse.

You know, I strongly believe that however refined we may be, there is a base nature within each of us that is strangely attracted to the grotesque. I was reminded of a childhood incident during a long-ago summer vacation when a rich old lady in our village was found murdered. Those were the days when murder was a rare occurrence. My cousin and I were absolutely fascinated by the whole thing. When we saw the neighbourhood children rushing off to the spot, some distance away, we begged our elders to let us go and see the body. But small children from decent families were absolutely forbidden from having such adventures. As expected, our request was turned down, accompanied by quite a few harsh words. It was another matter that the adults themselves spoke about the murder in hushed tones, which made it all the more unbearable for my cousin. He eventually managed to give them the slip and make his way to the scene.

I still remember the mixture of excitement and fear with which I listened to his vivid, whispered description of the corpse.

Well… to come back to my present story. That same base instinct, which had momentarily overpowered my better senses, compelled me to take a quick look at the lifeless body lying by the roadside. For a moment, it was almost as though I was looking at a weary, sick man sleeping.

He appeared to be in his late forties. He had a heavily sun-tanned, bony frame and a weary face covered with an unkempt beard. Dressed in a cheap pink polyester shirt and a dhothi that had clearly seen better days, he looked like one of those countless people we pass on the road every day, hardly noticing them, their faces carrying the unmistakable look of defeat.

After a preliminary enquiry that lasted nearly an hour, during which the entire road was blocked by curious onlookers, impatient vehicles, three police jeeps and an old, derelict ambulance, the body was unceremoniously taken away to the government hospital morgue. There it would await the arrival of relatives — if the police could trace any.

Apparently, the owner of the nearby bar confirmed that the man was a regular there. He was also said to have been suffering from tuberculosis. I guess that is a deadly combination.

When I returned home and narrated the incident to my family, I must confess I wasn't surprised by their matter-of-fact reaction. Non-reaction, rather.

Perhaps death has become so familiar to us that even a lonely death on a roadside no longer has the power to disturb us for very long.

Death, it seems, has definitely lost its charm for the living.