I paused reading Arundathi Roy’s God of Small Things as the death of the character Ammu blinded my eyes with tears. The evening of the same day, I received the news that my mother had passed away. The real and fictional deaths shook me. I felt as if the death of Ammu was a harbinger to my personal loss.
The funeral was arranged the next morning. I stayed awake throughout the night. After prayers, we carried the coffin to the graveyard.
In Malayalam, the graveyard of Muslims is called “Pallikkadu”, which literally means the forest of the mosque. This “forest” is actually manmade. The family of the deceased plant two saplings on the grave of the deceased, one at the head and another at the legs. It is said that the Prophet had once passed two graves and had placed the branches of a date tree at the graves so as to bring peace to the dead. The tradition is followed to this day.
