My first introduction with death was when I was 17-18 years old, so full of myself, never bother to think of anything other than me and myself.

We all had to hurry to my native town, my grandmother had passed away.She had been sick in the last few days and my dad and mom were there and had just come home to go back in a couple of days for her heart surgery.My dad had come to arrange for the finances required and they got a call that my grandmother had passed away in sleep.

To be honest, I was never close to her, I met her very less, because of my father's transferrable job.So dint feel like the sky had fallen when I was told she was no more.

We went to my paternal grandparents home, there were a lot of people outside the home, there was  strange gloominess.I went in, a lot of incense sticks were burning, and there on a big pile of ice lay the remains of my grandmother.I did not cry, my aunts, started to wail aloud as soon as they saw us.I was hugged and there were people crying.I was confused and started to cry.I still dont know it was the confusion that caused me to cry or the sorrow of losing my grandmother.

I went and sat in the corner, I was staring at the remains, I was feeling bad, awfully bad, she was laid on the ice.God wouldnt she be feeling cold, how can they do it to her, would she have approved this.I said my mom in a whisper, "mummy, why ice?", My mom told they were waiting for my aunt and uncle who had to come from Mumbai and Delhi,so to make sure the body was ok, they had to put ice. I was shocked, "body", it was no longer my grandmother, it was a "body" that needed ice to be preserved.I was upset, and was sobbing, not because she was gone, because she was lying there helplessly, while her kith and kin were trying to preserve her body for her son and daughter to have a last look.I thought, would she be able to see all this, what would she be feeling. Can she see me,sitting in the corner.Would she wanted to have something to say to me. I was going crazy.After a while went to my maternal grandparents home.My mom and dad stayed there.

The next day we went again, my aunt and uncle had come, the wailing had become louder, the sisters and brothers were hugging each other, the women folk were crying at the highest pitch of their voice.Then they took my grandmother for the final bath.there was some ladies who had come to give her the final bath.God, I thought, bath, other ladies giving bath, will she like it? Then she was taken away to be laid in peace.My father was one among the people who first lifted her janaaza, he broke down, I could see tears in his eyes and I couldnt stop crying and then she was gone, forever.

That night, I couldnt sleep.I couldnt bear the fact that she was in graveyard all alone.How could her own family leave her there.wont she be scared?lonely? I went to my dad and asked, how he could sleep while his mom was all alone under the ground.He dint answer.These questions haunted me for a while. I thought, will the same happen to me when I am dead.Will I just be a body, what will happen to "me", where will "me" go, when the body is buried under the ground, then started my quest to know more about death and after...