Written by: Rushina Tamang - 26008, Grade VIII
Posted on: 11 November, 2021
In the last English class we were shown a documentary about The Man Who Died Once, a wife who lost her husband and a mother who lost her son. A loving couple had to separate. The husband had to go abroad to earn money so that they could survive in their village. They had a happy family. They had two children. A son and a daughter. They married each other after they fell in love. They had different castes but still married each other. They thought everything would go well and the husband would come back soon with money and they would live happily together.
But suddenly dark clouds went over the happy family's house. The wife suddenly got news that her husband was met with an accident abroad and didn’t survive. Her heart shattered. She felt like her whole world was destroyed. She said that she tried killing herself but couldn’t at the thought of her children. She thought that she had to survive till they turned 16 and after that she would kill herself. She thought her children would think that their mother died because she couldn’t handle the death of their father. She couldn’t even attend her husband’s funeral properly because of her emotions. She was completely shattered and her life she felt had fallen apart.
But to her surprise her nephew called her one day out of the blue and said that her husband was alive and he was in the hospital. At first she didn’t believe him until she got to talking to her husband. She found out that the body was of another man. She told her neighbours and brother but they didn’t believe her. They thought she had gone crazy but they eventually found out she wasn’t lying.
On the other hand, in the hilly mountain village far away a mother who was waiting for her son found out that her son had died and his body was sent to someone else. They had already buried him. She felt shattered. Even more because of the thought that she couldn’t hold her own son’s funeral or attend it. She held 4 funerals near the river. She wanted to visit her son’s grave but couldn’t because she had to take care of her chickens. She was sad to know that there would be no one to take care of her.
Back to the first village, the husband returned after 9 months. They held a rebirth ceremony for him giving him a new name. The wife always wondered how the person that was buried as her husband, how that person’s family was doing. The journalists of the video gave a chance to the mother to visit her son’s grave. They travelled days in between the mother’s step son joined them in the journey. Both families finally got to meet each other. The mother finally got to visit her son’s grave and held a funeral for him according to their culture. She was finally relieved that now she would be able to meet her son after death. She shed tears of sadness as that was the last goodbye to her beloved son. Somehow she felt relieved that at least she could bid him proper goodbye with the rituals she believed in hoping to meet her son in heaven some day.
