Cameras at a cremation

Nothing had prepared us for the utter disregard some people have for the feelings of fellow-humans. For many tourists, and not just foreigners, walking from the Taj to the Old fort the ceremony was a photo opportunity too good to miss.

The Army and the Air Force personnel were there in their ceremonial uniforms. In a solemn display of respect for the killed IAF personnel, the airmen reversed their arms, sounded the Last Post and presented a gun salute. Even as the families of the killed personnel wailed in despair, tourists in colourful T-shirts, shorts and sneakers took pictures of the ceremony: buglers paying the moving tribute, airmen standing ramrod straight with their rifles pointing to the ground, and the officers saluting the coffins as they were consigned to flames.

8220;Take a picture of mine with the men holding their rifles upside down in the background,8221; said a woman as her companion willingly obliged. Then she took the pictures as he beamed at the camera. Mourners stood shocked and disgusted. And this happened not just once. And not with just one couple.

8220;What8217;s happening here?8221; asked another group. 8220;What happens at a cremation ground,8221; shot back a young pilot, his eyes brimming. A group of foreigners found this unique and began filming it. Smoking, chewing gum, sipping mineral water. One of the men taking pictures asked his entire group to move closer together as they were not all fitting into the frame.

This was too much for the IAF personnel to take. They had just lost their colleagues, instructors, friends. 8220;Get out of here, please. Let us at least mourn their deaths in peace,8221; said one of them angrily. This group moved on but soon some more tourists came to watch the tamasha.

8220;You are not a part of the family, are you? 8221; one of them asked me suspiciously. 8220;I am,8221; I said shoving my notebook in my pocket. The photographer with me was not as lucky. 8220;Please don8217;t take pictures as I cry over my father8217;s body. It is just not fair,8221; wept one of the young service daughters. She kept banging the coffin, repeatedly requesting her father to come out.

Our photographer apologised and moved back. So did some other journalists but curious onlookers just stood and stared at the young girl crying over her father8217;s body. Being from a services family myself, I felt miserable. The families shattered were like any one of ours. No differences 8211; their homes were just like ours, a few curios from each station posted to in the past, government furniture, a few swords on the wall. Even the fragrance of food in their kitchen was reminiscent of our home.

But there was a difference. A marked difference. Life for them would never be the same again. 8220;Never would those children run home in the evening just before their fathers returned from work. Their fathers would never return from work. Never would the wives end their all-day-long gossip session just before 5 p.m. to prepare a cup of tea and then prepare to go for an evening walk around the cantonment followed by an hour in the library or the bar depending on the mood of the evening, I thought. The widows and their children were probably thinking the same, for tears just wouldn8217;t stop flowing.