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Once inside the temple grounds we park near some trees and bushes at the side of the road and clamber out to join the marchers and mourners. I noticed the atmosphere was noticably festive. Not a tear was being shed, which I thought a little bit odd, even though she was old, and most everyone had expected her to die soon from her disease. It was a much more cheerful and talkative a crowd than most farang funerals, even the Irish ones, I’ve been to. It didn’t seem to be viewed as a solemn occasion. Hell, it could have been a picnic outting the way everyone was behaving. Small children ran about laughing and playing amongst the crowd of mourners, village dogs yapped and tussled on the grass, and everyone chattered away with each other as they walked along behind the casket. It sure as hell didn’t FEEL like a funeral to me. It was weird.

The casket was carried to a pile of wood, which was soaked with gasoline by the smell of it, and placed on top the pyre. Much to my amazement the sides of the casket were then unlatched and taken away. Leaving the woman on top of this pyre of fuel-primed wood.

As I watched all this Sis brought some folding chairs over from the temple and gave me one to sit on. Everyone else had stopped in place around the funeral pyre and squatted on the ground. There were a couple of hundred people attending at least. Some people, the ones who were better off than others, were all dressed in their finest black clothes. A lot of the others were dressed rather shabbily in their shorts, t-shirts, and rubber flip-flops. Basically they were wearing their everyday clothes. I noticed as I sat myself in the folding chair, we were sitting toward the back of everyone else, that my wife’s cousin was squatting just a few feet in front of me. I thought to myself, “Jeez, she really does have a great bum! Too bad she’s such a grouchy little thing. Some guy could do worse with her having such a nice bum.” I thrust such inappropriate thoughts from my mind. “For chrissakes Cent, you’re at a funeral! Behave yourself.” It must have been the lingering dregs from my earlier, rudely interrupted, sexy dreams making my thoughts wander in this direction. I’d never really noticed before though what a nice butt this skinny little woman had.

Sis sat next to me and engaged me in some conversation and gossip about the local monk and his family. Good. The next thing you’d know I’d be sitting there at an Isaan funeral with a damned erection in my pants. Sheesh!

Sis told me some stuff about this head monk for the Wat in our village. He was not well liked by the villagers. He was however a villager from this same village himself, and he was a dishonest bastard. A thief. It seems many times that money given to the temple has been withdrawn from the temple bank account by this monk’s family. He has a lot of family living in the village. All bad sorts according to Sis. All true according to Sis. It’s why Mama and the rest of the older ladies have stopped going to the temple so much, and why they don’t contribute to the temple coffers anymore. This has caused the temple big problems, to the point where they now have problems just paying for the monthly electric bill for the temple.

At one point she told me this temple had been quite famous once, as the old monk who used to be the head monk there was known far throughout the land as a special monk. Many people would come to our village from all parts of the country during the holidays/holydays so people could be blessed by this old monk. People came from as far away as Bangkok, and the temple thrived under his leadership. Many people gave lots of money to the monk and the temple, and he did many good works for the surrounding countryside and people, not to mention our own village.

Now it was all messed up because of this new, corrupt, thieving bastard of a monk.

“You mean we have a Mafia Monk here in our temple?” I said to Sis.

“Yes,” she replied with a scowl, “This monk Mai dee, no good.”

Stealing from the church, and the priest himself yet, or his family! What utter scumbags!

“Anyone tell the police this, Sis?” I queried her.

“No,” she replied, “Not do. Not good for do. We get him to go by not giving baht anymore. Someday he will go and we get new monk.”

A very sad story really.

She then told me how he tried to get a woman whose mother had died and wanted to give some land to the temple to sign the land title over to him, ostensibly for the temple, but the papers he wanted her to sign were in his own name. The lady refused, and told him if he wanted the land he’d have to pay her 200,000 baht, or he’d have to leave as the head monk of the temple and she’d then sign the land over to the temple, in the temple’s name. But unless he paid her 200,000 baht she wouldn’t sign the paper he wanted her to sign. The monk told her that her mother had told him personally that she had wanted to give this land to the temple.

“Yes, to the temple.” she told him. “Not to you and your thieving family! When you leave I will give land to temple.” she declared.

The monk argued further with her, telling her her mother had wanted this done, and had told him so himself.

She questioned him, “You have paper she sign for this land give for you?”

He replied to the negative that he did not.

“Then you have nothing. You go, I give land to temple. You stay you give me money for my land!” she stated emphatically, before stalking away.

This caused quite the stir in the village once the conversation got around through the village gossip from what Sis says. Many people there want to see this monk leave.

While we were chatting I noticed a man with a large handful of incense sticks walking around and throwing bunches of them on the ground near people who were squatting around. When he did this next to us I asked Sis why he just tossed them on the ground as he was doing. Seemed a bit lazy and rude to me.

“Not good to give to you from hand. Use for tambon. Dirty. Not give for you from hand. Bad luck. You must pick up from the dirt.” she explained.

We picked up ours and continued talking.

Sis explained that we would toss these incense sticks into the funeral pyre once it was lit. A few minutes later everyone stood up as if on cue. The monks had been chanting all along, and men had been laying huge logs of wood over the spot where the old woman had been placed on the fuel for her cremation. Loud fireworks were then exploded around the area. I’ve been told that this is to help send her spirit up into the sky, up to heaven. As these huge explosives pounded the air the dogs began howling and the smaller children started crying and running to their mothers. A chill came over me, and goosebumps dotted my flesh. The men had also placed over the pyre a canopy that had been decorated with silk and cloth that had been held over the coffin during the funeral march, to shield it from the sun as they walked along to the temple. They first stripped off the silk and clothe used for this and placed the frame for the canopy on the pyre.

Sunset on the village lake.

A murmur stirred the crowd as the monks ended their prayers, and one monk walked to the pyre and lit it somehow with a lit stick of incense. After the fire was started people began filing up to the outdoor crematorium, and with a prayer, would toss their own incense stick onto the now flickering flames. This was all done fairly quickly once the fire was going. Once a person tossed his incense stick on the fire they turned and walked away, heading back to the family’s house for the after funeral party.

Sis and my wife and I did our duty with the incense sticks and returned to the truck, after folding up the folding chairs and replacing them in the Wat's open air auditorium, which lies open sided near where the funeral was held. We drove back along the road to our house. We aren’t far up the street from the Wat. Along the way we passed groups of people trudging along. One old guy who is a friend of the family, a stooped and ancient old gent, friendly and gentle and humorous whenever I’ve met him, was walking near the entrance to the Wat as we left. We stopped and he jumped, well, slowly climbed in might be a better description, into the back of our truck for the ride to our home, which he lives next door to.

This would normally be a five minute walk back to the house for the average person. For him this would take a half an hour or so. He is very old and decrepit. To tell the truth he looks somewhat like a turtle without it’s shell, and walks at about the same pace with a stout stick in hand for his cane and support. Better a ride from us then to have him do this walk in the hot sun.

(To be continued.)

 

Cent

(The Central Scrutinizer)