Professional Mourners by Alagu Subramaniam
Professional Mourners by Alagu Subramaniam
Alagu Subramaniam belongs to the Tamil community of Sri Lanka. He was born in 1915 and died in 1971. He was an author, novelist. His short story ‘Professional Mourners’ reflects on obsolete customs and practices done by Tamil National community in Sri Lanka.
The short story “Professional Mourners” begins with the death of speaker’s grandmother late night on Saturday. According to the story a big crowd of relatives and villagers gathered in front of the house. At the same time the self styled master of ceremonies get the readers’ attention. The writer introduced the narrator’s uncle’s character as ‘a teacher of small school and a trifle mad’. He is the person who arranged the whole ceremony. It seems that he is a domineering character without pity and a caricature of his caste and class. Apart from all the tasks at the funeral house the narrator’s uncle’s concentration goes for professional mourners. The fact that he rushed out to seek the mourners makes the narrator as well as the readers become more anxious. The master became more furious and at the same time he became a ridiculous figure in the story. The way that uncle seeks mourners to respect his aunt’s makes the readers laugh at him. By the way the writer creates a class and caste systems in the society. It is a feudal society where powerful people get the maximum use of law class poor people. Most of the time low class associates with poverty, illiteracy and servility. The story depicts the caste and class as a rigid inhuman system. For example the uncle upbraided the fishermen who were getting ready to go to sea for not coming to respect his aunt. For him the poor fishermen were ‘stupid rascals’ and ‘low – minded fellows.’ Than letting them to find something to feed themselves, for him it is more important them to be presented at the funeral. Next he strode to the area where mourners lived. As it says in the story they are professional mourners. Yet it is not mention the fact that they do it for hire. The task they do has become a social ritual in their caste ridden society. They mourn without a grief. It is ludicrous, absurd and ridiculous and it brings the story into a satirical level. And at the same time they are unable to be present at their mother’s funeral and it becomes more pathetic. Due to caste norms they have lost their rights for private grief/ genuine grief. The mourners were thus obliged by their society to perform an act to which they were assigned irrespective of what their own grief was. Furthermore we are informed the high class people who are about to come for the funeral. ‘Lawyer friends’, ‘Police Magistrate’ And at the same time it shows how public opinion govern people.
‘What will the people say?’
This is what the society demands. Humans are afraid to the public opinion and they concentrate highly on that before do anything. In the story the uncle thought only of the ‘status’ of the family, which according to him would be reflected by the number of mourners.
The next important thing is that the way that the mourners perform their task and it was what expected from them. They repeated the words and phrases from the grieving relatives and made a big outcry. They worked in unison. They picked a nice theme for their outcry which is about the grandson who came from Malaya.
‘Your grandson has come, wake up my beloved!’
At the same time we are noticed the fact that the educated people of the family are more considerate and sympathetic when they got to know the mother of two mourners passed away as they sympathized the mourners, paid them and asked them to leave. So it seems that they dissociate themselves from the rigid conventions of the caste system. So we get the fact that education and knowledge can make people detach from the rigid conventions of the society. Other than the entire, the writer criticizes the artificial character of professional mourners in the caste ridden society with humor and pathos.
