Yesterday, I read a BBC news report about the much-loved novelist, P G Wodehouse, whose world of Jeeves, Bertie Wooster, prizewinning pigs and aunts continues to delight so many.
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Yesterday, I read a BBC news report about the much-loved novelist, P G Wodehouse, whose world of Jeeves, Bertie Wooster, prizewinning pigs and aunts continues to delight so many. The British writer who died in 1975 was accused of being of all things, a Nazi collaborator. A quote from him in the report says, I never had any intention of assisting the enemy and that I have suffered a great deal of mental pain as a result of my action.
The report got me thinking about how one should react when revelations about somebody's personality, or a bad deed that affected you, emerge after his death. One is always told that it is unfair to attack a dead man in print as he is no longer there to defend himself. But, what about when a person who only realises a death, that he or she was greatly wronged by the dead person? What if a spouse learns of her husband's (or his wife's) extra marital affair only after he or she has died? Would that result in hatred for the dead spouse? And if it did, who would one direct the hatred at, since that the person who may have deceived you for so many years is no more?
To whom will hatred be directed at, if thatu00a0 person who may have deceived you for so many years, is no more?
Some years ago, the Taliban in Afghanistan killed an engineer called K Suryanarayana. The engineer's widow, Manjula, already steeped in grief, consumed phenyl in a suicide bid after her husband's so-called second wife emerged. The second woman was Swapna, who claimed she had all proof of the wedding. A post-death revelation may not just take the guise of straying, it could be so many things.
A parent might have to battle tumultuous feelings if he learnt that his now dead child was secretly gay.
Loyal readers might be taken aback at learning something not quite complimentary about a favourite writer, who is no more, though one might not take it personally and read his books for what they are.
Sports fans are sometimes appalled to hear that the athlete they admired for his on-field exploits, was not the deity that they thought he/she was off the field. If it were found out only post his death that a champion athlete had been a dope user, whom would one punish? And, would athletes who were beaten by him/her feel especially bitter?
To twist poet Andrew Marvell's lines, the grave's a serene and silent place/ from where secrets emerge that the living struggle to face.
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