Our Self-Written Obituaries – Rituparna Sengupta, Govindpuri
The 124th death.
[Text by Rituparna Sengupta; photo by Srijit Chakravarty]
Rituparna Sengupta bore the curse of being a peculiar person with a very common name all her life. Even after her death it took her acquaintances a few weeks to realize which Rituparna Sengupta had stopped communicating since they knew so many. Needless to say, her body had decomposed sufficiently by then and it no longer mattered. But they nevertheless cremated her with full honours, although they are still not entirely sure of her passing away.
God bless their well-meaning, clueless minds.
Ms Sengupta, died at the ripe age of 45. Given her overtly optimistic nature and enthusiastic approach to life her acquaintances and neighbours in Chittaranjan Park are said to be silently relieved. During her lifetime, Ms Sengupta was given to reading Agatha Christie at odd hours and often spoke of vague things like ‘intuition’ and ‘premonition’. It is therefore not surprising that her dead body was found clutching a small sachet of arsenic and her decomposing corpse had an alarmed expression. The police are investigating the matter but they believe it was suicide. Her domestic help, who has just returned from his village, concurred that ‘Madam’ did have a tendency towards drama.
Ms Sengupta had, through her life, established herself as a noted pulp writer, columnist and armchair know-it-all but under a famous pseudonym. She frivolously dabbled in art and films as well. None of her poetry had ever been accepted in any noted journal but a diary of poem entries was found by her bedside. The poems were signed under her own name. The police inspector investigating the case has stated that a few years in Ms Sengupta’s life are unaccounted for. It has been concluded, therefore, that she must have had a mysterious past. Her domestic help concurs that ‘Madam’ would have liked this conclusion a lot.
Her readership has not yet been informed for fear of a pandemonium due to the abnormal circumstances of her death.
Ms Sengupta is survived by her parents, brother, husband, child and dogs-all of whom live in Govindpuri’s congested Gali no. 8 and refuse to believe she has passed away. On being questioned repeatedly they have asserted that Ms Sengupta had left for a field trip the previous month and was due to arrive the next night. They have refuted all claims that she was a writer and have requested everyone to not pester them with inane questions any further. Their conviction has greatly baffled the police and they have resolved to convince the family of their loss at all costs.
An inside source tell us that Ms Sengupta’s body was found clutching a note in the other hand. The note has since disappeared. It said: To be or not to be
Ms Sengupta was not known to have shown any partiality towards Shakespeare. Also, the source has not been verified.
Our Self-Written Obituaries invites people to write their obituary in 200 words. The idea is to share with the world how you will like to be remembered after you are gone. (May you live a long life, of course!) Please mail me your self-obit at mayankaustensoofi@gmail.com.
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