Obituary of an Obrituarist

I was thinking about death, about the people it leaves behind to make sense of it, and about the performance of grief. I was thinking about necessary rituals — sometimes beautiful, sometimes bizarre — that help us realign with the world after losing a loved one. I was thinking about those who help us get there.

From that came Sylvie, a resident obituarist of a fictional town with an uncanny knack for lending words to the weight her citizens carry, and quite naturally, for easing some of it. So wonderful is she with her pen that her obituaries become character sketches one couldn't have made when the subject was alive. Her work flows from her columns into the citizens' collective imagination; her vocation acquires a special significance in the town. So much so that Magdhiganj becomes known for its flourishing graveyards and mourning cults. When Sylvie herself passes away, the writer of her obituary wonders whether she would have appreciated the flavour of death tourism that Magdhiganj has adopted. Wasn't her job to understand life in death?

This piece became the first in a series I wrote about imaginary places. Through it, I discovered the process of creating portraits of places through different lenses, and each took on its own unique form. This one became a fictional newspaper article; others became songs, letters between lovers, myths, railway announcements, and so on. It has been a most thrilling exercise!

Avanti is a writer and filmmaker based in the city. She is fascinated by stories of all shapes and sizes, and by the ways in which each story discovers its own form. Her work often grows through collaboration, and she believes stories continue to live on through the love and excitement of those who create and carry them forward.