Set in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India
If the smog were not covering the sky, perhaps the scenes around the ghat would appear less macabre. Then again there are the fires blazing on top of the pyres and the aghoris scavenging, looking for a fresh corpse to pick. Father paid a lot of money so that they could have the cremation at the Manikarnika ghat. The water is polluted not only with bones and ash but also with plastic and trash. Nonetheless this is the place where the funeral must take place for his mother to receive moksha. For all Hindus, whether they be Shivaites like their family or Vaishnavites like others, the antarlok, or the place where this world ends and the realm of the Gods begins, is the Ganga, no matter how polluted and dirty it has become in the modern world.
His brother Sagar comes back from having his head shaved. He is cloaked in the white garb of mourning. He faces only the purohit, paying no attention to Father or his younger brother, Vignesh, or any of the other males of the Kumar family who bused or trained or drove all the way here from their village of Kurali in Haryana. Father understands this, even as his gaze has its momentary distractions, such as when a random boy comes and asks for money or a tourist descending the steps incidentally gives him a stare. Otherwise he keeps his eyes focused on the corpse of his mother.
Father knows his mother has been dressed in her nicest sari. It is a royal red, with a golden blouse. Unfortunately only those who dressed her would have seen the fullest extent of its beauty. She has been shrouded with white while on top of the pyre, so none of her body is visible. There is only her face, the red tilaka on her forehead, two cotton balls inside of the holes of her nose, her mouth agape as it was when she took her final breath.
The purohit begins her recitations. Father knows he should pay attention, but it is a struggle. He has seen death countless times as a doctor, but when it comes to seeing his own mother, he struggles to recognise that this is her, and she is dead, and she is no longer living, that she is a corpse. It doesn’t help that his mother lay in this exact same way, her body completely stiff, her mouth wide open, whenever she slept or rested during the last few weeks of her life. She was barely able to move; she wouldn’t make an attempt to speak. She just laid there, and they waited for her death.
As is tradition, the eldest son is the conductor of the mukhagni. Sagar recites the shlokas and sprinkles her corpse with the ghee. The lines of death, time, and God are drawn on her. He is going to be the one to light her, and he prepares himself to do so. Father in a way is grateful that Sagar will be the one to do it. He is so religious that he could out-verse many a purohit. He is known for debating even the ones at the temple on which type of oil should be used for the dupa and when cow dung should be applied or not. It is no surprise to Father that he says the shlokas with utmost confidence and grace. If Father were to do this, he would undoubtedly make a lot of mistakes.
At the same time Father can’t help but feel extremely jealous of his brother. It’s the same emotion he used to feel when their father came back from the temple and gave Sagar most of the prasad, leaving only a meagre amount of it for Father and Vignesh. Today, Father wishes he were doing more at the funeral rather than just standing there. It’s no different than how he wanted to be the one to take care of his mother in her final years. Just because he had chosen to live away from them didn’t mean he didn’t want to share in the responsibility.
At the very least he can now say that his mother died at his home. But he doesn’t know whether he can say that he prolonged her life by a few months by giving her access to material comforts or if he accelerated her disease by taking her away from the only home she knew and the people who used to take care of her. He doesn’t like the anger in the eyes of his relatives as he meets their gaze.
At the same time, he feels confident that he didn’t shirk his responsibilities. He played his part and helped her in his own way. He did something for his mother. Or he did a lot for his mother. And even if it wasn’t for her best, whatever he did was at least his best.
The pyre is lit. The mourners start to circumambulate it. Father makes his way around. He tells himself that he should look down and not in any other direction, but he wants to look at the pyre as his mother burns. It felt so odd when the pyre was lit and he saw his mother completely taken by the blaze. He almost wanted to tell them to stop, that this mother had to still be alive, that she looked like a corpse only because she was sick, but in reality they were killing her by setting her aflame.
He takes a second to look down at the ghat, towards the algae in the water and the patches of grey and farther away the red boats carrying pilgrims closer to the shore.
For the next thirteen days, he will be in mourning. And for the next month he will be in his native with his brothers and extended family. A part of him is curious to see if the village has changed since the Modi government introduced that development scheme. Vignesh brags about how much has been done and how many roads have been built, but he is doubtful.
This isn’t the time to think about this, he reminds himself. Look down and forward. Keep walking. Keep taking your breaths.
The corpse of his mother burns, and Father feels the heat fold over his body. Father feels a comfort from it. He knows it is not just the flame of the fire that he is feeling. He is feeling the very spirit of his mother, disseminating, disintegrating, dissolving, into an immaterial form. The warmth is touching his shoulder. The warmth is telling him that it is okay.
The body burns and burns and transforms from flesh to ash. Just as Father could say that his mother was there for him when she was raising him, or that he was there for his mother when she was on her last months of living, Father can say now, too, that he was there when his mother’s soul was freed, and she attained moksha, or liberation, from their material world.