Cremation Information

Ganga River, Varanasi

"I give cremation information," the man told us. He said he worked at the burning ghat, weighing the wood for the funeral pyres and providing aid to people who wait to die at the hospice behind us. When I got my notebook out, halfway through his spiel, he started again from the beginning, keen that I got all the information correct:

When a person dies, their body is washed with sandalwood oil, honey, milk curd, butter curd, and massage oil. Men are covered in a white cloth (old men with gold), and women are covered with a red cloth. The body is carried through the streets on a stretcher by 'body wallahs' or 'outcasts' as I've read in the Lonely Planet guidebook. Once they reach the river, the body is dunked in the waters of the Ganga and set in the sun to dry as the funeral pyre is prepared. Sandalwood, Banyan Tree, and three other types of wood are used, each costing a different amount, each burning at a different rate of speed.

Once the body is placed upon the wood, it is lit with fire, an 'eternal flame' kept within a building just beyond. The family walks around the body 5 times to represent the 5 elements inside the body: fire, water, art, air, and the soul.

We were told that it takes 3 hours for the cremation to be complete. Afterwards, the family takes a bath and does nothing for 13 days except wash and pray. On the 10th day, the men shave their heads and the women cut thier nails (you'll never see a bald Indian woman -- short hair is considered rebellious).

The entire time the man was telling this story, and in between the notes I was taking, I could not take my eyes of the bodies wrapped in wet cloth upon the ghat steps and upon stacks of wood. I could see the outline of their ears through the sheets. When I looked at a pile of wood on fire, I saw feet sticking out from the sticks and logs. Feet that looked like normal, healthy feet. A short time later, they were charred and even later, completely disconnected from the rest of the body. Occasionally a body wallah visits each pyre with a stick and pokes at the bodies, like you do with logs while tending a camp fire.

"You can donate money so the poor people can be burned here," I hear the man say. "No, no," I said, closing my notebook. "You can donate to the dying in the hospice," he said. "No," said Benjamin, "We don't have money."

"You are a liar," the man spat the words at us and then demanded I tear the pages from my notebook. He called over a friend carrying a think stick. Were we supposed to be afraid of the twig?

We walked away and the man kept calling us a liar. His friend followed us for a bit, saying I owed the guy some money for the time he spent explaining things to us. This is the India we have come to know in Varanasi. The people are starting to creep us out. Everyone wants something. No one is genuine.

In fact, everyone we meet tells us not to talk to others, that they are tricksters. And then we find out that they are in the game themselves, trying to gain our trust by telling us of the flimflam artists. Every conversation leads to a request to donate money or buy silk from a friend or give them a hand out. Only the people burning on the funeral pyres left us alone today.