Burning bodies

It was like some kind of strange bazaar of life and death. The scene on the ghats of the the most holy River Ganges where Hindus bring the bodies of their relatives to be cremated is like nothing I have ever seen.

The scene is straight out of a medieval painting of hell. The heat intensifies as you approach and the air is filled with the scent of thick woodsmoke, ash and the shouts of mourners, priests, wood carriers, body handlers and the watching public.

On two terraces, 10 or so funeral pyres are all burning at once, the flames rising several feet into the air and the smoke snaking between the narrow alleyways of Varanasi or drifting out over the river. This goes on 24 hours a day, as the Ganges is Hinduism's most sacred river and the faithful bring bodies from far and wide to perform the last rites on its banks.

Suddenly there is a shout and, as I watch, a body on a bamboo stretcher is carried down the steps to the ghat by four men. It is shrouded in a white cloth, but its face is still visible. The rest of the body is covered with glittering orange and gold clothes, edged with what looks like tinsel, gold foil streamers and garlands of fresh orange marigolds.

It is an old lady, her mouth is slightly open and her skin a very odd shade of dull pale yellow that does not look at all Indian. Her face is very thin with sunken eyes and protruding cheekbones. It's not a horrible or gruesome sight, it's not even a peaceful one, as there is so much noise and smell going on. As they carry her clumsily over a raised bit of ground the stretcher lurches and her body jolts on top. My heart leaps, as I think she might fall off, but the stretcher-bearers steady themselves and carry on.

As they walk, the men shout a mantra, 'Rama's name is true,' as they carry the body down to the shore of the Ganges. Wading into the filthy water, as it flexes under a covering of old plastic bags, discarded garlands and all manner of human and animal waste, they immerse the body in the holy river to cleanse it one final time. The garlands and coverings are then removed and the simple shrouded corpse is placed on a pile of wood about three feet high. More wood is placed on top of the body, by the untouchable Dom caste workers, except for at the head and feet. Male family members gather round the body and throw on handfuls of fragrant sandalwood powder and herbs and place ghee and honey on the seven chakra points of the body. A Brahmin priest joins the mourners with a flame taken from Shiva's sacred fire, alight constantly at the top of the ghat, and lights the pyre.

As the flames catch the wood, the whole pyre is quickly transformed into a leaping orange blaze. Suddenly the cotton shroud is gone and I can see the head and feet of the burning corpse, clearly visible through the smoke. As I watch the skin darken and blister and the hair frazzle away I feel numb. I thought I would feel disgusted, appalled, sick, upset, distraught. But I feel none of these things. I'm appalled that I'm not appalled.

I struggle to think why this gruesome sight doesn't seem to affect me, then I realise I'm not the only one. As I watch the skin burn and the fat beneath it begin to bubble and drop down through the wood, I realise this is how Indians - or Hindus in this case - deal with death: in public, just as they do with life. They wash their dishes, clothes and even themselves on full display. They sleep on the streets, in stations, on benches and they cook and eat in the open. Why should death be any different? It's not that they are in any way disrespectful; far from it. There is as much ritual in their funerals as in any other of life's events. It's just that in India life and death happen where you can see.

In the West, unless a service is carried out in respectful quiet, we feel uneasy that it is not right or fitting. Here it is the reverse. Noisy, chaotic and open - schockingly so, to our Western sensibilities.

As the body continues to burn, the feet remain sticking out in the air, not touched by the flames. After about half an hour or so, once the thigh bones have burned through, one of the untouchables responsible for tending the pyres, casually flips the feet back into the centre of the blaze with a long bamboo pole, effectively folding the body in two. He shakes up the half-burned legs and pokes back in any parts of the body that have fallen out. By this point there's not much resemblance to the human form, merely a dark, heavy lump of half-burned flesh and bone.

This relay of funerals repeats over and over again, as body after body is brought down the steps for cremation, while families, workers, 'guides' and tourists alike look on. As another body comes past, I watch as a cow standing among the crowds swipes a mouthful of marigold garland hanging over the side of the stretcher. No-one shooes it away. Further down, right between two of the pyres, a goat picks its way through, searching for a morsel of whatever it can find. I hold my breath as it edges ever nearer to a pyre. To my relief, the heat is too much for it and it turns away. Again no-one moves to stop it. Dogs too, wander around and lie near the flames for warmth. Another cow noses its way into a discarded plastic bag to lick out the remains of some ceremonial honey. And everywhere men - no women - sit or stand in the swelterinig heat of the fires, just looking on.

I gradually become aware that over all of this, I've been hearing a constant droning from the sound of a boat's engine turning over next to the ghat. It is a pump-boat, with high pressure hose, cleaning the ghat next door to the cremation ghat. For those not involved in the last rites, life goes on and the presence of death just beside them is just a part of that.

As Hindus believe in re-incarnation, the burning of the body (how typical that in the West we have a separate, distancing word for it - cremation) is just a way to pay the last respects and release the soul into the next life. For them it marks merely the end of the body, but not of life.