When Sharda Devi realized she only had a few days left to live, it didn’t go down particularly well.
Her son Mukesh Tiwari was preparing a ceremony involving a holy cow in their village in the impoverished state of Bihar, in India’s north-west, when she began yelling at him, irritated by the fact that this wasn’t how she had been planning to spend her last days on Earth.
Devi wanted to die on her own terms, namely in the most important Hindu pilgrimage city of Varanasi in northern India where Hindus have gone to be cremated next to the holy river Ganges for thousands of years.
This ritual embodies the end of the eternal cycle of death and rebirth, a central belief of Hinduism, and it is the only way to achieve final emancipation, known as moksha.
Devi’s son Mukesh says that he didn’t want to let go of the most important person in his life.
But he eventually gives in, loads his emaciated mother onto a motor rickshaw and sets off on a five-hour journey accompanied by his wife and daughter.
They make it to the Ganges, the holy river believed to be originating from the heavens.
Hundreds of men in black undergarments and women in colourful saris can be seen taking a dip in its brownish waters at all times of day.
Bathing in the Ganges is thought to cleanse and purify the believers of sin. The fact that people also do their laundry in the river and factories divert their wastewater into it doesn’t deter them.
The house of salvation
After Devi has taken a bath, the family continues their journey through the city centre with its labyrinthine lanes, amid wafts of freshly fried samosas, smoke, rubbish and the dung of the many cows that freely roam the streets.
Shortly after midnight, they finally reach their destination: a gold- and turquoise-coloured villa in a wild garden, known as Mukti Bhawan – or house of salvation.
Only those very close to death will be given a room – and usually may not stay longer than 15 days, says Hindu priest Kalikant Dubey, who has been working at the hospice for 11 years.
“I’ll give them another 15 days if their condition continues to deteriorate,” says the man clad in an orange-and-white robe. “Otherwise, they’ll have to leave.”
Once you’ve checked in as a dying person, you’re no longer allowed to leave the hospice temporarily. Card and board games, meat, fish, eggs, onions and garlic are taboo. Smoking is banned too.
Guest number 14,994
Dubey writes down the names of all incoming and outgoing guests. Sharda Devi is number 14,994.
Dubey assigns her one of the barren rooms. She lies down on a thin mattress made of imitation leather on top of a cot.
Two pictures of gods hang above her on the sky-blue and slightly discoloured wall. Light barely enters through the small windows.
Two ceiling fans battle the unbearable summer heat. Priest Dubey says the dying do not need luxury.
Devi seems calm now. Mobilizing her last remaining strength, she gently touches her granddaughter’s head, and her son gives her a few sips of Ganges water to drink. Barely audibly, she says: “I have led a life of service to God. Now he has granted me my last wish.”
Tiwari says his mother gave food to the poor and fasted. She prayed a lot and never harmed anyone.
Sharda Devi died a week after her arrival at Mukti Bhawan. “She had a good death. She was able to speak until the end,” Priest Dubey says.
The effect of caste
At any time of day or night, devotional singing echoes from a loudspeaker in the courtyard. Sometimes, priest Dubey and his three colleagues also sing and drum. They wave candles in front of an altar, bathe small figures of Hindu gods in Ganges water and dress them in fresh clothes.
The dying and their relatives, who care for them and cook or buy food for them, can stay at the villa free of charge. That was the wish of Jathia Devi, who used to live here and whose wealthy family still owns the house.
Since her death, the villa has been open to Hindus hoping for moksha.
They come from all corners of the subcontinent, says Dubey, and have been doing so since 1958. Only people from low castes stay away. In his opinion, they do not believe in the concept of moksha.
The caste system, though officially abolished decades ago, still dominates life in India. Those born into a high caste have an easier life. Those born into a low caste often have no other option than to take on the hard jobs of their ancestors.
This is the fate of the Doms, who are responsible for the fires that reduce corpses to ashes. The most important god of Varanasi, Lord Shiva, is said to have cursed the Doms with this fate after one of their ancestors tried to steal an earring from Shiva’s wife Parvati.
“My body is getting very hot and my eyes are burning,” says 37-year-old Dom Bhalu Chaudhary, who has been putting logs on the fires along the Ganges promenade since he left primary school. “I once had many dreams – but they remained dreams.” He hopes that his son will have a better job.
Cremation customs – a patriarchal tradition
Funeral rituals are a man’s business in India, with patriarchy deeply engrained in society.
It is usually the oldest sons, nephews or other close relatives who start the fire at the head of the funeral pyre. Tiwari does the same for his beloved mother.
Some relatives watch on, alongside other people. Cremations are public, and people soak in the atmosphere among the burning pyres. A man sells lemonade, which he carries in an orange bucket.
The cremation at the Ganges is piecework. Some corpses lie on stretchers on the ground, wrapped in white cloth. In Hinduism, white symbolizes purity, mourning and the idea that the souls of the dead are rising.
Next to them, dogs search for bones in the ashes. Goats bleat. Dom Chaudhary says it takes two and a half to three hours for a corpse to turn to ash.
Then the relatives consign them to the Ganges.
Accepting death
Some hope that their ancestors will still achieve moksha if their ashes are scattered in the Ganges even if they died elsewhere.
Sharmila travelled from the distant western Indian state of Maharashtra with her family and the ashes of her father in tow.
Her father died 18 years ago, her brother a month ago. They pour holy water over a symbol of Lord Shiva, decorated with fresh flowers, and pray.
“We have already mourned at home,” says Sharmila. “Now we laugh with the children.”
In few other places are death and life so closely intertwined as in Varanasi.
