Melissa: The Burning Ghats of Varanasi
Fire.
The eldest son of the deceased lights the funeral pyre.
Earth.
The ashes from the cremating corpse fall to the ground.
Air.
Smoke circles up towards the heavens.
Water.
Whatever remains unburnt is resurrected from the pile of ashes at the end of the cremation and is cast into the River Ganges. The ashes are collected and also scattered across the sacred waters.
Thus does human flesh relinquished to death return to the four elements. Thus is, according to the hundreds of Hindus that flock to Varanasi daily for the funerals and cremations of their family members, the soul of the deceased guaranteed release from the cycle of rebirth.
Perched on a balcony above the main burning ghat along the Ganges, I watched the many cremation ceremonies going on simultaneously below. The smoke rising from the burning bodies (smelling unnervingly like a barbeque) occasionally wafted my way. "I'm breathing in the smoke of burning bodies," I thought with each inhalation. The combination of sights and sounds and smells assaulted my senses from all sides, accompanied by a flood of thoughts and conflicting emotions. An eternal moment (actually only about a half hour) I spent standing there; for certain one of the most overwhelming moments of my life.
Three tiers lead down to the river bank: the highest reserved for the highest (Brahmin) caste, the middle saved for members of the second, and the closest to the river used to cremate the third caste. (Fourth caste and untouchables are forbidden to burn the bodies of their dead here). Corpses covered with different colored cloths--to distinguish the age and gender of the deceased--and draped with garlands of flowers were lined on either side of their respective tier.
I saw no visible signs of mourning from the families as they--well, only the men are allowed onto the ghat--participate in the cremation of their loved ones. After some ceremonial proceedings, the eldest son takes a torch to set the crisscrossing structure of firewood beneath their father or mother aflame. Two to three hours it typically takes for the burning to complete. The dalits (euphemism for untouchable) whose duty it is to tend the pyres occasionally attempt with merciless swings of a thick stick to break up the charred body. Whatever remains unburnt is resurrected from the pile of ashes and tossed into the sacred river Ganges.
Along the Ganges, the cremations continue 24 hours a day. This cremation custom has, for sure, been going on here non-stop for countless centuries.
In the midst of this constant presence of death, there are at the same time constant signs of the continuity and cycle of life. This dealing with the dead has provided the livelihood of many for the many centuries this has been going on. A swarm of sparrows soars overhead, filling the smoke-thick air with a symphony of singing. Local boys fill the surrounding skies with laughter and flying kites. As I stood and observed, half in a trance, one boy's kite string broke and the body of the kite blew and landed just next to one of the burning bodies. Laughing, the boy skipped across the ghats, around the cremating corpses, to retrieve his kite, and skipped away to return to play. Wow. Life goes on.