Burning Bodies

I am watching men work as they clean a burning pyre for another ceremony. Water is poured onto a pile of blackened logs which are then painstakingly wedged apart with a visible degree of effort. The burnt out bonfire is smouldering without purpose, and the wood can be reused for another body. A possible contender lays on a bamboo stretcher. Its human shape identifiable through the orange and glitzy gold cloths which shroud it. I am surrounded by curious men, or at least one who has just reached for his spectacles to either read these words or at least observe my scrawl of a handwriting technique. Now the body on the bamboo stretcher is being 'prepared' for his final public viewing.

I am not sure why I know it was a 'He', but I am sure He was.

Water from the filthy Holy Ganga is sprinkled over his head as it laps gently at his temporary bed. A long piece of string is pulled from under his stretcher. It is pulled out covered in thick mud. A pile of marigold garlands lay discarded in the river of mud, a few of which have been picked up and carried a couple of meters out into the river of water, as it licks the sacred banks.

The floating flowers remain still. Floating. Suspended. The force of the water is to weak to carry then too far from the shallows. It is almost as if they are waiting to witness the burning of the body they were bought to decorate. The surface of the water is black and lumpy. A mixture of soot, wood and then the soft shades of orange petals.

A group of barefoot men, wearing an assortment of white and cream cloths and clothes pick up the body and leave him on his final resting place; on top of the bonfire which has just been stacked to receive him. The glitzy decorations are removed to reveal a plain white sheet which clings to his face and flesh. In India white is the symbol of death and morning. Devoid of colour; devoid of Life, and yet a bright contrast to the surrounding dullness of the dirt. Handfuls of grain are pulled out from a sack, and then the group take it in turns to scatter it over the body.

The men now appear to be discussing which way to balance the branches of trees, which waiting to be stacked on top of him; creating a sort of human sandwich made out of a bread of freshly chopped wood.

His hair pokes out, as the still white sheet is caught by a log and pulled back. His rounded stomach is a destabilising foundation and a catalyst for yet more discussion from the watching men.

Behind the body a Holy Cow is lapping up the thick water and then takes a few confident steps into the Holy water in order to enjoy the still floating flowers. The Holy Cow munches, tugging at the garland of marigolds until she manages to pull them into her grazing jaw. She chews unperturbed by the pieces of tinsel onto which her snacks are strung.

The smoke from another pyre – another body – is stinging my eyes and burning my nostrils. As a vegetarian I already have a dislike for the smell of meat, and at this moment I will my mind not to linger on the fuel for the smoke I breathe.

Three men with lungis pulled up to their knees are standing in the water. They are a stones throw from the burning bodies. They are working – a local laundry service – washing clothes on purpose laid flat rocks, which they use to beat their clothes against.

A mongrel of a dog pokes around a deep pile of refuse as a bandy legged goat scratches its ear against the now discarded bamboo bed.

A woman wearing a sari pulled tightly around her face walks silently behind the group of gathered men. Unnoticed she nips between the distracted men as they still arrange the wood on top of the body. She darts to the front and quickly lifts up the corner of the still white sheet. One final look. Her reactions betray her, and her cries destroy her invisibility. She is reprimanded. Her presence is not acceptable and she is sent away, scuttling, crying and to watch the ceremony from within the confines of her imagination.

Another man crouches and lights the fire. The crackling it makes is filled with the mutterings of hushed voices and then silenced by the shouts of a prayer from further along the Holy banks. The smoke adds to the already thick air and my eyes continue to object. It feels as if I am peeling a mountain of onions, and yet my curiosity glues me to the bench. My thinking head is exploding with thoughts of which there are too many to process but only to actively observe.

Young boys now join my own uninvited audience, but my 'view' has already been blocked by a group of short wearing camera dangling British tourists. I stand up to try and find a space over and above their heads, but I keep writing and so they move closer in order to keep watching. A small boy is now standing next to a slow burning pyre. He is pointing at a stubborn head, which had managed to escape the flames. The body which it had been attached to for an entire lifetime had already surrendered to the lick of the fire. At this moment all that remained of the some body was a head, a pair of feet and a thick stinging polluting smoke. Even the pyre itself was transforming into golden and black embers.

Through my streaming eyes I see the hungry Holy Cow finish the last of the no longer floating marigolds. The Holy Cow begins to lazily nose around the covered feet belonging to the same head which now has no body.

The newly lit fire is now a multi-story construction. So much chopped wood has been placed on top of the other body that it is no longer visible and it even makes me wonder how much wood it takes to burn an Average Body?

The British tourists have left. They were complaining about the smell of burnt meat. They walk on as the Holy Cow continues to meander along the sooty banks. I turn my attention back to the no body and wonder if the feet and head will be make a final stand for life and drop to the ground?

Tubes of shit fall out of the bottom of a Holy Cow. She continues to graze, and finding no flowers left for her to feast upon, she instead pulls sheets of sodden newspaper into her moving mouth.

Behind me life continues. The laundry is beaten, as curious boys and men encroach further upon my personal space. They are torn between watching the fires and watching my words transfer from my mind to the paper.

A sadhu stands as if he is a statue cemented to the steps. He is naked apart from an orange loin cloth, a skin full of white powder and a head full of coiled dreadlocks. The different reality of the living within and outside of India is astounding. I can only but imagine life as a wandering praying smoking bead wearing snake loving trident holding Holy man.

The heat of the smoke is turning the stillness into a watery air. It appears to be almost fluid as my vision is contorted by its ripples. The source of the heat is greedy. The newly lit fire eats the cloth, and quickly begins to consume the flesh.

A laundry boy comes and places a pile of black suit jackets in front of me. Within seconds they are covered with a layer of flying ash, the wind is growing stronger and soon the ash sticks to my skin, falling from my hair onto these pages. The laundry boy returns to work. Scrubbing. Submerging. Soaking.

One of the curious onlookers nudges me. I ignore him and continue to write. He stays. Persistent. I have dropped a card and he is trying to return it to me.

The hungry fire is burning well. Better than the others. I wonder if the richer the customer the faster the burning? I wonder if the rich reuse the used wood? I wonder of the watery fate of those bodies who cannot afford a fire.

A new snotty boy has taken a front row seat by my side. After a few minutes he has become bored of my words and is now staring intently at my face. Face to Face I feel his eyes study me and I refocus my attention onto the mirage of life and death surrounding me.

A older man appears next to one of the pyres. He is clearly well versed in the techniques of cremation. He pokes at the feet. Pushing them further towards the flames and within minutes the ankles have been transformed into scorched bones.

The airless wind lifts a black plastic bag up from the ground. It is caught inside the warm thermos of the pyre and inflates like a hot air ballon. The watching children smile, shout and point, and I am free from their gaze for a few moments. A man throws a bundle of rolled newspapers as if he is delivering the morning paper to the knowledgeable river. It tumbles and turns and then lands in the reach of the lapping water.

The man with the poking stick returns to the obstinate feet; they remain hanging off the end of the pyre. He pokes a foot and it falls into the flames, but as it does the other foot tumbles down, landing strangely vertical in the mud. One final hop. The row of men squatting and observing from a nearby vantage point immediately proffer a chorus of shouts. After a short deliberation the poker turns and picks up another stick from out of the mud. Almost as if they were a large pair of chopsticks the poker catches the escaped foot and carefully returns it to the fire. But this time he places the foot in the middle of the fire – where the body used to be. The foot begins to bubble and then curl, like melting plastic, and then it blackens to the bone.

Shouting begins as a team of water buffalo swim by. Their noses are sticking up in the air, their horns are locked behing their flapping ears – like large bone earrings.

A baby goat climbs up to explore the top of a prepared pyre. It is playing and stumbling over the logs. The buffaloes stop paddling and start munching; they have found a flesh batch of floating marigolds.

The laundry boy returns to turn his baking jackets, sending ash floating to the floor. A new procession arrives and with it the bamboo bed is lifted from shoulders and placed on top of the water. For a moment it seems as if it will float but then it sinks and the orange and glitzy gold cloth blows up with liquid and the water is stained red from the tikka piled on top of the body. The stretcher is lifted up and laid down in the mud to wait for a pyre. And so – the cycle continues.