Crematorium: as told to me by Gopal

Who is Gopal? Just a father of a little girl, working as unskilled/semi-skilled labour at a small motor repairing shop. I think his work involves cleaning the motors and oiling them. He is in his early forties. Education up to standard 10 (but never passed secondary school leaving examination). He is the third of five brothers. He also works for our company as a night watchman. He earns double the money sleeping at my office (about $50-$70) while earning about $25-30 in his primary job at the mechanic's where he has been working for more than a 12 years now. He has to work there 6 days a week from 10 AM to 9:30 PM (about 11 and half hours). On Sundays, he is usually asked to work from 11 AM to 4 PM (5 hours) for which he is sometimes promised a bonus, but sometimes has to do with nothing anyway. At my company, we had supported his daughter's education for about a year or more providing him with $50 extra each month as part of the EduAid program. However, in these bad times, we have had to stop the program but we want to revive that as soon as we can. We allow Gopal to go sleep at home once a week on weekends. But ideally, he should get more nights back at home. His house roofing is made of asbestos, a banned carcinogenic substance but somehow widely used by the urban poor and sometimes in the countryside.

There are many kinds of people who go to the crematorium. Some observe silence, others don't. Some create trouble amongst themselves, they feel restless, while others are silent and grave.

Sometimes, some make the acquaintance of someone they had never met before. Sometimes, they ask each other, "what happened?", "how do you know the deceased?", "how did they die?", or "did the deceased person commit suicide?"

Then these acquaintances can lead to more intimacy or friendship. It may also happen that those who are rough and intoxicated, make trouble and leave without doing what needs to be done, while others in the same group do what they came for.

Sometimes, someone says something which is possibly an expression of their inner pain, and if others find the comment objectionable, which happens often, it causes ruptures,... it can also lead to old relationships to break down. Later what happens to those relationships cannot be predicted easily without following the lives of those people concerned over the next few weeks or months, even years.

The cremation process takes a certain amount of time: the time taken to burn a dead human body. It can be 45 minutes to about one hour and ten minutes. There's also a question of whether an electric crematorium is used; traditional wooden funeral pyres are different.

Then, as it is well known and observed in the Hindu religion that the navel cannot be burnt or it does not get burned into ashes, and therefore it is extracted and embedded in a clod of earth. In my experience, I have seen they use two earthen bowl-like dishes and put some mud in one of the dishes. Then they put the unburnt navel in the mud, and then they also put certain objects like small sea-shells ("koris", once upon a time used as currency like coins), and cover the mud-filled navel dish with the other empty one.

This is done always by a male member of the family, usually a son or brother. The rule is that it is usually the eldest or the youngest. If there are no male members (sons or brothers), then females may do this task.

Then all these objects with the navel are usually buried in the banks of a nearby pond. The better option is of course to bury it on the banks of the river Ganges if possible. In some cases the ashes and the navel (all the remains) are thrown into the river Yamuna or Ganges.

After the burial, the two or three people who perform these tasks return to the crematorium. Others might have been waiting for them to come back. Now they take a large earthen pot, the one that is used to pour water on the funeral pyre after the body is burnt in order to put the flames out. All the people who came for the funeral are asked to proceed to the exit. Just before that, every member of the family is supposed to pour a bit of the water from the pot on the ashes to "cool" off the funeral pyre. Then the funeral priests then permit the people to leave and they command that when the earthen pot is to finally broken, no one should look back again at the remains, and they should leave.

The pot is then supposed to be broken by a close person of the deceased, again usually the son or the brother. It is said that from that moment onwards he needs to be looked after and supported for a whole year by someone close in the family, someone who should always keep an eye on him in order to protect him. At night, if he needs to go to the toilet, he should be accompanied by someone close who may wait on him outside. This is because the deceased may exert some influence on him, and something bad or unfortunate may happen to him.

Then the funeral party returns home. On the way back, this party is usually given some kind of refreshments, usually sweets, or whatever is possible or can be afforded, even a drink of tea. The members of the funeral party are supposed to take a bath in a pond or anywhere possible, usually outdoors. They should take a dip in the pond or river, or bathe with their clothes on, but nowadays some people do not always follow the rules and excuse themselves by saying that they will do it elsewhere, and go home.

The ones who stay on after the bath return to the home of the deceased. An iron implement such as a kitchen implement like a "bothi"* (a cutting/chopping sickle-like tool with support stands so that it can be placed on the floor, held on steady with one leg while using both free hands to chop or cut vegetables before cooking) is brought out. A small fire is lit with some straw or leaves usually in the porch, if there is one, or in an empty corner in the house. Some "neem" leaves (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neem) are also gathered along with some sugary candies or sweetmeats. The members of the funeral party then go on to touch the fire with their bare hands, then touch the "bothi" or any other iron tool. Then they chew a bitter "neem" leaf or two for a while and spit it away. In the end, they eat a sugar candy or some sweetmeats (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweetmeat).

At the crematorium, there are some people who perform puja ("worshiping rituals") to the Goddess Kali (the black woman incarnation of Shiva the destroyer's wife, Parvati).

There are also the "tantrics" who like to hang around the crematorium and meditate there.

Now Gopal is feeling sleepy... end of narration.

My notes:
Kali went into a mad frenzy of bloodbath when, at an ancient unspecified era the world was being dominated by evil men. In her frenzy she lost her powers of judgment and began killing even the good and virtuous. And she used their severed heads joined together to make a garland in her orgy of mass murder, while remaining fully nude. Shiva went down to earth and laid himself at her feet. She stepped on him, and then realised immediately she had placed her feet on her husband, her Lord, her Master. She came to her senses and realising that she had committed a sin (stepping on her master, not the killings, mind you!), she felt embarrassed and stuck her red blood stained tongue out, a gesture commonly associated with the realisation of guilt.)

---

* References to "bothi" in different contexts (search by the word bothi in the links below):
i. Variation: http://www.bongcookbook.com/2008/03/boti-unique-cutting-instrument.html
ii. Ancient history: http://www.panhwar.com/Article31.htm
iii. In Bengali culture: https://mailman.rice.edu/pipermail/sasialit/2007-April.txt