Death

Hi all,
This post would be about a death procession that I took part in.

First of all an update on the last post. I came to know that after I left they painted the room and put out the beds and everything just after I left. For me the place at Kirpal’s Pink House has been excellent even if its few monies up.

Back to the death event. Yesterday, one of the places where I eat, a chai shop called Ram Singh’s guesthouse, the owner died. The owner, an elderly and respected gentleman of the village, Ram Singh, in late 70’s or early 80’s died after coughing. The doctors had given him 6 days.I felt like attending it hence attended the whole thing. Unlike in the city where the family concerned has to pay for everything, here money was collected from everybody for the same. The owner had three sons and one of the sons was 5 hours by road so they waited for him. As per custom all the male members of his side of the family tonsured their heads.

Then they took the body around 14:00 hours to a river called Kosi where they took 4 quintals of wood to burn the body. The river and its surroundings were beautiful for sure but then all around its beautiful. I have to say I was disappointed by the level of the water in the river. The burning took around 3 hours and as per custom there were no women present. The local liquor went around. When the body was fully burnt and nothing was left then the ashes were given to the river (arpan). After that, everybody had to take shower in the river and then couple of fruits were given to everybody. This marked the end of the whole thing and we returned tired at something like 22:00 hours.

Tags: death, Kasrdevi, Kosi, Ramsingh