In Hindu tradition, women normally do not light the funeral pyre. But not everyone today believes that is how it should be. Quite the contrary. Anu Lall talks of her experience with lighting the pyre when her father passed on. In reflecting on the custom, she now wonders if it is actually a privilege bestowed upon women.
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Traditionally, Hindu women are not permitted to light the funeral pyre. To set parents on the path of Nirvana is one of the eternal duties of a son, one of the top reasons why people in my country want a son.
I don’t have a text, mantra or dictum to answer — Why Hindu women don’t light the funeral pyre. I am sharing my experience. Its your decision, whether you allow your daughter to light your pyre or whether you light your parents.
We lost dad very suddenly, without any history of ailment. Shock, grief, pain, disbelief all rolled together, seeing my doting father as a body, lying on the floor, of his own room.
Standing outside the room, in the winter sun, the elders were debating the big question — Who will perform the last rites? It was a critical question as my dad didn’t have a son. Finally, someone approached my grieving mom, and without any hesitation, she took my name. Family elders didn’t override my mom’s decision. I am not sure how many Indian women have the luxury of a choice in such matters. I am not arguing for a “right for women to cremate”. I am just applauding the freedom of choice Mom exercised.
It was a break from tradition, so much that for many months newspapers called me for photos of the cremation ceremony, lauding the “modern” act.
As a Hindu girl, I had never stepped inside a cremation ground. Hindu funeral ceremonies were as alien to me as Christian or Jew rituals.
Anyway, Dad was a well-known man. There were a thousand pair-of-eyes on me at his last rites. A reverse gun salute followed when I lit the pyre. I wish no child has to lose a parent ever, but that’s the destiny of every child. As the fire leapt up, the pandit handed over a bamboo stick for the Kapaal Kriya — breaking the skull to release the soul from the body. Several times in the process, buckets of water were poured on me, or I was asked to pour on myself. Shivering to the spine, in the cold November rain, breaking my dad’s skull, my senses were numb, maybe heart stopped beating. I must be breathing. Must have, coz I didn’t die. We came back, drenched to the bone, my soul and mind paralysed.
Two days later, before sunrise, we went to pick up the remains. There was no trace of anything as I had known him. Everything was charred and burnt, body consumed by the fire. We splashed water and the “structure” broke into pieces. The earth was still very hot. The water made large bubbles on the ashes and evaporated quickly. As the pandits chanted, I washed each “phool”, still very hot, with water, milk and curd. The ashes were to be collected in a separate pile. It was a very basic technique carried out with plain iron spades. My hands burnt several times. Family friends, male cousins, uncles, some of whom I hadn’t seen for years joined me. Many times resentment outlives people.
If I thought this was Papa, I would have crumbled. My eyes glazed every now and then. I tried very hard not to locate his perfect teeth or the problematic knee. There was some energy in the cremation ground that didn’t allow me to fall apart, that kept me rooted…something that let me do this mechanically. There was no negativity, a strange force, some energy that gave me insides of steel. It is believed cremation ground is an impure land. The pandits who perform the cremation rituals are the lowest rung of Brahmins. I felt it was a powerful place.
As the pieces cooled down, so did I. Dad had gone. This was just a dignified way of dealing with the place where he once dwelled. Picking up the bones, and collecting ashes was as literal or as philosophical as one wants it to be.
Every ritual that followed emphasised the universe’s energy equation — matter, water, air, space, fire — all go back into their original form. The force that gives this heap of matter — Life — had left the body a long time back. Papa had gone back to the ancestors, from where he came, from where we all are. Each second of the excruciating never-ending process, reinforced further detachment from him.
Disease of the body, bitterness of the mind, malice of the heart, negativity all cremated along. Whatever was in the realm of emotion, karma or bondage was burnt away. We scraped the ground clean, making place for someone else.
We packed the remains in a sack. The Pandit left it hanging — Token number 44 — to be immersed in the Ganga. When we drove to immerse his ashes, I carried the sack in my lap. For someone it might be dumping the remains. It’s like Jesus’s blood is a glass of wine, or not. The language is symbolic, only to someone who holds that emotion.
Circling back, I don’t know why Hindu women don’t light funeral pyres. Maybe because this is a duty; not a right. Maybe it is a privilege. Maybe women were “exempted” and that is actually a privilege, which turned into a custom. Who knows.
Humans love customs — We love creating customs, tying ourselves to them, living in fear of breaking them. Not stopping at that, we lace them with egos, power-play and rules. Setting ourselves up in this matrix of bondage, we then crave freedom. Bondage thy name is human.
In trying to perform the ceremonies with best of my intentions, grappling and overcoming fears, I learnt that I was only incidental in the process, the universe played its part. In years that followed, I learnt my experience could be summarised in just one sentence — Actions are performed by Prakriti/ Gunas. Ego makes us think “I am the doer”.
( Ahamkaara vimoodhaatmaa kartaahamiti manyate || 3:27 || Chapter 3: Bhagwad Gita )
PS: His Death Certificate and Crematorium certificate remained on my desktop for months. I mailed it to Google for his password, tax authorities, banks, for property matters, lawyers. After the play between religion, emotion, customs and norms end — there is another real world, where we need resilience, else we perish.
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