Rachel Frazin

Excerpt from the book's chapter Immersive India

Like a moth, I was drawn to Manikarnika ghat, Hinduism's ground zero, where crematory fires have burned perpetually the past millennium. Pyres in various stages of combustion are scattered on stone platforms beside the river. Shrouded bodies are incinerated within ritually stacked tree limbs whose fragrant smoke inexplicably spires up and away from the faces of mourners. The bodies of the dead re-fuel the cosmic fire where Vishnu performed the 50,000 austerities that generated the heat that created the world on this very spot. Women are prohibited from nearing the pyres because of their delicate nature, an assumption fueled by the female duty to wail. Men, on the other hand, are expected to suck it up, so they do.

The funeral priest, known as Mahabrahman, arrived bearing funeral paraphernalia. We descended the stone steps past lounging cows, burning logs, and Hindu priests dispensing wisdom to pilgrims seeking spiritual cleansing. A waiting rowboat abutted the lowest step. The priest pointed at the water and then at my head. 

The moment of microbial reckoning had come. I stepped into the river and bespattered my head with my hands. My nervousness ensured that drops splattered my lips. A Hindu Times article on Ganges pollution the following week validated my paranoia: 168,000 coliform bacteria per 100 ml of water. Fewer than 500 microbes can infest a person's skin.

While the helmsman rowed us mid-river, the priest stripped down to his dhoti, whose whiteness contrasted with his sun-blackened skin. I tried not to stare at his pink fingers, raw from dipping his hands in and out of holy water, or worse. I worried I was ill-prepared, like the day the Sri Lankan monk rang our doorbell six years before {to tell us of Daniele’s passing.} Despite my paltry familiarity with Kashi's death rites, I understood that the gods were to be propitiated to ensure Daniele's safe passage into the next life. I remained doubtful about reincarnation, but I'd committed to suspending my disbelief. One never knows. Sometimes a leap of faith creates a shift …

I followed the Mahabraman's cues like an elephant and her mahout. We began by plucking vine marigold blossoms, an offering that symbolizes purity. The priest cracked a coconut in two in honor of my sacrifice. He scraped the hair from the coconut halves, which symbolically stripped me of desire in service to the goddess within me. Devotee minus desire equals pure goddess.

The Mahabrahman filled metal bowls with sesame seeds for my ancestors' propitiation: barley for the Gods, vermillion kumkum powder for my equanimity and wisdom, turmeric for purity, and sandalwood paste for fragrance. Tying one blade of river grass around my right ring finger and draping a second blade over my left palm, he helped expedite my offerings to the pantheon. He mixed cow dung ash with curd and water so that I could pat together six ancestor-balls, one for each of my deceased family members. I placed the six on the lotus leaf in dedication to the gods, feminine beauty, and generative life. He lit a stick of incense whose smoke highlighted my sacrifice, a Hindu theme that ennobles survivorship, so different from the failure imbued in the Western concept of death, especially one marred by self-destruction. The notion of sacrificing Daniele touched me to the core. Sacrificing a child often inspires transformation, from a metamorphosis in meaning to a determination, like mine, to help change the world to one Daniele could have embraced. 

I intoned the names of my deceased family members while the priest incensed to attract their attention. My translator explained that the priest was imploring them to bless me with happiness in my grief …

Together the Mahabrahman and I emptied the bowls of offerings onto the lotus leaf along with Daniele's ashes and the ancestor-balls. I placed the kit and kaboodle in the water stern-side; then watched as the leaf drifted toward Mumbai.

When I turned back to the Mahabrahman, he requested his rupees, jolting me back to the profane. As I scanned the ghat spectacle on our return,  I couldn't help but think If she were here with me now, Kashi could have death-proofed her with its hilarious embrace of life.

I'd thrown our lot with the Ganges. Destiny had led Daniele to a premature finish, just as it had brought me to Varanasi with her remains. I watched as the marigold-dotted dung and Daniele-ash floated downstream. I'd done destiny's bidding, finishing what she began. Now that she was submersed in Mother Ganges, I hoped against hope that she'd been set free, her most cherished aspiration, at long last.