The pilgrimage city in India attracts tourists from all over the world – and many Hindus who seek salvation. Some of them want to die in a special villa.
When Indian woman Sharda Devi realises that she only has a few days left to live, she reacts irritably. Even when her son Mukesh Tiwari prepares a ceremony with a holy cow in her village in the poor state of Bihar, which is supposed to bring her good karma for the next life, she shouts at him. Because she imagines something completely different for her own end.
She wants to die in the most important Hindu pilgrimage city of Varanasi in northern India and then be cremated next to the holy river Ganges – as many other Hindus have done for thousands of years. According to belief, this is the only way to achieve final salvation. Hindus call this Moksha – the end of the eternal cycle of rebirth in millions of life forms as humans and animals, with joy but also suffering.
Her son Mukesh says he doesn’t want to let the most important person in his life go. Nevertheless, he puts his mother, who is emaciated to the bone, as well as his wife and daughter, into a motorized rickshaw and sets off on the journey, which takes more than five hours. Then they make it to the Ganges, which, according to legend, has its origin in heaven, and in which Sharda Devi wants to take a bath – as hundreds of women in colorful saris and men often in black underpants do at any time of the day. They believe that bathing in the brownish river will free them from sins and cleanse them – even though a lot of factory drains are constantly flowing into it and people are washing their clothes there.
Only those who are unwell are allowed to stay
Finally, the family travels further through the city center with its labyrinthine alleys that smell of freshly fried samosas, smoke, garbage and the dung of the many cows roaming freely on the streets. And shortly after midnight, they finally reach their destination: a gold and turquoise villa in a wild garden, the Mukti Bhawan – the House of Salvation.
Anyone who wants a room here must be very close to death – and is usually only allowed to stay for 15 days at most, says Hindu priest Kalikant Dubey, who has been working at the hospice for eleven years. “Only if their condition remains bad will I give them another 15 days,” says the man in the orange and white robe. “Otherwise they have to leave.” Once you have checked in as a dying person, you are not allowed to leave the hospice for a while. Card or board games, meat, fish, eggs, onions and garlic, and smoking are also taboo here.
Guest number 14,994
Dubey writes down the name of every guest coming and going. Sharda Devi is number 14,994. Dubey assigns her one of the bare rooms. There she is now lying on a cot on a thin imitation leather mattress. Above her, on the sky-blue and slightly discolored wall, hang two pictures of gods. And hardly any light comes through the two small windows. It is midsummer and two fans on the ceiling are barely able to alleviate the unbearable heat. Sweat is constantly dripping down. But Priest Dubey says that dying people do not need more luxury.
Devi now seems calm. With her last strength she gently touches her granddaughter’s head, her son gives her a few drops of Ganges water to drink. And she says, barely audibly: “I have led a life in the service of God. Now he has granted my last wish.” Tiwari says that his mother gave food to the poor and fasted. She prayed a lot and never harmed anyone.
Sharda Devi dies a week after her arrival at Mukti Bhawan. Priest Dubey says: “She had a good death. She could speak until the end.”
Drums, singing and candles
At any time of day or night, you can hear pious chants coming from a loudspeaker in the courtyard of Mukti Bhawan. Sometimes priest Dubey and his three colleagues also drum and sing. They wave candles in front of an altar, bathe small figures of Hindu gods in Ganges water and dress them in fresh clothes.
Dying people have to come to the villa with their relatives, who care for them and cook food or bring it in from outside. But the stay is free. That was the wish of Jathia Devi, who once lived here and whose wealthy family owns the house. Since her death, the villa has been open to Hindus hoping for moksha. They come from all corners of the subcontinent – since 1958, says Dubey. Only people from lower castes do not come. Because, in his opinion, they do not believe in the concept of moksha.
The caste system – although officially abolished decades ago – dominates life in India. Those born into a high caste have an easier life. With a low caste, one often only has the opportunity to do the hard job of one’s ancestors. This is also the case with the so-called Doms, who are responsible for the fires in which the corpses are reduced to ashes. The most important god of Varanasi – Lord Shiva – is said to have cursed the Doms to this fate after one of their ancestors tried to steal an earring from Shiva’s wife Parvati.
“My body gets hot and my eyes burn,” says 37-year-old Dom Bhalu Chaudhary, who has been putting logs on fires on the banks of the Ganges since he dropped out of primary school. “I once had many dreams – but they remained dreams.” He hopes that his son will one day have a better job.
Corpses burn in batches
Funeral rituals are a man’s job in this patriarchal country. Usually, the eldest sons, nephews or other close relatives light the flame at the head of the corpse on the pyre. Tiwari also does this for his beloved mother – just a few hours after her death, as tradition dictates.
Relatives watch. But they are not the only ones: cremations are public. Other people also enjoy the atmosphere by the river while the fires burn. At the same time, a man sells lemonade, which he carries in an orange bucket with ice cubes. There are also astrologers, priests and sadhus rubbed with ashes – holy men who live an ascetic life and offer their services for money.
The cremations are carried out in unison on the Ganges. Some bodies are wrapped in white cloths and lie on stretchers on the ground. In Hinduism, white symbolizes purity, mourning and the idea that the souls of the dead are leaving. Dogs search for bones in the ashes next to the fires. Goats bleat. Dom Chaudhary says it takes two and a half to three hours for a body to turn to ashes. Then the relatives give it to the Ganges.
Accepting death
Some hope that their ancestors can achieve moksha if they died elsewhere but are then scattered in the Ganges. Sharmila, for example, came from the distant western Indian state of Maharashtra with her family and the ashes of her father and brother. Her father died 18 years ago, her brother a month ago. They also pour holy water over a symbol of the god Lord Shiva decorated with fresh flower garlands and pray. “We have already mourned at home,” says Sharmila. “Now we are laughing with the children.”
In Varanasi, death and life are so close and visible to everyone like in few other places. You see how death is an inevitable part of life and how you are not alone in your grief. Maybe this will help you accept the inevitable. And maybe death is not the end either.