An Afternoon Funeral

Finally, the other day I took a walk through the cemetery. Finally, because I had been looking at it for months, and each time I thought of going, usually after sunset or late at night, it’s corroded iron-gate was locked. Not that I respect locks, but it seems too almost unnecessary to break into a graveyard in India after hours.

Starting in the late morning, I heard drums somewhere around the corner. I have problems detecting sounds in India. Maybe because of the openness, there is no ricochet to orient my ear. I don’t think it completely registered in my head that these were funeral drums. I walked to the cemetery with my camera thinking, if people weren’t there I would take some pictures of the graves, the Telugu inscriptions. You see, the reason the graveyard had interested me originally was:

1. I thought it was an ironclad rule that Hindus only burned their dead. So, in finding a cemetery in India, I thought I had uncovered an anthropological anomaly.
2. The cemetery itself is beautiful. The graves are all shades of pastels and someone has even started a planned garden off to the side. Plus the fact that it is behind a wall made the place seem like a paradise (I have been schooled by my Iranian friends that paradise is actually an old Avestan word meaning ‘walled garden’ – so let’s play with it in that context and cut the biblical umbilical chord.)

Walking in I was met with the usual stares from people I decided were either grave-diggers or afternoon degenerates. They sat along a central path, about 50 men, picking at their bare feet, drumming their legs against the low stone walls. On the right I noticed a bath house and a bunch of spickets... this will come in handy later.



I don’t know why but I was nervous to take out my camera. I felt this distinct Catholic sense, the same surge or uneasiness that is expressed as faux piety that I feel upon entering a church. I think, cemeteries are places where people breakdown, where the most private of emotions are communicated with the incommunicable, and that bond between death and longing should be respected.

The moment I pulled out my camera to take a photo, this man appeared at my side:



Mr. Romulu

He spoke to me in Telugu. I tried to say I understand a little Telugu, but speak really poorly. Like almost all situations here, somehow we communicated. He led me to the nether-regions of the graveyard, and people walked alongside us, asking Mr. Romulu who I was, where I was from etc. The cemetery expanded into graves and paths and small trees, not necessarily rolling hills (don’t get an Anglicized picture) but I couldn’t see the end of it. People sat alongside on rocks and piled up railroad ties. It didn’t really seem like they were mourning anything, just sort of passing the time. Near a far wall three women crouched around a grave lighting incense and doling out food to the dead. Women and men had formed groups and were chatting, which was supplanted by stares as I approached. Romulu introduced me, being an expert on my biography and opinions by now. I started to take pictures and the group smiled more, more women came and sat down, not posing exactly, just positioning. Then my guide ushered me over to his wife’s grave. He sat down, pulling out incense and putting his cigarette to the side and insisted that I sit on the neighboring grave, his mother’s. Once again the ghost of Catholic cemeteries restrained me, and I couldn’t make myself sit.

Men and women gathered round, perched close to be in my camera’s focus and ask Romulu questions about me. A man in flannel approach. He looked tired from the sun and squinted at me as he held up his left hand, 4 stubs of fingers. He motioned for me to take his picture. His friend told me they had cut his fingers off last night because he had insulted someone’s wife.




Then two girls and their father came up. The man spoke to me in Telugu and the girls shyly translated. They asked the questions that every one asked. Where I lived? Was I alone? Did I like India? And then the father motioned for them to bring me down to the lower part of the cemetery. It was their grandfather's procession I had heard, and they wanted me to come and take pictures. We walked down the slope, stepping from grave to grave, which I at first tried to avoid. And along the way groups of women called me over to take pictures of them, of ceremonies as they repeated the last-rites with circles of incense.

I was brought into a group of men, young and old, waiting for the body to come. The two girls warmed up to me and started to explain what a Hindu funeral was like. This was not their first funeral, they explained, 'people die all the time' the seven year old told me matter-of-factly. I stood next to the grave and an old man poured salt crystals into my hand and made a throwing motion. Looking down, I saw the grave was almost two-thirds full with large diamonds of salt.

The drumming grew louder. I asked the girls how they felt about their grandfather's death."There are so many people here," I said,"He must have been a really great man." It was something I have heard said at funerals, but it sounded strange and fake coming from me. And they said something that I cannot imagine saying at 7 or even 24.

"You know, he did some good things and he did some bad things, like every one."

They said their grandfather had died the last night, and that tradition said they should bury him the next day. Every one would stay, they said, for a few hours to sing mantras and lament. Then they would wash off in the showers and go home.

Then they excused themselves and went to join the female mourners and bring the body into the cemetery. I hung around with the men. They made some jokes ("What does an Indian have in common with a frog?"), and more introduced themselves to me and asked for pictures. My camera was dying though, and I was sick of documenting.

And then the women came. Hundreds of women in brightly detailed sarees surrounding four men who were carrying the dead body on a bamboo stretcher. The grandfather was covered in an orange sheet, and as he approached, the women broke off until only, what I am assuming were his sisters and daughters remained. His youngest sister fell on the grave crying. But her cries weren't the out-of-pitch strains I have heard before. There was a rhythm and measure to her words, like maybe she was singing. The men pushed me into the crowd. "Take pictures..." "You in the grey, move so she can take pictures." And I took a few, as they laid the body on the ground and removed the grass and dirt that had been stuffed in his mouth, replacing it with strands of gold.

I turned to go. It was no longer an expedition or a lessons in Indian funeral rites. I had come up to the boundary of voyeurism and 'making strange'* and I should make a quiet exit.

As I left, I met the sister who had been crying. Her eyes were red and the lines around her mouth and nose twitched with emotion. She stared at me. Not welcoming. Not even really noticing me. It was a face of pure grief.


*** In Russian "ostraneniya" is the process of making something that is quite everyday and normal appear strange.