Death is the only certainty of life, and yet that is the one thing we do not prepare for.
When my father passed away after a protracted illness, without even discussing it with each other, my mother and I knew we would not be conducting any elaborate last rites. We chose the electric crematorium because it was the least polluting option, and then immersed his ashes in the Cauvery. It was all over in one and a half days, and we sought closure however we could. My father was a deeply religious person, and we do not know what he might have thought of it, but that is the case with most people. We plan our weddings, our birthdays, and other assorted celebrations, but most people do not even think about their death, much less plan it.
They don’t need to because all religions have prescribed funeral and mourning rituals, which are often both elaborate and expensive. Minakshi Dewan’s The Final Farewell does a fantastic job of describing the last rites and rituals prescribed in each of the major religions in India- Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, Christianity and Parsis.
“How does India mourn?” was a question that struck the author while she was performing the last rites of her own father, and this book is a culmination of the many interviews she had with people associated with performing the last rites of the deceased.
What struck me most while going through the narratives was how similar funeral and mourning rites are in each of the religions- of how, in almost all religions, there are specialists without whose assistance the last rites cannot be performed, and of how across religions, the period of mourning ends with an elaborate feast which tests the means of the family of the deceased. The other common factor across religions is how women are excluded from all displays of public mourning, though they continue to perform a role at home.
In the section on Hindu funeral and mourning rites, the author examines the caste hierarchy in performing Hindu funeral and mourning rituals. The task of directly assisting with the cremation in burning ghats is left to the Doms, who are considered the lowest even among the Dalits- for the rest of the world, they are “Untouchables”, yet ironically, the soul cannot attain release. Through her research, the author also found out that there is a separate category of “funeral priests” who only assist in the 11 days of rituals. Once the “mrithyu ka kaam” is over on the 12th day, they are supposed to disappear from sight and let the regular priests take over.
The author also digs deep into how much people spend on funeral and mourning rites. It is not cheap, and we have all heard stories of families which did not have enough money to treat the dying but go into debt to ensure the last rites are performed.
Death during COVID
While all of this is interesting from a sociological perspective, it is the second part of the book which is deeply engaging. The author examines how funeral and mourning rituals changed during the Pandemic. During the first wave, bodies were taken straight from hospitals in body bags, and any ritual that involved touching the deceased person had to be suspended.
While reading her descriptions, which were based on countless interviews, I was reminded of a friend of the family who lost her nonagrian mother to COVID- it was not the death she mourned as much as she did the fact that they couldn’t give their mother a proper funeral- “we did everything so well for our father”, she’d cried. “All we could do was watch Amma being cremated in the electric crematorium over video. We couldn’t even say goodbye”. The massive number of deaths during the second wave also saw many women get involved in conducting the last rites of people whose families were not able to give them a fitting funeral. Though women are traditionally excluded from participating in mourning, many came to the forefront, and it is hoped that now funeral rites will adapt to enable the participation of women.
The book also describes communities at the margins. The sub-cultures of funeral performers who flourish in the margins of funeral and mourning rites- rudhalis, mirasans and opparis, who are professional mourners and parai and gaana, who provide musical performances. The challenges faced by the kinnar community while performing last rites. The lack of access to burial spaces for Dalits in many rural and even urban communities sometimes results in people burying their dead under roads or below their own huts.
The book also provides hope when it describes a few organizations which provide an empathetic and inclusive space for people to conduct the last rites of their loved ones. Lastly, the book examines the environmental impact of traditional funeral rites and throws open questions about whether these practices can continue or not.
I enjoyed reading Minakshi Dewan’s The Final Farewell: Understanding the Last Rites and Rituals of India’s Major Faiths both for the descriptions of the funeral and mourning rites followed by different communities and because it challenged me to think about how caste, gender and social-economic status permeates everything in life, including death.
The book is available wherever books are sold. I received a review of the book, but the views are entirely my own.
The book has been published by Harper Collins. You can follow them on YKA here.