A Hindu Funeral

I saw my first ever road rage fight this morning. It happened at the underpass that is always backed up. Right behind us a motorcycle was trying to sneak through and bumped into a car. Well the driver of the car did not take kindly to this. He proceeded to get out and started to beat on the guy. All of a sudden, right outside my car window, about 5 men were punching each other and others were trying to break it up. Traffic finally started to move and we went on our way.

Last week, a coworker’s husband passed away. I was invited to the funeral last Friday but turned down the invitation since I had only met the co-worker once. However Gary did attend the Hindu funeral and filled me in. About 1,200 people attended as they have very large families out here. A Hindu funeral is very different than a Christian in one area. It has a live, open flame cremation during the funeral process. The body is put into a platform with a tee-pee shape of wood surrounding it. The body is only covered by a linen sheet. The oldest male of the family is the person that lights the fire with a torch, in this circumstance it was his 6 year old son. Then the body slowly begins to cremate in front of the crowd and is very visible.

In this same location were 20 such platforms with 5 other proceedings happening with bodies in various stages of cremation, but easy to see and smell. Gary said this is a sight he will never forget.

Once the cremation is final the remaining ashes are taken to a river to float away.

Before I left for India, I was watching a show called Deadliest Fish on the Discovery Channel. The deadliest fish are fish that go after people. The show was in a Northern India river where this ritual takes place and when the body is halfway cremated it is sent down the river. The killer fish, a catfish, has now grown very large 200+ pounds as it is eating the cremated bodies. The catfish has acquired the taste for human and is now going after live swimmers. The catfish come close to shore when there is a lot of activity on the shore and a fire is started. I will not be scuba diving in that river.