Ganga rises, the dead wait for moksh on Varanasi ghats

VARANASI: Wrapped in an orange shroud, a dead body from Jaunpur has just crossed the narrow Varanasi lanes left murky by the monsoon to reach the Manikarnika ghat . Following it closely are two other funeral processions from different parts of the city that have thronged all lanes leading up to the crematorium.

As the pall bearers jostle their way for an elbow's space amidst a crowd waiting near huge logs of wood moist from the constant drizzle, their feet are touched by the water of river Ganges, much ahead of where they had expected it to be. For the past few days, a roaring Ganges has devoured the steps of Manikarnika and Harishchandra ghats — highly revered cremation grounds, believed to give a human soul the moksh it craves for.

With fresh rains on Sunday, the river’s rage has left little of the ‘ghats of moksh.’ And as families bound by tradition bring their dead kin for the final call to both the ghats, they have had to wait for hours before they can get started with the last rites.

On a humid Wednesday afternoon, Jaunpur native Sri Nath Yadav, carried his sister-in-law's body to the Manikarnika ghat. As the procession reached the place from where the steps down to the river once stood, the party was appalled to see the Ganges touching their feet, at a height they had never seen it rise to before.

“We watched visuals of the Ganges rising on television, but had not imagined it would be so high up the ghat steps,” said Yadav. “Since it is the family's tradition to be burnt at a pyre on Manikarnika, which is the biggest masaan (crematorium), we will have to wait for our turn amidst these other bodies,” he added.

Doms letting people cremate kin in lanes leading up to own homes

On a regular day, at least 40 to 45 bodies are cremated on the Manikarnika ghat simultaneously. With no open space left now, only 10 platform pyres built at a height and under shed, are helping people in performing their final duty towards the dead.

"There is no other way here at present, but for people to wait. It is a general waiting of at least five to six hours before the process of cremation for one dead body can begin. It takes another two hours to complete the process," said a worker for the Dom Raja at Manikarnika ghat.

Kripashankar Chauhan from Jariyari village in Varanasi's Cholapur block had been waiting for three hours when TOI caught up with him. "My uncle has to be cremated but the water is allowing only 10 bodies to be cremated at a time on the high rise platforms. Other parts of the ghat are completely submerged these days," he said.

"Manikarnika is the ghat where our ancestors have been cremated since a long time and it is not a matter of choice for us to go anywhere else, but to sit here and wait for the backlog to be cleared," added an elderly Chauhan. A young Dinesh Chandra Chowdhary, his head shaven, from Varanasi's Godowliya also saw reason in waiting for his father to be cremated at Manikarnika ghat. "I will cremate my father at Manikarnika ghat and nowhere else, no matter what be the waiting time. My grandfather was cremated here. And it was my father's wish to be cremated here," he said.

A little far from here, at Harishchandra ghat, members of the Dom community --who are responsible for cremating the dead -- have been helping the grieving in cremation of their loved ones, in lanes leading up to their own homes.

With water swelling in the river each day, Pawan Chowdhary, who is a part of the Doms, said, "We have been cremating bodies close to our dwellings these days. Where else will people go if the water keeps rising?"

At the Harishchandra ghat, instead of the 20 to 25 dead bodies that are cremated on ausual day, only seven to eight are being cremated.