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It took less than a minute for the ghee-splattered pyre to light up. Before long, helped by the winds blowing in over the blue waters of the Ghaghra (the mythical Sarayu) river, the pyre was fully aflame, and the wood crackled, spewing flakes of ash and slowly consuming the lifeless body inside.
The wind-swept loose dirt mixed with the acrid smoke of burning human flesh, stinging the nostrils and the eyes.
Four pyres burned on the north bank of the Ghaghra river that snakes in from the north and divides the Mau and Gorakhpur districts. The other ten had cooled, leaving behind a grisly mixture of charred wood and splints of human bones.
Above the north bank, on the left side of the Muktipath burning ghat, stands a modern electric crematorium that lies idle because the rural folks of Barhalganj and other places of Gorakhpur prefer performing the last rites here because of the pyres’ proximity to the river.
The Muktipath complex is a huge concrete sprawl, and by rural standards, quite spic-and-span. A sea of humanity mills about the site. Small stores displaying gamchhas, singlets and sundry items associated with cremation rituals, and stalls selling tea, ground nuts and cheap sweets, do brisk business. A gigantic idol of Shiva looms over the crematorium, as if watching over the mortal humans’ last journey.
At a few spots, fresh earth had been dug up, forming small mounds. Not a human moved about in the ground, dotted with tombstones and lined by tall coconut trees. “Not very far away, in Tiwaripur, is a smaller “kabristan”, portions of which have been grabbed by land sharks,” informed Jamal Ahmed, who is a member of the Naushahra Mohalla mosque managing committee.
“The Muslims of Naushahra Mohalla are not shocked by Modi’s ‘samshaanghat-kabristan’ comparison. And we dismissed it with the contempt it deserves. He is the prime minister of a country the size of India and we expected a little more grace and decency from a man of his stature,” Iqbal Ahmed said, his long, grey beard blowing in the breeze.
As he turned and adjusted his steel-rimmed spectacled to speak about the 2002 Gujarat riots, the wizened Iqbal Ahmed held his right wrist, stopping him from “sharing other unpleasant events of the past”. Standing by the gates of the “kabristan”, Iqbal reasoned: “Gadhe huye murde nahin ukhadne chahiyye.”
Back at the Muktipath crematorium, a crowd of Yadavs who had driven 12 kms from Bairiyakhas village in Gorakhpur to accompany a community member who had passed away, sat on a cemented platform, watching the grim proceedings. Pointing a finger across the river, to its south bank, Phoolchand Yadav said: “Woh dekhiye, ek aur shamshaanghat. Woh jagah Mau ziley mein padhta hai.”
Close to the cremation ground on the south bank, which is called Muktidham, is a white-domed mosque. There, hundreds of people had gathered to take part in the Mateshwari Pariwar Mahayagna, which is organised every two years.
Close to the cremation ground is the Acharya Swargiya Pandit Suresh Dutt Tripathi Bal Vidya Mandir, a primary school. Outside its iron gate, siblings Sajida (eight-year-old) and Sahir (six-year-old) pass small chanachur sachets to a bunch of cacophonic school kids through gaps in the gate.
Some of the children make spot payments in coins while others take the packets on the promise of paying “tomorrow”. Behind the school stands the green-domed mazaar of one Pir Syed Baba.
The plumes of loose dirt and sand, swept up by the gale, drive the kids back to their classrooms, leaving the disappointed siblings to pack up their ware and head home.
The modernised cremation ghat came up 16 years ago when Muktighat was shifted from its original location 2 kms upstream the Ghaghra. More recently, the beautification drive involved razing an East India Company structure – locally called the Afeem Bangla – and putting up a green space in its place.
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