The Red Orifice

The sun's rays slanted through the window on to the dusty corridor. They were falling on the face of a young woman; One in her early thirties. Her face almost wax-like with not a crease on the forehead, nor wrinkles near the edge of her closed eyes . She wore a red sari, a colour brightened by the falling rays and amplified by the darkness around. As if life had finally been cornered by death here, in this corridor.  Her forehead glistened from the melting ghee that had been smeared over it. They looked like beads of sweat, giving the serene face a strange sense of struggle. The ghee slithered through the strands of velvety hair taking the vermilion along the way. As if Medusa lay here in her slumber while her serpents slithered.

The rays fell on the rest of her too. On her slender hands that wore the bangles, perhaps from her marriage. The gold, silver and the glass in the bangles threw back the light in strange angles to form an orgy of colours. The luminous mixture fell on yet another face. This was one of a little boy. His eyes were wide open and tears rolled from them in an incessant stream. The hair, dusty, matted as if abandoned by all the care in this world.  The head rested on his mother's lap and his hand held on to hers forcing the bangles to squeeze towards the leanest stretch of her arms.

Near her feet lay another child perhaps of three or four. As if a cherub had been sent here to balance the morbidity. She was playing with her mother's toes, especially the silver ring on her ring toe, complaining to her brother in a whisper that she found ma's feet, cold. Through the dark an adult hand sprinkled some sandalwood over the body while another placed two strands of burning incense sticks onto the corners of the bamboo stretcher. Through the dark came the sound of muffled cries and sighs from faceless onlookers. When two sorrows compete it is difficult to fathom which one is more painful; The premature end of a youth's life. Or the premature death of youth in two children? Here in this room were three lives cut short in their own ways, one no more and two still living.

While the amateurs in the room stay lulled in their emotional bubbles, the pros were at work. Staving off even a modicum of emotion a priest was making the arrangements for the final rites. He now egged the boy to start the antim sanskar. Two men in their checkered lungis and white shirts stood at the edge of the bamboo stretcher impatient for the drama to end. Theirs was the last job and the payment came only at the very end. Hence the hurry. The boy picked up the burning bundle of paat-kathhi and slowly walked around his mother. The little girl followed, thinking this to be an exciting game. Her giggle rankled through the corridor and sent a chill through many a spine. With his hand the priest gestured the boy to stop. The hand now pointed towards the face of the woman. The boy's lips quivered and his hand shook. A few hands came out of the dark again to assist him to accomplish the unthinkable, the inevitable. The angry flame from the burning bundle seared the mother's dark lips in the act of mukh-aagni. The little girl gave a shrill scream as the brother instinctively pulled back the bundle of paat-kathhi. Tears rolled down from her eyes as she clung to her brother. The priest looked at the little girl. "This here is the death of innocence", he thought.

The juggernaut had started rolling and there was no stopping it now. Several hands came out of the dark to lift the bamboo frame. The two men opened the collapsible gates and led the crowd to another room. They pointed towards a pair of rail tracks beckoning the four bearers to put down the bamboo stretcher on it. Once there the garlands and the strands of the sweet smelling rajani-gandha were stripped from the body till it lay there, all alone, wrapped in nothing but the bright red sari.  The sound of bolo-hari hari-bol rankled through the air like the war cry from an army that knew defeat was inevitable. The boy had stopped crying. Perhaps there were no tears left. His sister had not stopped wailing since witnessing the mukh-aagni. She was looking up at her brother, her eyes frantically pleading him to stop the ongoing madness.

The two men bellowed at the crowd to stand back. The rail led to an iron sluice gate. The entrance to the electric furnace. As one of them pushed the lever upwards, the gate opened. The reddish-orange inside spewed the venom of heat waves forcing the crowd to retract. The brother stood still. With one hand he hid his sister's eyes. She had seen enough for the day, he decided. The other man walked to the end of the rail and pulled another lever. With this act the feeble bamboo frame carrying the woman slowly wobbled towards the orange orifice. The sluice gate closed. All fell quiet except for the rumbling hum of the furnace.

Outside, calmness prevailed only to be periodically disturbed by the undulating waves of the Ganges lashing the steps of the burning ghaat. After the momentary stagnation between jowar (high-tide) and bhaata (low-tide) the river had started flowing again, yet again, like it had done forever.