Funeral pyres fuel kitchen fires in Varanasi

“Hamare chulhe to in laashon se jalte hain (It’s these dead bodies that keep our stoves burning),” says Vijay, as he prepares a pyre for his second cremation of the day at Varanasi’s Raja Harishchandra burning ghat. Smoke and ash sting the eyes and nostrils, but he keeps fanning his hand, carving his path through it.

Vijay Chaudhary, 35, is from the Dom community of Banaras (listed as scheduled caste). He represents the fourth generation of his family in this business – tending to the dead brought to the city for cremation and last rites by grieving families from across India.

Vijay, like many others here, has a liquified petroleum gas (LPG) connection at home but no gas these past 25 days. “I tried booking a refill, but their phone just rings. We can’t afford to pay 2,000 rupees for a cylinder [14.2 kilograms] costing 1,000. So we’ve fallen back on an old tradition – cooking on pieces or leftovers of the same wood used for cremation. We take some back every day,” Vijay tells PARI.

“They give us a minimum of 300 rupees for burning one dead body,” he says, navigating along the steep stairs to where a mourning family has just arrived. “But sometimes we negotiate 500-600 rupees. This family has brought their mother’s body,” he says, and vanishes for 20 minutes.

Vijay, a Class 4 school dropout, lives 10 kilometres away from his workplace with a family of five who rely on his income. He makes at least 300 rupees per cremation and handles two to three per day. Which means he earns 600-900 rupees a day, on average.

“There must be at least 500 people like me here and at Manikarnika Ghat, most of them illiterate and all dependent on cremating the dead.” He wears a white gamcha (scarf} around his neck to deal with the heat and sweat and heads back to a body he has agreed to cremate for 400 rupees.

Just 3 km away from Raja Harishchandra Ghat is the Manikarnika Ghat. These Hindu cremation grounds are likely the most famous burning ghats in the country.

Several narrow lanes, dotted with small shops selling dairy products and puja items, old residential houses, and wood sellers with huge weighing machines, lead us to Manikarnika ghat.

“All us Doms live hand to mouth. For us, it’s essentially daily wage work,” Shlok Chaudhary says as he pulls out a pair of half-burnt pieces of wood from a burning pyre, on the riverbank. Above him the April sun, and beside him the heat of the burning pyres, are merciless.

Like Vijay, Shlok says: “We’ve returned to using the wood from cremation pyres like our ancestors. It’s our saviour in tough times.” And then rushes to the Ganga with some wood he has just grabbed from a pyre. Thirty seconds later, with a sizzling sound of wood and grey smoke rising above him, he returns from the riverbank. “It’s cooled enough to be carried home,” he explains.

Balbeer Chaudhary, a wood seller at the ghat, says, “earlier, one man (a local measure equalling 40 kilos) of wood cost 500-550 rupees, now it’s 700-800. One dead body weighing 80 kg needs around six man (about 240 kilos) of wood. Some families are now managing with four or five man, trimming the rituals to fit what they can afford.” Simply: LPG shortage due to the Iran war has seen a rush for firewood, affecting even funerals.

Shlok, 29, is a high school dropout. He’s been at this work since age 14. “I would come with my papa and help him. Now that he is no more, it is just me and amma, so I work for her.” Shlok’s feet slip on what seems like a hot pile of ashes and he laughs. “I’m a little high. You cannot work with dead bodies, the smell and atmosphere here, without getting yourself intoxicated,” he tells PARI. It’s only 10 in the morning.

“The gas shortage has hit us hard. But we’re coping in a way only we Doms can,” says Shlok, taking a deep drag on his cigarette, and waiting for his first customer of the day.