[The mystery surrounding the bodies has not been solved, nor is it known how many were infected with the coronavirus. But many believe that families resorted to extreme measures because they could not afford to have their relatives cremated — a rite that once cost about $70 here but has skyrocketed to $400 since late last month, locals say, when a second wave of the virus struck India like a thunderbolt.]
Darsan Nishad, a 35-year-old man
who works for an environmental program, was part of a crew sent to drag eight
sodden corpses out of the water that day, then bind them for transport to be
examined and later cremated, the formal last rite observed by India’s majority
Hindu populace.
“We had no idea where they had come
from. We had no idea if they had been sick,” he recounted this week, pointing
out a bend in the river where they had carried out their grim task.
Shaken by the experience, Nishad
drew on his faith in the Ganges, which Hindus revere as a sacred source of
purity and protection.
“This water is sacred for all of
us. We believe that if you dip in it even once, you are protected for life,” he
said, standing just a few feet from several charred and smoldering pits in the
sand, where bits of wood, bamboo and cloth from recent cremations bobbed at the
water’s edge. “She is our goddess.”
[In
India, the deadliest day for any country since the pandemic began]
The mystery surrounding the bodies
has not been solved, nor is it known how many were infected with the coronavirus. But many believe that families resorted to
extreme measures because they could not afford to have their relatives cremated
— a rite that once cost about $70 here but has skyrocketed to $400 since late
last month, locals say, when a second wave of the virus struck India like a
thunderbolt.
In Sujabad, a community of dirt
alleys and tarp-covered huts that depends on the Ganges for its livelihood,
many people are now out of work. Boatmen who once carried pilgrims and tourists
along the river have been grounded by a pandemic lockdown. Fishermen are
worried about their catch becoming contaminated. The only booming business,
people said, is among the woodsellers who supply the essential ingredient of
funeral pyres.
As India struggles to contain a
protracted resurgence of coronavirus cases, the sheer number of deaths — around 4,000 on many days since late
April and surpassing 4,500 this week, figures that represent an undercount —
has overwhelmed communities and hollowed out their economies. Like the bodies
found in the Ganges, whether they died of covid-19, heart attacks or old age,
the inhabitants of these communities are victims of the virus, too.
The horrifying images of floating
and half-buried corpses spurred government officials to action. Patrol boats
have been sent up and down the Ganges, which meanders for 1,500 miles across
northern India. Local and state authorities have established networks of free
cremation sites, where firewood and priests are available to grieving families
at no charge.
[In
an Indian city, obituaries reveal missing coronavirus deaths and untold
suffering]
Several such sites are operating
in Varanasi, a historic riverfront city 15 miles
from Sujabad that features majestic stone steps to the Ganges called ghats.
Normally, the ghats are crowded with Hindus who come to bathe, baptize their
children and scatter the ashes of their dead. Now the ghats are nearly empty,
but the public crematoriums are busy around-the-clock.
At one cremation site this week, a
cluster of men watched sadly as a Hindu priest lit a pyre of wood and bamboo on
an iron platform and chanted a prayer for their elderly mother, who had died
that morning in a hospital. She was not a coronavirus patient, but her sons
said they could not afford to pay the exorbitant prices for wood and other
expenses.
The priest, Satindra Kumar, seemed
worn out from long days leading funeral rites.
“I have done this 15 times in the
last two days, mostly corona cases from the hospital, but other people are
coming here, too,” Kumar said. “This pandemic has been devastating. The
government is not doing enough to help rural areas. People are scared and
suffering. Some say the virus is more powerful than God. I can’t stop it, but I
will keep performing my prayers and hope it brings families some peace.”
In downtown Varanasi, a city of
about 1 million, officials have set up a coronavirus command center, with
banks of workers taking calls from the public, checking on isolated patients,
ordering ambulances for those needing hospitalization and arranging cremations.
A large screen on the wall shows constantly updated information on available
beds, oxygen supplies and clusters of new virus cases.
But in rural areas, villagers whose
loved ones die of the coronavirus or other causes must make do without such
services.
[India’s
coronavirus crisis spreads to its villages, where health care is hard to find]
Despite the extra costs, many still
make the trip to the ghats for a proper Hindu blessing of the dead, saying the
economic burden must be borne to follow ancestral traditions.
One morning this week, a group of
village men, mourning the deaths of three female relatives, arrived at one of
the city’s oldest ghats and prepared an offering of dough balls and spices,
wrapped in large leaves, under the watchful eye of a priest. After he had
blessed them, the men descended the stone steps, set the offerings afloat and
scattered the ashes.
Then the group of farmers — who had
already paid for three cremations — returned to pay for the waterside ceremony.
They counted their pooled rupee notes nervously, adding up the costs including
a barber, photographer, fees and gifts. The priest pocketed the notes, and the
villagers started back for home, resigned to the steeper costs of fulfilling
their religious duty at a time of uncertainty, death and fear of an invisible,
lethal force.
“For generations our people have
been coming here for last rites, which is sacred to us,” said Lakshmi Singh, a
farmer in his 60s. “We have not seen many cases of corona, because we are
isolated in our forests. But we have no fear of it. We make our offerings at
the Ganges, as our ancestors did, and it keeps us safe.”
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