When death lingers on

I wrote the piece after I got back from Patna, my hometown. While I was there in July, someone mentioned to me the state of the crematoriums and how bodies remained in the furnace, waiting for power to come back on. It was a story of struggle, of poverty and of indignity. An edited verison of this appeared in the Indian Express on November 30, 2009.

When death lingers on ...

In Bihar, even in death there’s a time lag.

Each time Shiv Dayal pushes a body inside his electric furnace at Gulbi Ghat crematorium in Patna, the crematorium operator prays that power doesn’t play spoilsport.

Given the erratic power supply in the state during the summer, families often had to wait for hours, even overnight, to cremate the dead. They sat in the hallway, their noses covered, eyes watering with the smoke that escaped through the chinks of the furnace room door, as time of death stretched into hours.

Inside the blackened furnace, partly burnt bodies waited, too, stripped of dignity, and short of a last few megawatts of power for the closure.

“What can we do but wait? Often families have waited it out for four to five hours,” Dayal said. “It is sad because even in death, there’s no respite.”

The average waiting time, according to the members of the Dom community, which traditionally engages in scavenging and live at ghats, stretched into at least 2-3 hours on an average.

According to a Dom community member these poor families are from the hinterlands that flock to the city's hospitals seeking medical care and then in the event of death have no choice but the crematoriums for the last rites. When the electricity tripped during summers, it is mostly the poor who hunched against the blackish walls and waited, while flames leapt from the wooden pyres outside.

Death is no leveller here.

"We are used to death but not like this. When we light the pyre, we also are relieved. But when you know the body is still there, you want to hold on. The trauma doesn't end," he said. "Once, a family was sitting outside for 6-7 hours in the night."

While the Gulbi Ghat electric crematorium in Patna sees more than 100 bodies per month, each consuming more than 260 volts per cremation, about 10 bodies end up at the ghats everyday for the more expensive, ritualistic cremation that consumes more than 400 kgs per person of wood pushing the cost upwards of Rs. 5,000 that most poor can’t afford, crematorium operators said.

The municipal corporation only charges Rs. 300 at the crematoriums.

With winters setting in, the power situation in the city has improved. But during summers, the power situation became a concern in the cities and towns as electricity was diverted from 10:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. to keep the pumps running so that crops don’t fail, Sushil Kumar Modi told The Indian Express.

That’s when power failed the dead, too, and the story of families waiting it out at the crematoriums is a story that often repeats every summer.

On a hot July morning, Malti Devi sat under a tin shed with her family waiting for the body of her sister-in-law. Fulti Devi died while giving birth and the women sat hunched gazing at the river front where black soot floated on the water and fat dogs patiently bided their time on the banks for chunks of flesh or bones that didn’t burn out. It was on the periphery of the ghats that Malti Devi mourned their poverty for the umpteenth time.

Power woes aside during the brutal summers, for the poor grieving families, it is the indignity that doesn’t leave their side even in the time of death, they said.

Barring the poorest of the poor, the unconventional use the crematoriums. But it is those who are without choice that suffer, Malti Devi, who waited that day with the body under that tin shed, sweating and sobbing, said.

“We can’t afford the expensive wood,” Malti Devi said. “But if there is no electricity now, we don’t want the body to be in limbo.”

The state’s power deficit - at 31.7 per cent of the state’s required capacity, according to the Central Electricity Authority’s June monthly report- left many dead and decaying bodies in a state of crematory purgatory while the state and central governments embark on ambitious plans to connect the various parts of India to central, state and private lines of distribution.

In fact, more than 70 per cent of villages in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar combined are still waiting for electricity.

Even the Municipal Commissioner KS Kumar admitted the situation was bad. It’s not just the power situation, where the deficits not only affected the departed, but also the equipment at the crematoriums that are old and non-functional, he said.

“We have received complaints about the crematorium situation where people have to wait. Power cuts and equipments, which are more than 20 years old, are a problem,” he said. “When crematoriums were set up, these were under some sort of schemes. Later, funds became an issue and enthusiasm died down. We have asked the state to give us money to upgrade the crematoriums.”

Only two out of four crematoriums in the Patna are fully functional. At the Bans Ghat crematorium where India’s first President Dr. Rajendra Prasad and socialist leader Jayprakash Narayan were cremated, out of the two furnaces, only one is working.

“It has not been working for the last one year,” Bans Ghat crematorium operator Ram Lakhan said. “But the bigger problem is electricity. What’s the point of GAP when crematoriums can’t even work properly?”

The crematoriums, their walls lined with soot, look grim. Scenes from Buddha’s famous journey where he saw the stages of death are painted in rich, garish oil colours look more pronounced in their placement and context. This is where the families wait, and mourn endlessly. It is always dark inside.

There are no generators here. Those wouldn’t be able to take the load, Dayal said. The Gulbi Ghat crematorium is one of the nine in the state built when the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi initiated the ambitious Ganga Action Plan to save the river from slow poisoning from the remnants and ashes of dead bodies that are dumped in the river for ritualistic closure.

The grotesque scene inside Gulbi Ghat is just one of the daily reminders of Bihar’s dire straits as a result of the state’s power shortfall. Both its target and generated power are the lowest in the country.

Peak demand in Bihar was 1,729 mw in September 2009, an increase from 1,730 mw in September 2008. However, supply has not been able to meet populous’ demands. Peak supply in Bihar was 1,438 mw in September 2009, an increase from 1,212 mw in September 2008, resulting in an addition of just half the demand needed to meet the growth margins.

Experts in Delhi said Bihar has reached this condition through its excessive dependence on central power supply.

It’s not just a tale of indignity in death and power crisis, but also of a mighty river that has been at the receiving end.

Patna and Kanpur top the list of the 29 cities that were identified under the GAP as the main polluters of the mighty river. The power crisis in Bihar has also ensured that efforts to save the river meet with roadblocks. Even if people were to shift to crematoriums, the load-shedding could drive them away.

And the river would continue to choke with the remainders of the cremation – the flowers, the wood, and parts of flesh and bone, too.

Kartikay Mehrotra contributed to this piece with power figures and quotes on Bihar's power situation.