His Last Journey

“Women are not allowed to do it. She will bring a curse to the entire family.”

“She is making his journey difficult.”

“Call his brother in the absence of his son. We should wait for him.”

“She is so adamant and prohibits us from doing it?”

The noise in the crowd was getting louder and louder with each passing moment. Anger and disgust were overflowing from each face. Elders gathered around her and tried to make sense with her, same-aged men and women tried to reason with her, and the younger ones were pleading her to back off and give up her demand of performing the rites.

She was sitting there non-perturbed yet trembling to the core. “Where were the men when he was depressed and lonely in his bed? Where were you when the only thing he asked of you was your time, and you denied it? Where were you when he wanted to feel your presence, and you didn't give it to him?”

“Why should I give you the flame to light his prey when his life's flame was deep darkness from lack of you all? Where is the justice in this?”

“Is this ritual only for the sake of the dead and not about how the living was treated and suffered due to apathy?”

“Take away your garlands and flowers, and his body doesn't need it now. Yes, he needed the bouquets when he was alive and spent dull, lifeless evenings staring outside the window in anticipation of your visit. But none of you gave him that pleasure.”

She screamed incessantly, trying to shed off the arms that were withholding her from entering the ambulance that was ready to take off to the MuktiDham (funeral site for Hindus).

She pushed the people with all her strength. “Do not touch him,” she warned them.

“He waited for you for five years. He laid in his bed, reduced to a vegetable with his eyes searching for people and compassion. His lifeless arms dropped from the wheelchair, observing people moving around carrying out the day-to-day chores as he sat aimlessly under the tree. Did you look back and sit with him just for a few minutes and ask him how his day was? Even though his days were empty, still they were days, his days. Did you ever take note of this and smile with him?

“No. None of you were there. And now, you say if I perform the last rites, his soul won't get Moksha? How dare you?”

“Show me the scriptures, show me the rules that say that women are not allowed to perform the last rites. Show me the examples of any warth that came upon a family where a woman conducted the funeral. Show me.” she screamed.

The crowd was growing on her and pulling her more vigorously. Somebody tied her hands with force at her back and pulled her hair to stop her from yelling and screaming. They cleaned her forehead off the vermillion and broke her bangles. She didn't mind any of these rituals, as these material symbols were not much more important to her than what would happen now.

She wanted to prohibit the men in the family from performing the last rites for her husband, who had been on a hospital bed for more than five years. She couldn't bring herself to the rationale that they have the precedence to conduct the last rites just because they were men and she was a woman.

“Please, I beg you, let me perform the last rites. He wants me to do it. He wants me to touch him one last time. He wants me to put the sandalwood and scented oils to him as I had sponged him for all these years. He wants to feel safe before he starts his last journey and that safety he found in me. He was disabled but content in his life with us around.”

“Don't take that away from him. Would you please let him Rest in peace? Please let me perform the last rites.”

She yelled from the pit of her stomach, but a firm hand clasped her and pulled her away inside the house. They forcefully made her sit on the chair as she heard the ambulance siren go on. She listened to the ambulance engine start and the metal sound of closing doors. The siren was loud and echoed inside the society lobby, and then slowly, it faded. They took him away without her. They didn't allow her to be at his side for the last time and didn't allow her to lay him at rest for the final destination. 

Why? Why didn't they allow a dedicated caregiver, a sincere partner like her, to do his final rites? Why? Just because she was a woman and women are not allowed to do it.

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Backstory

Until recently, by popular belief, in Indian Hindu culture, women weren't allowed to step into the crematorium due to various patriarchal reasons. One theory is that a woman is too fragile to handle the emotional pressure of watching the loved one burn to ashes with many other such bodies burning around. Another theory is that the one who gives the Agni (lits the prey) inherits the deceased property. So it is usually performed by the next-in-line heir (man).

There’s one other theory about shaving the hair after the rites as pathogens from the dead body climb over to the person who touches and gets close to the dead body during the funeral. Hence, the man who performs the last rites has to shave off the head and get purified. As women of productive age and in households are looked upon for her femininity associated with her hair, she is not expected to shave after the funeral. Hence, she is forbidden from doing it.

Thankfully, these age-old rituals are breaking down and now daughters and wives are stepping up and performing the last rites of their loved ones if they wish to do so. The men also are sensitive about it and have accepted the change gracefully.

She was one of the unlucky ones who couldn't keep her promise, just because she was forbidden by ignorant people who never really cared.