|
OFFTRACK:
KHERALU, GUJARAT
 A
Rite To Die For
For
800 years now, there has been a funeral in this town every Navaratri
By Uday
Mahurkar
 |
| The
mourner and the mourned at the Hanuman temple in Kheralu |
The
shadows are lengthening when a group of people gathers in the Shrimaliwada
area in Kheralu town in north Gujarat. Nothing out of the ordinary; it's
the seventh day of Navaratri and people would come out for celebrations
and worship. But suddenly, some men fall and lie immobile on the ground.
Soon, other men converge on the spot and start singing the mareshiya,
an elegy in praise of the men who have just fallen dead. They beat their
chests and wail like women as they sing. Death at a time of festivities
is a sad thing indeed.
As the elegiac
wailing comes to an end, the dead do a strange thing: they get up and
join their own funeral procession. As four people carry an empty bier
on their shoulders, in keeping with Hindu customs a boy will walk at the
head of the procession with an earthen pot filled with burning cow dung.
Not a smile crosses the faces of the mourners, mostly dressed in white
and with red towels around their necks, as they chant "Ram Bolo
Bhai Ram".
The Shrimali
Brahmin community—residents mainly of five north Gujarat towns, including
Kheralu, and some south Rajasthan villages—dedicates the seventh
day of Navaratri to Goddess Chamunda. Those who want to propitiate the
goddess to ward off any serious ailment come to Shrimaliwada and "die".
"It's a question of belief," says Narharibhai Trivedi, 60, a
retired schoolteacher who chose to "die" this year on October
4 after having suffered a heart attack. It was his way of warding off
more cardiac concerns.
The Shrimalis
take the ritual very seriously. There is no element of mockery or fun
when the the funeral procession eventually stops near the Hanuman temple
on the outskirts of Kheralu. There the dead get on the bier one by one
amid the invocation of Ram's name. The chest-thumping and the crying begin
anew as the mareshiya takes on a more poignant tone. After all
the "dead" have had their turn at lying on the bier the mock
obsequies come to an end with cries of "Chamunda ki jai".
By 7 p.m. the ritual is over and both "dead" and mourners return
home, secure in the belief that the goddess will keep them safe and sound.
A 'Life-Time'
Promise: For 800 years now, the mada satham (mock funeral)
of the Shrimali Brahmins has proceeded in this fashion. The age-old custom
has undergone one modification in the past four decades. Earlier, instead
of walking with the funeral, the "dead" used to be carried on
the bier to the Hanuman temple one by one. There's no change in the devotion
or the belief though. Hasmukhbhai Trivedi, a local fuel station owner
and another of those who chose to "die" this year, says he did
it to honour the goddess.
The strange
ritual has been mentioned in a medieval book on the Shrimal region (the
present day Bhinmal in south Rajasthan from where the Shrimali Brahmins
come) titled Shrimal Puran which indicates that the practice of
propitiating Goddess Chamunda by "dying" started after the Shrimali
Brahmin community came under the grip of a dreaded disease. Quoting one
of his ancestors, Ramesh Trivedi, retired principal of a Kheralu school
and a Shrimali community historian, says it became an annual ritual when
a group of Shrimalis staged a mock funeral in order to escape the wrath
of Islamic invaders during the medieval period. Says Trivedi: "The
Muslim soldiers were merciful to mourners and the Shrimalis found it was
a nice ruse to escape death." There is a medieval anecdote that has
strengthened the community's faith in the ceremony. According to 80-year-old
schoolteacher Haribhai Dave, a Muslim general named Abumiya who tried
to stop the funeral died within days of his attempt.
The present-day
Shrimalis have records of the mock funeral dating back seven generations.
And so serious are they about it that most Shrimalis in Kheralu ensure
that they are in town that day, come what may. Says Jashumatiben Trivedi,
a Shrimali housewife: "Being in our hometown that particular day
is a life-time promise. We can violate it only at our own peril."
After all, it's a belief to die for.
Top
|
Relics
of old empires exist everywhere. Why can't the Mani Shankar Aiyars of
India let them be? asks INDIA TODAY Senior Editor Ravi Shankar in
