Book Title: Fire On The Ganges: Life Among the Dead in Banaras

Author: Radhika Iyengar

Publication: HarperCollins (Fourth Estate India)

Format: Hardcover

Length: 352

Blurb:

‘In the land of the dead, there is life all around.’

Banaras, Uttar Pradesh. A place where life and death co-exist in the most unimaginable way. The Doms are a Dalit sub-caste in Banaras designated by tradition to perform the Hindu rite of cremation. They have ownership of the sacred fire without which, it is believed, the Hindu soul will not achieve liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth. Despite this, the community is condemned to the lowest order in caste hierarchy, and its members continue to be treated as ‘untouchables’.

Fire on the Ganges is the first attempt to chronicle the everyday realities of the Doms. It plunges into Banaras’s historical past, while narrowing its lens to a few spirited characters from the Dom community. Through their tales of struggle and survival, loss and ambition, betrayal and love, it tells the at-times-heartbreaking, at-times-exhilarating story of a community struggling to find a place beyond that accorded to it by ancient tradition.

My rating: 4/5

Review: Everyone growing up in India has experienced casteism in one form or another. We divided the country into caste strata – upper and lower caste. People were defined by their occupation, as rightly quoted by the author of this book. The book has highlighted the lives of the Doms, a Dalit sub-caste in Banaras who are designated by tradition to perform the Hindu rite of cremation. When I sit to write the book review, I am at a loss of words here. It is astonishing to realize that we live in a country where lower castes are oppressed and shunned at every level. Children quit schools due to casteism. Here, the author has consolidated emotions, misery, and the zeal of the next-generation of the Doms to change the ordeal of their lives.

Benaras or Kashi is one of the oldest living cities in the world. Hundreds of pilgrims throng the city in search of enlightenment. Yet, it is most famous for its Manikarnika ghat, where cremation is conducted. As the author quotes – “Death, in most places, is feared. Here, it is celebrated.” Mourning families bring their loved ones to Benaras to be cremated, to achieve moksha. At Manikarnika ghat, it is said that Lord Shiva whispers the taraka mantra, the ferryboat mantra, into the ears of the dead, before escorting their souls to heaven. As I read these lines, it gave me goosebumps. A few years back, I lost a loved one and she attained moksha at the sacred ghat of Manikarnika. The image never left my sight as I continued reading this book.

Dom community has been the most oppressed and treated as ‘untouchables’. Men don’t get good or ‘respectable’ jobs in this community, due to their caste and are forced to work on the ghats, which is a very tedious labor of burning corpses. Few men like Bhola tend to fight their destiny. Bhola wanted to escape the life of Ghats and build his own world trying harder to hide his identity. We do live in a society where anyone’s progress can be tagged to their caste reservations.

The book draws attention to the women of the Dom community, who are beaten by their husbands, and treated as childbearing machines. The community was oppressed and hence, it continued to control its women. It’s heartbreaking to live in a progressive society, where a section of the community still feels threatened by their own women. “Nobody cares if the girl wants to study… If she is educated, they believe she will fall in love with any man and run off.”

The book deserves a read by everyone across the world to learn that it wasn’t a choice to be a cremator at the burning ghat. Men who work at the ghats are haunted by the spirits and burning corpses. They drown themselves in copious amounts of alcohol and other drugs. While the world has progressed to discuss mental health, we did outcast a section of all the benefits. We didn’t treat the community with the respect they deserved. The book speaks volumes about a section of Benaras that lived in the dark and burned pyres all their lives to earn a livelihood.

“This is where death asserts itself as the last witness to life”

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Review on Goodreads