NB: God bless you RamKaran ji. Om Shanti.
RamKaran Mishra is a Hindu priest who performs the last rites at the Ghazipur crematorium in east Delhi, on the frontline of India’s Covid crisis. He’s been cremating up to 150 bodies day after day, working long hours into the night. With no end in sight, and feeling abandoned by his government, Mishra must deal with traumatised families and an ever-present smell of burning bodies
The man stands, a priest
Speaking sacred incantations, behind him a field of burning pyres
The wood crackles, smoke rises
He who would have performed one such ritual in a day, perhaps two
Now dispatches several hundred to the hereafter
Accompanied by workers with their bamboo sleds
Among barely visible offerings to the divine,
Amidst the sea of tears flowing down uncomprehending faces
As the flames rise, mortal remains rendered soot
In the palpable ambience of hearts rent by catastrophe
All I can see is the abyss of pain in the eyes of a priest doing his duty
RamKaran
Om Shanti Om Shanti
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