No smoke without pyre
Unlike most countries, cigarettes are sold in singles in India and most shops that sell them have electric lighters attached to the wall for their customers to use. An anti-smoking campaigner fitted the lighters with a device which plays the Indian death chant every time someone lights a cigarette. “Raam Naam Satya Hai” is chanted […]
Afterburner
After washing his eyes reddened by a heavy dose of marijuana, Sadhu Premdas steps into the Bagmati river, looking for some half-burnt logs of wood to light a fire at his place. Belonging to the Aghori sect of sages, Premdas does not accept fresh firewood distributed by the Pashupati authority: he loves a fire made […]
Celebrants talk business
Posted by Richard Rawlinson Two topics that have inspired lively debate here recently are ritual and business. Comments about the latter reveal many civil funeral celebrants feel their service is undervalued in monetary terms. The going rate, between £120 and £180 a funeral, is deemed inadequate as a business model. This fee, which is unregulated […]
Quote of the day
Posted by Vale “I still use a manual typewriter (a 1953 Underwood portable, in a robin’s-egg blue) because the soft pip-pip-pip of the typing of keys on a computer keyboard doesn’t quite fit with my sense of what writing sounds like. I need the hard metal clack, and I need those keys to sometimes catch […]
Post mortem photography
Posted by Vale We had quite a debate recently when we published some recent post mortem photgraphs. They were respectful, intriguing and, some of them, quite lovely in their own way. But they made us – and some of you – uneasy. Did the photographer have permission to publish? Was it right to expose the […]
Drive thru’ funeral
Posted by Vale They’ve been operating in Los Angeles (where else?) since 1974. Lately though they’ve become especially popular with local gangs – many of whom are killed in drive by shootings and who feel safer behind the bullet proof glass. Found on the web here.
What makes a good funeral?
Posted by Vale Would a traditional religious ceremony with six lacklustre hymns, a perfunctory celebrant and no mention of the person in the coffin count as one? I expect most of us would say no – but, sometimes, I wonder. We often talk about the grand and the personal, the expressive and moving as though […]
Scattering the ashes
Posted by Vale “And when did you last see your father? Was it when they burned the coffin? Put the lid on? When he exhaled his last breath? When he sat up and said something? When he last recognized you? When he last smiled? When did you last see your father? The last time he […]
No opportunity wasted
Posted by Vale Someone dies and another sees an opportunity: death is an opening in more ways than one. Now, it seems, the cyber criminals have got in on the act. When Whitney Houston was discovered in her bath at the weekend all the nodes and synapses of the internet flickered into life and, as […]
Thoughts of a funeral-goer
Posted by Lyra Mollington The lovely Mr Cowling and his little friend Vale have kindly invited me to contribute to the splendid GFG. As a lady of a certain age, I have attended more than my fair share of funerals, becoming something of a connoisseur. I have also attended more than my fair share of […]
