INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

When the relatives from Punjab arrived in Varanasi the family prepared Devi
for antim bheta, or the “last offering”, where all mourners pay a last respect to her
before cremation. Two hours before this ceremony they removed the ice from the
body and washed it with curd from the market. They opened up Devi’s hair and
dressed her in a new shalwar qamiz, which came from the house of her parents in the
style she used to like. The daughter-in-law remarked that the chief symbol of the
Sikhs ‒ the hair (kesh) ‒ should be covered with a cloth and, in the case of a man, a
new turban may be tied on the head. If the deceased has undergone the ceremony
Khande di pahul and is a Khalsa Sikh who keeps the five symbols, he or she should be
adorned with the comb (kangha), the steel bracelet (kara), breeches (kachhaira) and the
dagger (kirpan). As the daughter-in-law informed, the drawstring (nara) of the female
trousers (shalwar) should be untied but she did not know for which purpose. She put
forward the matter to one of her aunts, regarded as knowledgeable, but neither did
she know the reason. Meanwhile the men prepared a wooden board with bamboo
poles for carrying Devi to the cremation. After her body was washed and dressed the
son shrouded it with a white sheet made of cotton (kaffan) and tied the body tight to
the board with cords. The family and community members were then invited to pay a
last respect by folding their hands towards Devi and placing woolen shawls over the
shroud. The latter is a typical Punjabi custom and frequently a pile of shawls will
cover the bier before it reaches the cremation ground. Wool is considered to be both a
pure and costly fabric, and this combination makes it an ideal offering to a respected
community member. All the female relatives younger to Devi gathered in a small
ceremony at the bier where they presented flowers and money, which they offered at
her feet while saying: “If we made any mistakes please forgive us”. The daughter-inlaw
accounted for this action as taking the “dust of the feet” (charan raj) of a person
held in respect, and continued: “If someone is coming to my house I take the dust
from his or her feet and put it on my forehead. I’m thinking this is a great person and
if I will do that I will also get the knowledge. But all this depends on your own feelings
(bhavna).” The granthi was invited from the gurdwara to perform an Ardas in the
name of Devi before the bier was lifted up on a truck and left the house in a procession
of all the male mourners heading for the cremation ground.
As soon as the mourning party departed the women of the house went by foot
to the nearby gurdwara at Ashok Nagar colony for a visit. There they performed panj
ishnana ‒ washing their hands, feet and face ‒ and matha tekna in front of the Guru
Granth Sahib. On their way back to the house they chose another route to the one
they arrived on. The daughter-in-law and all the female relatives took a bath, dressed
in clean clothes and started to clean up all the rooms in the house. Similarly the female
mourners from the neighborhood went to their houses and returned after they
had taken a bath. Relatives told the daughter-in-law that all belongings of a dead
person should not be kept in a living house and thus she collected all the clothes,
mattresses, and bed sheets used by Devi and gave them to sweepers. Afterwards the
women shared a meal in which the food came from the house of Devi’s parents. As
the daughter-in-law told me, in case the deceased was a married woman the first
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Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008