35053668-Empire-of-the-Soul-Paul-William-Roberts

‘MANY GHOST HERE’
Soon the city, with its waking hubbub, faded far behind us, and
the enormous peace of the lone and level sands descended on all
sides, the sunlight gentle, still, even in April, cooled by scented
breezes left over from the night. But a pleasant 60 degrees began its
inexorable climb with the sun toward the low hundreds, the long
shadows cast by the rocks, the sole definition in a surreal void, slowly
crawling into the sand along with the lizards and what few other
signs of life there were.
Sweating profusely, ghastly pale, Bentley swayed in his seat, lens
caps untouched, the odd strangled sigh escaping his blue lips. I
stopped asking him how he felt. It seemed heartless to pretend he
might be perking up when he was so patently perking down with
each roll of the saddle.
Our first stop was Bada Bagh, four long camel-miles away, where
chattri – royal cenotaphs – marked the cremation sites of Jaisalmer
monarchs going back six centuries. I thought of Shakespeare’s line,
‘Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang,’ and of
Wordsworth’s ‘The Ruined Cottage.’ There was a silent and lonely
desolation about that eerie place, set though it was in the midst of a
rich oasis with abundant orchards and verdant rice paddies. It was
not even really a graveyard, but it felt like one. Ashes were removed
after cremation and scattered over the sacred river Ganges. The
tiny red henna handprints I’d noticed left on the wall by those taking
their final journey through Jaisalmer fort’s Sati Gate showed that not
only dead princes had been burned out here. Living princesses,
according to the custom, attained divine status by throwing
themselves, or, in some cases being thrown, onto their husbands’
funeral pyres. Though it is outlawed, some villagers continue the
practice to this day, particularly in Rajasthan. There are shrines to
the sati mata worshipped across the country, one of the latest dating
to 1987. Knowing that these young girls were often in an opiuminduced
haze when they were burned alive does nothing to mitigate
the abomination entailed. It was this sad horror that I felt still
hanging over the place. The tradition persists for even less exalted
reasons: generally the dead husband’s relatives encourage it with
great enthusiasm; otherwise they have to support his widow for the
rest of her life. To this day, no one wants to marry a widow in village
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