question_answer

Ease of cremation is one solid advantage of being in Varanasi. The death industry drives the city. The electric crematorium at Harishchandra Ghat and the original, and still revered, Manikamika Ghat burn nearly forty-five thousand bodies a year, or more than a hundred corpses a day. Only little children and people bitten by cobras are not cremated; their bodies are often dumped straight into the river. ‘'Kasyam maranam mukti’', goes the Sanskrit saying, which means dying in Kashi leads to liberation. Hindus believe that if they die here, there is an automatic upgrade to heaven, no matter what the sin committed on earth.

It is amazing how god provides this wild-card entry at death, which in turn allows my city to earn a living. Specialist one-stop shops provide you everything from firewood to priests and ums to ensure that the dead person departs with dignity. Touts on Manikamika Ghat lure foreigners to come watch the funeral pyres and take pictures for a fee, thereby creating an additional source of revenue. Varanasi is probably the only city on earth where Death is a tourist attraction.

But for all my city’'s expertise in death, I had personally never dealt with a dead body in my entire life, let alone that of my father. I did not know how to react to Baba'’s still body I did not, or rather could not, cry. I don’'t know why. Perhaps because I was too stunned, and emotionally drained out. Perhaps I had few emotions left after mourning my second entrance-exam disaster. Perhaps I had too much work related to the funeral. Or perhaps it was because I thought I had killed him.

I had to organise a cremation, then a couple of pujas. I didn’t know who to invite. My father had very few friends. I called some of his old students who had kept in touch. I informed Dubey uncle, our lawyer, more for practical reasons than -anything else. The lawyer told Ghanshyam taya-ji. My uncle had sucked my father'’s blood all his life. However, his family now offered unlimited sympathy. I found his wife, Neeta tayiji, at my doorstep. She saw me, extended her arms and broke 'down.

‘Its okay, tayi-ji,'’ I said, extracting myself from the bosom hug. '‘You need not have come.’'

'‘What are you saying? Husbands younger brother is like a son',’ she said.

Of course, she did not mention the land she stole from her ‘'son'’. '‘When is the puja?'’ she asked me.

'‘I have no idea,’' I said. '‘I have to get the cremation done first.’'

'‘Who is doing that?’' she said. I shrugged my shoulders.

'‘Do you have the money to do a cremation at Manikamika?’' she said.

I shook my head. 'The electric one at Harishchandra Ghat is cheaper,'’ I said.

'‘What electric? It is broken most of the time, anyway. We have to do a proper one. What are we here for?’'

Soon, Ghanshyam tayaji arrived with the rest of his brood. He had two sons and two daughters, all dressed in rich clothes. I didn’'t look like their relative at all. After my uncle arrived, they took over the cremation. They called more kith and kin. They arranged for a priest, who offered a ten-thousand rupee package for the cremation. My uncle bargained him down to seven. It felt macabre to bargain for a funeral, but someone had to do it. My uncle paid the priest in crisp five-hundred-rupee notes.

Why did the writer fail to cry?

A) The writer was emotionally drained out

B) The writer thought he had killed him

C) Both (a) and (b)

D) Not given in the passage