The Washington times., 1933-04-07
A Fl JEDIAIE LIEDDI IDAI JIAIEC As HI
1ENBNE T1ETDONIN "Chni
Broadways Of the World
By MARK HELLINCER

TAI MAHAL HOTEL, BON
BAY, 1ndia.-Life Is cheap in
India-and death is cheaper.
Stay in this city long enough,
watch what goes on-and you'll
begin to wonder why we make
such a fuss about death. I've
spent the entire day looking at
Indian funerals.
For almost three hours I
stood inside Of the largest burn
ing CHAT In Bombay and looked
on at the proceedings with a
sort Of unholy fascination. It
is not my intention to go into
the morbid, although the policy
Of the. modern writer seems to
be "the morbid the merrier."
I simply describe one of the
first sights you would be taken
to see were you the casual
visitor to Bombay.
Matter of Course
There is a funeral every 20
minutes or so, and everybody
seems to take everything as a
simple matter of course. With
out stressing the horrible in any
direction, this is the simple
formula that is always carried
out:
l. The deceased is placed in a
simple, white robe.
2. The body is saturated with
oil.
3. The deceased is carried to
the CHAT and placed upon one
Of the piles Of stones. The face
is covered. The fire is started,
and the cremation has begun.
4. In Bombay, the visitor is
not permitted to venture too
close to the funeral pyre-as
SO many visitors have q curiously
morbid desire to do. You must
stand at a respectful distance,
which is about 10 or IL feet
from the first pyre. Only the
relatives are permitted to get
closer, and they sit on a long
bench no more than four feet
away from the burning body.
When it was all over and the
body had been reduced to ashes,
the relatives arose and filed out.
The outgoing was exactly the
same as the incoming had been.
The expressions, it seemed to
me, were exactly the same.
In dealing with death in
India, there are so many diff
ferent customs, ideas and cere-
monies in this huge land that
an investigator could spend half
his life studying tn e m-and
then find that he had over
looked plenty.
It is the Parsee ceremony,
however, that I think has oc-
caSioned more Shivery comment
the world over than any other
type.
The Parsee, as you probably
know, disposes of the dead by
feeding them to the vultures.
The theory of that practice is
very simple, and has to do with
reincarnation in its most obvi-
Gus form.
If you think that, because Of
a cermony that must seem
hideous to most of us, that the
Parsee is an ignorant man, you
have another think coming.
He, as a general rule, is the
money man of the town. He
is shrewd and highly intelligent,
and you will generally find him
engaged in some banking or
financial institution. No Parsee
is ever permitted to grow so
poor that he cannot maintain
himself without begging. A gen
eral' chest, lavishly contributed
to by all other Parsees, takes
care of that.
Bombay Landmark
The Towers of Silence, in
which the Parsee holds his
chilling death rites, are one of
the great sights Of Bombay
and of the world, as well. Stu
ated on a hill that overlooks
Bombay, the Towers are ma
jestic and beautiful and thrill
ling. All is peaceful and calm
and reStful; all but one thing.
That one thing is the vul.
lures. They are everywhere.
Great, hideous birds that cry
eerily for food and more food.
Totally inconsistent with the
peace and beauty Of the sur
roundingS.
Still, it was for them that
the Towers Of Silence were
built. When a ParSee dies
and there are sometimes as
many as two or three cere-
monies in a day-the body is
brought by relatives and close
friends to a certain point within
the grounds. Beyond that
point neither visitor nor relative