Four Weddings and a Funeral

Four Weddings and a Funeral


Sitting on a rattling bus to Jaipur, one of the three cities in the Golden Triangle, and a couple more hours to kill before we reach our destination and while the road surface is relatively even, I felt I had to release a bit of pent-up inspiration to put into words my thoughts on Neil McDermott's MacBook laptop. It requires a bit of getting used to the TextEdit programme while the lightweight laptop is jostling on my knees. Furthermore I am invariably distracted by the ever changing countryside, the beeping traffic, animals crossing our way, not to mention the curiously onlooking Indians as soon as we slow down through yet another densely populated hub.


In chronological order

During our second last day on the building site in Jallchak with less than 20 minutes after starting our working day, Avijit Majumder, our long-time guide, friend and fixer called me aside and from the expression on his face I could instantly detect that there was something serious the matter. His father who had been bedridden for a number of years had suddenly died in the last half hour. Avijit said he was alright and he could look after himself but I thought it only fair to at least travel with him back to the village. On the way there it was evident that Avijit was very upset and I decided to travel back to Calutta with him. It took us 4 to 5 hours to travel to the city and not much was spoken during the trip. Every now and then Avijit cried softly which was alternated with telephone calls from his family asking how much longer he was away from them. Once arrived in his parents house in an area called Golf Gardens, but with no golf course in sight, Avijit threw himself onto the laid out body of his father wailing and crying incessantly for about 30 minutes. I sat quietly by on a chair with the rest of the family, his mother and brother and 2 nieces trying to comfort him.

Within an hour of returning to Kolkata I realised the importance of his imminent arrival. The cremation would be taking place that same day, in fact as soon as possible. The father with his face uncovered and surrounded by flowers, was placed on a carrier outside on the pavement in front of the flat. A footprint was taken with red dye and I was told the sheets with his feet would be framed and hung on the wall as a mark where any visitor could later touch the feet to pay respect to the dead man. He was then lifted on an open truck and the family sat around the body on the truck. Less than 20 minutes later we arrived at the crematorium where no appointments are necessary and here you just join the queue. There were 2 cremations in front and by the time it was our turn 2 further bodies had arrived, one of which was a younger woman. The Brahmin carried out some rituals, including burning of incense, sandalwood, sand and Holy water from the Ganges. The surroundings and atmosphere in the crematorium are all but Holy. It is a big dirty place milling with people and even stray dogs. All of them showing little reverence. A once marble floor and walls lacked maintenance.

When Mr. Majumder's turn came he was placed on a simply bamboo structure with only minimal clothing. The body was placed on a steel track. An insolent official pulled a steel handle, the oven door opened, you could feel the heat of the fire on your face and the body disappeared inside, the steel door closed. 45 minutes later the ashes were collected in an pottery urn and these were immediately dispersed over the Ganges right behind the crematorium.

It all went so unbelievably quickly. Not much time for grievance. I travelled back to Jallchak that evening and rejoined the group around 10:00 pm while Avijit would be going through a 13 day grievance period, rich with ritual.

Some days later Neil and I would be visiting him and found him and his family clad in white robes and he explained some of the rules to us, e.g. that they were not allowed to eat until after sunset while we were served with tea and cakes!


The end of our India 2009 trip is somewhat different compared to our 6 previous experiences due to an wedding invitation in Delhi. This year we break out of the State of West Bengal and fly to the state of Haryana with its capital Delhi.

Through one of our JSS boys Amandeep Singh whose uncle Josh Singh who has been arranged to get married we were invited to the Sikh Singh to Jolanda Singh wedding. After the marriage the couple will be settling in Dublin. Having arrived at the wedding scene at the unusually punctual time for the Irish at 10:30 as per the official invitation, it soon appeared that nothing was going to happen for a good while to come. While trying to discover what was going to happen where, I came across a sign listing 4 weddings for the day. As the area is largely Sikh and thus everyone goes by the name Singh, it took quite a bit of figuring out which Singh party was ours.

The ceremony proper did not commence until we heard loud music being played on the roadside some 2 hours later. There was the veiled groom on horseback, a scrawny horse by the way, with two of his nephews sitting at the front and back of him. Loud musicians enlivened the show while the wedding guests danced around. A big sign said that neither the musicians nor the horse were allowed inside the temple grounds so the groom dismounted and proceeded to meet the in-laws. This ritual means that each of the fathers has to be introduced to his counterpart and each until to an uncle of the other side etc.

The church ceremony is rather informal with people coming and going and certainly not all the people attending who I later saw at the wedding i.e. eating feast.

We left the reception rather in a rush in order to get some sightseeing of the city done having had plenty of snacks to eat during our waiting time.


With the recent experience of visiting middle-class India for the past couple of days, I feel rather charmed knowing the much poorer and rural State of West Bengal relatively well. It is a bit like my first introduction to Ireland almost 40 years ago. All I knew was Connemara and Co. Galway, having flown in to Shannon. For 3 years I did not explore any other part of the country, least of all Dublin. West Bengal and the filth of Kolkata was all I knew about India for the past 6 years. The States I have seen over the past couple of days are very much trying to catch up with the rest of the Western World.


Robert Kortenhorst

Teacher JSS