The living died a thousand deaths watching the rows of bodies

The full import of the tragedy that struck Delhi last evening began to sink in at the ghats this morning where body after body queued up, as if each was waiting for its turn on the stairway to heaven.

There were burning pyres all around. Of a three-year-old who had just learnt to talk. Of a young girl who wanted to shop for her own wedding. Of a young man who had infused new life into his father’s business. Of a 60-year-old who had agreed to watch a movie just because it would please others in the family.

At the Dayanand ghat or what most of us call the Lodi Road crematorium, Pundit Ramesh Kumar was keeping count of the cremations since morning. There had been nine till 1 pm. “This is not a normal day. Even for me. Today I witnessed something I am not likely to forget. I saw a couple cheating death.”

The Pundit had the Kocchars in mind. The bodies of Narendra Kochhar and his wife Geeta were burned on a single pyre. Alongside lay the smouldering remains of the Kocchar girls — Natasha (13) and Neha (9). The four, the Pundit kept mumbling, had been one even in death. “How else can you explain this act of husband and wife being cremated on a single pyre? Don’t you think they have remained true to each other even in death?”

In another part of the town, at Nigambodh Ghat, the Dangs of South Extension were dying a thousand deaths, going through the paces of what was to remain etched forever in their memory.

Four of the family had perished in the fire and five others were in hospital. No words could describe their bewilderment, their grief and sense of loss. They were weeping for the dead. Yet they were also thinking of the others in hospital, worried stiff about what would happen next.It was a painful sight. To watch the aged weep and crowd around the bodies of children who had been the joy of the family was not and, is never, easy. Especially, when the man next to you tells you that the pyres were those of his grand-children.

There were also others whose grief was so private that they simply did not want anybody else around. At the Lodi Road ghats, a cameraman paid for his intrusion when he tried to take pictures of a woman and her father being cremated. Incensed relatives snatched away the camera roll, saying how their loss could be of interest to others. They returned it later only when someone explained that the photographer meant no disrespect and was simply on a task he had been assigned.

And probably this was why many who came to the ghats chose to save the consolations for later. They knew it was hopeless breaking into thoughts and memories which were essentially private. What could they have said to lessen the grief of the man from Lajpat Nagar who came to cremate his seven-year-old son? Friday the 13th will take a long, long time to forget.