The vapors
Today: Brian Hioe, Taipei-based editor, translator, activist, DJ, co-founder of New Bloom, and author of Taipei at Daybreak.
Issue No. 605
When Death Is No Escape from Capitalism
Brian Hioe
When Death Is No Escape from Capitalism
by Brian Hioe
I was hesitant to visit the Pashupatinath Temple—the temple where Kathmandu cremates its dead, in full view of the public—one of the holiest sites in Nepal. It seemed macabre for me, as a visitor to the country, to visit the temple to gaze on the burning bodies of the dead.
This was my third trip to Kathmandu; twice before, for work, and this time for a friend’s wedding. I had driven past the temple on a previous trip, and seen the smoke from the burning bodies. Some of the other wedding guests eventually convinced me that it was worth visiting, if only as an opportunity to reflect on life and death.
As I walked along the path to the ghats—the raised open-air platforms above the river where the dead are cremated—I noticed that I was one of the few non-Nepalis around, and felt all the more out of place. It was stranger still when I found that to enter the observation area, I had to pay a 1000-rupee fee, as if for a tourist attraction.
“Come,” said the man who accepted my payment, handed it to a clerk, and gave me a ticket. “I’ll show you the temple.”
The man took me near a raised platform, where he pointed to a body in the process of being burned. I couldn’t see much; it just appeared to be a smoky mass. He commented to me that it may have appeared strange to me, as a non-Hindu, that they were so open about cremations. But it was a holy site, he said, and to be there was auspicious. At this point, I had assumed he was simply a religious man or perhaps one of the temple staff, who would show me part of the temple complex, advise me on what to do and what not to do, and then send me on my way.
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