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Pyre | Amitava Kumar | Granta Magazine

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‘In more ways than one, the rituals of death had reminded me that I was an outsider.’ Amitava Kumar returns to India for his mother’s funeral.

Pyre | Amitava Kumar | Granta Magazine Skip to main content Pyre Amitava Kumar ‘In more ways than one, the rituals of death had reminded me that I was an outsider.’ M y mother died in Patna on 7 January 2014. We cremated her two days later on the banks of the Ganga at Konhara Ghat near Patna, more than 150 miles downriver from the burning ghats of Benares where Hindus have cremated their dead since at least the middle of the first millennium bce . I took notes. During the long fourteen-hour flight to India I dealt with my sorrow by writing in my notebook a brief obituary for a Hindi newspaper

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