For 800 years now, there has been a funeral in Kheralu town in Gujarat every Navaratri
For 800 years now, there has been a funeral in this town every Navaratri.
The shadows are lengthening when a group of people gathers in the Shrimaliwada area in Kheralu town in north Gujarat. Nothing out of the ordinary; it's the seventh day of Navaratri and people would come out for celebrations and worship.
But suddenly, some men fall and lie immobile on the ground. Soon, other men converge on the spot and start singing the mareshiya, an elegy in praise of the men who have just fallen dead. They beat their chests and wail like women as they sing. Death at a time of festivities is a sad thing indeed.
As the elegiac wailing comes to an end, the dead do a strange thing: they get up and join their own funeral procession. As four people carry an empty bier on their shoulders, in keeping with Hindu customs a boy will walk at the head of the procession with an earthen pot filled with burning cow dung.
Not a smile crosses the faces of the mourners, mostly dressed in white and with red towels around their necks, as they chant "Ram Bolo Bhai Ram".
The Shrimali Brahmin community - residents mainly of five north Gujarat towns, including Kheralu, and some south Rajasthan villages - dedicates the seventh day of Navaratri to Goddess Chamunda.
Those who want to propitiate the goddess to ward off any serious ailment come to Shrimaliwada and "die". "It's a question of belief," says Narharibhai Trivedi, 60, a retired school teacher who chose to "die" this year on October 4 after having suffered a heart attack. It was his way of warding off more cardiac concerns.
The Shrimalis take the ritual very seriously. There is no element of mockery or fun when the the funeral procession eventually stops near the Hanuman temple on the outskirts of Kheralu.
There the dead get on the bier one by one amid the invocation of Ram's name. The chest-thumping and the crying begin anew as the mareshiya takes on a more poignant tone.
After all the "dead" have had their turn at lying on the bier the mock obsequies come to an end with cries of "Chamunda ki jai". By 7 p.m. the ritual is over and both "dead" and mourners return home, secure in the belief that the goddess will keep them safe and sound.
For 800 years now, the mada satham (mock funeral) of the Shrimali Brahmins has proceeded in this fashion. The age-old custom has undergone one modification in the past four decades.
Earlier, instead of walking with the funeral, the "dead" used to be carried on the bier to the Hanuman temple one by one. There's no change in the devotion or the belief though. Hasmukhbhai Trivedi, a local fuel station owner and another of those who chose to "die" this year, says he did it to honour the goddess.
The strange ritual has been mentioned in a medieval book on the Shrimal region (the present day Bhinmal in south Rajasthan from where the Shrimali Brahmins come) titled Shrimal Puran which indicates that the practice of propitiating Goddess Chamunda by "dying" started after the Shrimali Brahmin community came under the grip of a dreaded disease.
Quoting one of his ancestors, Ramesh Trivedi, retired principal of a Kheralu school and a Shrimali community historian, says it became an annual ritual when a group of Shrimalis staged a mock funeral in order to escape the wrath of Islamic invaders during the medieval period.
Says Trivedi: "The Muslim soldiers were merciful to mourners and the Shrimalis found it was a nice ruse to escape death." There is a medieval anecdote that has strengthened the community's faith in the ceremony.
According to 80-year-old school teacher Haribhai Dave, a Muslim general named Abumiya who tried to stop the funeral died within days of his attempt.
The present-day Shrimalis have records of the mock funeral dating back seven generations. And so serious are they about it that most Shrimalis in Kheralu ensure that they are in town that day, come what may.
Says Jashumatiben Trivedi, a Shrimali housewife: "Being in our hometown that particular day is a life-time promise. We can violate it only at our own peril." After all, it's a belief to die for.