FIRE ON THE GANGES Life Among the Dead in Banaras By Radhika lyengar HARPERCOLLINS ₹599; 352 pages
At a time when Hindu revivalism is on the rise on the embers of 20th-century nationalism, the focus on Banaras emerges with a raw intensity in Radhika Iyengar’s study of the human toll that it also extracts. Her close interaction with the sect known as the Doms, the designated human despatchers of the Hindu dead on the famous burning ghats of Banaras, resonates with a clamour that is as compelling as the blowing of a hundred conches at the water’s edge.
This story is from the January 15, 2024 edition of India Today.
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This story is from the January 15, 2024 edition of India Today.
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