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Almost everywhere in Calcutta there are "burning ghats, "
where cremation takes place.
The ceremony is performed by the nearest relative of the deceased-
here, the husband- with the help of a priest.
For a Hindu, death is not a dramatic event.
It is neither an end nor a deliverance.
According to Hindu belief,
based on successive reincarnations of the Self,
life is only a stage, a passage, a brief moment in a cosmic cycle.
The recitations are in Sanskrit,
the language of sacred texts.
The priest evokes the four elements. : fire, water, air and earth.
The body must be completely consumed and the ashes thrown into the river.
Only then is the spirit set free to find another mortal sheath.