Photo from Treehugger
In India, when my twin brothers were 13, my father decided to take them on one of his trips. This time it was to the foothills of the Himalayas to look at some development projects. There was a wonderful forestry project being run by a man. I wish I could recall his name.
In the night the father of the project manager died and in the morning my brothers were woken up by the sound of mourning, wailing women.
The son organised a funeral pyre - the rainy season had already come so it was very green. He asked my father to attend and he did with my brothers.
The body of the old man was burned on a funeral pyre. But what most affected them was that after the orange flames had been burning the body for a while, the young man went up to the head of the body on the fire and after praying, struck the old man's head with a heavy stick, something like a lathi.
The old man's dry skull cracked open and a shower of sparks leaped into the sky.
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