Trigger Warning: Depiction of Death or Terminal Illness
TEN DAYS OF RITUALS
From our house to the crematorium
we walked barefoot
sandwiched between the sun and stones
Baba would have never
wanted my brother and me
to undergo such errands
At first
we dipped in the runlet
to cleanse the bodies of the dirt
before settling
with our shivering bodies
in front of the affable priest
who often had time
in between mantras
to pipe opium or chew a paan
while we waited
for him in the thatched home—
a temporary abode for Baba’s bones
The habit of waking
for the rituals kept the agony
of loss for those ten days
But everyday
when I returned from the rituals
I lost something some weight
and by the time
the thatched home was burnt
my papery body had lost itself
About the Author
Debasish Mishra is a Senior Research Fellow at National Institute of Science Education and Research, HBNI, India, who has earlier worked with United Bank of India and Central University of Odisha. He is the recipient of the Bharat Award for Literature in 2019 and the Reuel International Upcoming Poet Prize in 2017. His recent work has appeared in 𝑁𝑜𝑟𝑡ℎ 𝐷𝑎𝑘𝑜𝑡𝑎 𝑄𝑢𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑦, 𝑃𝑒𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑟𝑎, 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐻𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑙𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑅𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑤, 𝐴𝑚𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑑𝑎𝑚 𝑄𝑢𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑦, 𝐶𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑎 𝑄𝑢𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑦, and elsewhere. His first book 𝐿𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑖𝑛 𝑂𝑏𝑠𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑂𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑆𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠 was recently published by Book Street Publications, India.