Dawn At Puri

author: Jayanta Mahapatra

Place: Puri, Orissa

Called "Gate of Heaven" dying there =
auspicious

talks about rites and rituals we don't question, faith widows and what they faced

Endless crow noises A skull in the holy sands tilts its empty country towards hunger. White-clad widowed women past the centers of their lives 1 are waiting to enter the Great Temple Their austere eyes stare like those caught in a net hanging by the dawn's shining strands of faith

The fail early light catches ruined. leprous shells leaning against one another, a mass of crouched faces without names, and suddenly breaks out of my hide into the smoky blaze of a sullen solitary pyre that fills my aging mother: her last wish to be cremated here twisting uncertainly like light on the shifting sands

  1. Widows were asked to wear white and not dress up or keep their hair in order to keep them from drawing attention; they are grieving because the center of their lives (husbands) are now dead and they have nothing but death to await. They want to get through the doors of the temple and get purified and go to heaven↩
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Published on: 13th January, 2023

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