Back to life, remarriage required - Son finds out Kalimpong pilgrim is alive after last rites

Kalimpong, July 9: At 71, Hariprasad Ghimire remarried his wife of several decades. Not because of any romantic notion, but because he was given up for dead in the Uttarakhand floods.

The remarriage became necessary because the last rites had been done by the family and Gauri Devi had been a widow for a few days in June. Hariprasad, who according to his son often wandered away from home for days, was in Hardwar in June when the flash floods started in Uttarakhand. On June 28, son Meghnad got a call from Hardwar from a man who identified himself as Gangadhar. The man told Meghnad that his father had passed away. “Around 1pm the next day, the family got together and decided to initiate rituals to pray for his soul. Since we were told by the caller from Hardwar that our father’s body was consigned to flames as per Hindu tradition some days back, we began our rituals at home,” Meghnad, a 40-year-old milkman, said. “I shaved off my hair and immersed my mother’s sindoor (vermillion) and potey (a neckpiece worn by married Nepali women). We were in the process of conducting a few more rituals when we got another call,” he said. The caller this time was local GTA Sabha executive member Kalpana Tamang. “Kalpana didi told me that our father was alive and on his way home. We were all stunned,” Meghnad said. Tamang had been informed about Hariprasad by Sonam Bhutia, executive director of tourism. “I got a call from a friend who was a part of the rescue team from Bengal that was stationed in Uttarakhand. He told me there was an old Nepali man from the hills was among the rescued persons. I asked my friend to allow me to speak to him. I spoke to him in Nepali,” Tamang said. “He told me his name and his address. I requested my friend to send the man to Calcutta and put him up at Gorkha Bhavan in Salt Lake there. Luckily, on reaching Calcutta, a train ticket to New Jalpaiguri could be arranged the same day, and the man was put on the NJP-bound train,” Tamang said. Meghnad said since his family was already informed that his father would be reaching NJP from Calcutta on July 2, some of them drove to the railway station to receive him and bring him to their village. On reaching home, his father, however, could not enter as according to a Hindu belief, once a person is considered dead, and rituals have been performed accordingly, he has to be reborn. “On July 3, we first held a naming ceremony for my father, and later solemnised his marriage with my mother in the village temple. It was a simple and short ceremony, which was followed by a small feast,” Meghnad said. Gopi Prasad Ghimire, a Hindu priest, said it was a Hindu practice to rename an individual and get the couple married if the last rites have been performed by mistake. “Such an incident is very rare, but according to our religious traditions, the individual has to be renamed and if he is married, then he has to be remarried. This is because they have to start a new life,” he said. “We are still at a loss why Gangadhar told us that our father is dead. Father has not been keeping well since the time he has arrived home. He however, told us that he had befriended Gangadhar in an ashram in Hardwar, and had given him Rs 7,000 and a small diary containing our phone numbers,” said Meghnad, who has two married elder sisters. ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY VIVEK CHHETRI