By Rajshekhar Pant
Cupid does not seem to have been having any connect with cremation grounds, which to me appear to be more like black holes. They devour everything, divesting it of existence. Nothing remains, not even a speck, holding which one might revert to the physical feel of one’s dear ones consumed by the roaring flames. A somnolent stream passing through some nonchalant looking rocks; a handful of half burnt logs and a few rags in red and white strewn here and there amidst which the grim process of human frames getting reduced to ashes must have repeated itself innumerable times – no remnants, not even a fistful of ash; despite bidding them adieu here, how can one relate this expanse with the memories of the dear departed? A grave, dilapidated and old it may be, yet the epitaph engraved on some vandalised gravestone, even the layer of lichane and dry moss covering it and also the wild flowers growing in the vicinity do tell a lot; they hold dear the memories of the one lying underneath… but a cremation ground?
They say death leaves a heartache no one can heal and love leaves a memory no can steal. In history, the ambivalence of alleged ‘epic love stories’ and alienation caused by death have often been manifested through monumental edifices like the Taj Mahal, Palace of Rani Padmavati, Ashton Memorial, Albert Memorial, Antinoopolis of old Egypt and several others. These monuments of ‘idealised-love’ do also betray the prosperity, opulence and obtrusiveness, besides the desire of their makers to assert themselves through means and material. I often find it overshadowing the tenderness of love.
Devoid of all grandeur and luster there stands a small monument of love built with remarkable simplicity in a lonely cremation ground in the outskirts of Nainital. I often try to visualise the emotions of Lala Govind Lal Sah, Saleemgadia of Nainital – a city-father, who reportedly took up the gauntlet with the colonial masters – the culmination of which was the construction of a small shrine of Lord Shiva and a ‘Premkuti’ (abode of love) in the memory of ‘Saraswati Devi’, referred to as his beloved (pranpriya) in the plaque mounted on the wall of the shrine. She died in 1924, in the first half of October. His referring to the deceased as ‘pranpriya’ speaks volumes of the bond that this couple shared. Way back in the initial decades of the 20th century, and that too in the very close-knit and traditionally orthodox society of hills, honouring such an unusual relationship publicly, is a testimony to its magnanimity and sanctity.
And how enigmatic and strange is it to think of a cremation ground for getting a monument built in memory of his lost beloved! Even the image of the Taj Mahal gets reduced to shallow sentimentalism when I think of this small shrine of love erected in the morbid wilderness of a cremation ground.
Read years ago though, the iconic lines of John Donn -‘death thou shalt die…’ could fully be understood and imbibed by me after seeing this unassuming monument of love in the outskirts of Nainital and learning of its background.
Dedicated to Lord Shiva, in whom converges the trilogy of destruction, creation and ultimate bliss -how can fleeting time ever write wrinkles on the face of the memory of Saraswati Devi, so dear to the heart of Lala Govind Lal Sah?
All of us may not see it, but it won’t be wrong to conclude that even death has a heart.
(The author is an amateur filmmaker, a photographer, and a writer, who has written over a thousand write-ups, reports, etc., published in the leading newspapers and magazines of the country. He can be reached at pant.rajshekhar@gmail.com)
