It has never been easy to die a Hindu, when you have to contend with your near and dear ones trying to force Ganga jal down your gullet. When you are croaking your last, that bit of holy water often provides the final choke. Funny, though, how no one seems to care, even though everyone somewhat educated must know how easily fluid can be diverted from the gullet to the windpipe. And does it help that these days the holy aqua is quite polluted, with a coliform count that would do the municipal sewers proud? The ancients placed the burning ghats astride rivers, little realising that they (the water bodies) would one day serve as the carriers of varied effluents, rather inappropriate for the final departure.
But there are graver issues pending, as long as we are into death and dying. I am referring to the fact that the receding forests of South Asia and the import of exotic flora have together managed to irrevocably change the way in which we are cremated. Sadly, the structural dynamics of the funeral pyre is no more what it was in Vedic times, and later. It has all to do with eucalyptus.
The Australian species, beloved of the cuddly koala, migrated to these northern latitudes. over the course of the 20th century, to take over where the local oaks, rhododendrons, sal and seeshums left off. Accused of all kinds of ills, including those associated with monoculture and water-guzzling, the eucalyptus nevertheless thrived and multiplied. Its best selling point being that it grew quick, even if the wood was soft and useless for most purposes. But the one use it did find as a source of cheap wood, was for cremations.
In the old days, when there were fewer people and more woodlands, you could enter the forest and emerge with hardwood logs that then were split to be ready for the pyre. When thus divided, the rounded logs made triangular cross-sections. These were piled on top of each other, and the waiting body placed on top. The fire would be lit, and as the conflagration took hold there was little to be done other than tend the fire. The wood burned white and furious, and the pyre generally collapsed into itself.