Death at the confluence of the Varuna and the Asi

During the train ride from Florence to Rome, I chatted with the guy seated next to me.  He looked about five years older than me, and was dressed as I imagine a European executive would.  He asked about the travel plans.

"No Naples?" he asked after listening to my schedule.

He opened his briefcase and took out his business card.  On the other side he wrote something and handed it to me.

"It means that one should go to Naples before they die" he said as he passed me the card.  He had written Vedi Napoli e poi muori.  And, of course, his card noted his MBA credential.

Naples was that kind of a city in the history of Italy.  Such a fantastic city that there was nothing else to see after experiencing Naples.

Kashi is a total contrast to Naples.  Also known as Benares and Varanasi, Kashi was the city to which faithful Hindus liked to go and die. 

In the traditions, there is a saying about Kashi: Kashya maranam muktihih (काश्य मरणं मुक्ति:) which translates to Dying in Kashi leads to salvation.  A liberation from the cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth.  No reincarnations after the good death in Kashi.

My great-grandmother went to Kashi to die.  

She--Parvathy--had experienced one too many tragedies in her life.  Two of the six children that she gave birth to died before reaching five years of age. 

Of the four who remained, the eldest daughter died from tuberculosis within a couple of years of getting married and without having a child.  Her youngest son also died from the same dreaded disease when his wife was three months pregnant with their first child.

Great-grandmother was dejected with life.  She lost interest in living, and asked her husband to take her to Kashi while making it clear to the family that she was not coming back.  It was goodbye forever.

She died in Kashi as she wished.

Of course, not everyone can time their dying by traveling to the city of good death.  This is why many traditional families had in their homes small sealed containers of water from the holy Ganga River.  A few drops of this holy water in the dying person's mouth is considered the second-best alternative to the good death at Kashi.  If the Ganga water cannot be administered, then scattering the remains after cremation gets the person as close as possible to salvation.

Such a fascinating and profound view of life and death has also generated a backdrop for Priyanka Champaneri in her debut novel The City of Good Death. 

The citation for the 2018 Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing notes:

A first-generation immigrant who was born and raised in the United States, Champaneri draws on her personal navigation of identity and culture, reconciling her Indian heritage and Hindu faith with her Western upbringing.  The City of Good Death confronts family, religion, and belonging in ways that reflect Champaneri's cultural dualities.

Most of us try in our own ways to reconcile our faiths and the social practices of wherever we live in a world of science and technology that are seemingly at odds with those faiths and practices.  We try to resolve them before we die, whether or not we have visited Napoli or Kashi.