‘Retire to your huts—Gurukul is terminated for the day.’

Maidaan cleared of all the students, Aarti faster than the others. Chitra accompanied Idhika to the vaidya’s cottage. Soon, only Aman, Fayza, the acharya, the Alok brothers and the lifeless bird were left.

Aman and Fayza had offered to help, but the Alok brothers bore most of its weight, standing on opposite ends with the bird on their powerful shoulders. The brothers’ movements were stiff and slow, and they had an identical, sharp, stained tooth hanging around their necks. Together, the lot of them walked to Mukti, the cremation ground, which sat on the farthest end of Pandayam Tal, where the plateau was slightly sunken and the beach grey with ash.

Pandit Kanwa was the lone caretaker of Mukti and a devout disciple of Kala, the deity of cremation. ‘Oh no, oh no!’ He skipped towards them, holding up his dhoti. ‘Yama, you foolish man!’ Then he cleared his throat and corrected himself, ‘Forgive me, lord. I get carried away.’

Antyesti, the last rite of passage, was a duty that fell on him. Air, fire, earth, space and water are the five elements that make the physical body, and it was Pandit Kanwa who would send these elements back to their origins.

In no time, all the prerequisites had been completed—sesame seeds in the vulture’s beak, the pyre sprinkled with ghee, and the three lines in the sand around the heap of wood signifying Yama, Kala and the dead. ‘We’ll wait for Suryast to reach its conclusion,’ the pandit said.

When the final light of the sun fell behind the peak, they waited patiently, ready in their positions—Pandit Kanwa with an unlit torch, Aman and Fayza beside Acharya Ashwini, the Alok brothers on the other side of the pyre, and the winged beast bedecked with logs from dead trees.

The valley filled with a beating sensation that grew louder and heavier by the minute, and soon all the lamps flickered on. The torch in Pandit Kanwa’s hand, too, blazed blue, and he started singing under his breath, ‘Burn him not up, not quite consume him . . .’ He lowered the torch, lit the pyre from the end and started walking around it. ‘Agni, let not his body or skin be scattered . . . subject to the will of gods . . . with all thy members.’

Before long, Aman had to step back because of the heat. The fire licked the air and sparks shot up. He hardly believed himself when a bright ball, no bigger than a grape, escaped the pyre and slowly drifted up as all heads lifted. Perhaps what the acharya had told them earlier was true. I wonder, when my time comes, if my soul will be as bright, he thought.

Birds gathered and many flocks sailed in the sky. Finally, a silhouette of another, slightly smaller, Himalayan griffon vulture screeched and circled above them against the last red of the heavens.

Having made its way up, the atman was eventually lost in the twinkling of the stars.