{"id":86865,"date":"2024-07-03T14:43:05","date_gmt":"2024-07-03T14:43:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/03\/a-family-loses-3-generations-of-women-in-india-crowds-panic\/"},"modified":"2024-07-03T14:43:05","modified_gmt":"2024-07-03T14:43:05","slug":"a-family-loses-3-generations-of-women-in-india-crowds-panic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/03\/a-family-loses-3-generations-of-women-in-india-crowds-panic\/","title":{"rendered":"A Family Loses 3 Generations of Women in India Crowd\u2019s Panic"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/07\/03\/multimedia\/03india-family-01-kmbz\/03india-family-01-kmbz-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"A Family Loses 3 Generations of Women in India Crowd\u2019s Panic\" title=\"A Family Loses 3 Generations of Women in India Crowd\u2019s Panic\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Vinod Kumar was away from home on Tuesday, as he usually is for days at a time in search of masonry work, when he got the dreadful call.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">All the women in his family, three generations of them, were dead, crushed in a stampede.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For the rest of the day, Mr. Kumar and his three sons went from hospital to hospital searching for their loved ones among the bodies of the 121 people who had died when a large gathering of a spiritual guru <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/07\/03\/world\/asia\/india-stampede-deaths.html\" title=\"\">broke into deadly panic<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Close to midnight, they found the bodies of his wife, Raj Kumari, 42, and daughter, Bhumi, 9, at the government hospital in Hathras, laid out on large slabs of ice among the dozens others in the corridor.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWhy did you leave me just like that? Who will scold the children now and push them to go to school?\u201d Mr. Kumar wailed at the feet of his wife.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But he couldn\u2019t afford to be entirely lost in grief yet. The body of his mother was yet to be found. He bent over to pick up his daughter for one last embrace. Bhumi wore a yellow top, and her hair was tied in a ponytail with a pink band.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cLet her sleep,\u201d Nitin, Mr. Kumar\u2019s oldest son, told him, pulling the girl away from his father to lay her back on the slab so they could continue the search.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI don\u2019t know when I will find my mother\u2019s body,\u201d he said, moving on with the search. \u201cI want to do their last rites together.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Kumar\u2019s mother, Jaimanti, was the family\u2019s matriarch. And she was its main devotee to the guru, keeping his posters at home and frequenting his sermons.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Suraj Pal, a former policeman who refashioned himself as a spiritual guru known as Narayan Sakar Hari or Bhole Baba, catered to women like her, families like hers: on the margins of India\u2019s deep economic inequality, and at the bottom its rigid caste hierarchy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Women from the Dalit caste, who make up a large part of the Baba\u2019s congregation, have long faced discrimination as \u201cuntouchables\u201d and have historically been denied access to temples.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When Mr. Kumar\u2019s mother, Jaimanti Devi, heard that the guru was holding a large gathering so close, there was no way she would miss it. She persuaded her reluctant daughter-in-law to come along.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">As for Bhumi?<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cYou know how children are,\u201d Mr. Kumar said. \u201cOur daughter had said she won\u2019t stay back without her mother.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">As dawn broke on Wednesday, Mr. Kumar had shifted the bodies of his wife and daughter home. Zipped in dark body bags, they were placed on slabs of ice in the narrow alley outside their brick house. His mother\u2019s body was found in a morgue in the city of Agra, about two hours away. When the ambulance finally brought her home, neighbors and relatives helped lower the body and place it next to the other two.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Kumar, held by his sons, broke down completely.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Kumar family has lived here for at least two generations. Mr. Kumar\u2019s father, who died several years ago, was a mason just like him. That they have been barely an afterthought in India\u2019s development plans, left to fend for themselves, was clear.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Around them, the village overflowed with sewage water from the narrow drains. A larger drain, carrying the sewage of a neighboring town, brimmed, large piles of trash rotting by its banks. Dengue and typhoid fever are all-too-common ailments here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But Mr. Kumar was trying to give his children a better future. With the $200 a month he made as a day-laborer and mason, he ensured they attended school. Bhumi was particularly fond of her studies, he said. She wanted to become a police officer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe have always been poor. That is our life\u2019s story,\u201d he said. \u201cNow it\u2019s over with the death of my dear daughter, wife and mother \u2014 in one single blow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">First, it was his daughter\u2019s turn for the final rites. In the local tradition, children are buried while adults are cremated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A stretcher made of bamboo was laid out for Bhumi. The body is supposed to be wrapped in new clothes before the final rites. For her, Mr. Kumar had bought an unstitched piece of blue, floral cloth to cover her torso, and a dark blue cloth for her legs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Men lifted the bamboo frame from all four sides and walked a couple of miles to a spot in the cotton fields, next to a small pond along the highway. Some of the men had already dug a grave. Mr. Kumar slowly lowered Bhumi\u2019s body into the trench and let out a long wail.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Villagers helped to cover her body, scooping mud onto the grave.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Just in that moment, on the highway meters away, the motorcade for the state\u2019s chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, raced past, taking him to the site of the stampede. Villagers were stopped from crossing the road while it did.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Kumar moved on to the bodies of his mother and wife, shifting them on bamboo to the pyres at the other end of the village. They were wrapped in bright colored saris, pink, red and green.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Thick pieces of cow dung were used to set the fire and then it was topped with thick logs of wood. The sky was overcast. Politicians trickled in, one with personal bodyguards who wielded rifles and wore all-black attire. The official stood and watched the bodies go up in flames, and then moved on to the next destination.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Among the villagers huddled around the pyre, some cursed the administration for laxity; others cursed the guru who had gone underground since the stampede, seemingly caring little for the well-being of the devotees or the families they left behind.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">One of Mr. Kumar\u2019s sons sobbed in a corner. He pulled the boy close and they both broke down in an embrace as thick clouds of smoke rose from the pyres.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">They were left with just each other now, a family of devastated men.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cDon\u2019t cry my son,\u201d Mr. Kumar consoled, as they walked back into the village.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Mujib Mashal<!-- --> contributed reporting from New Delhi.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/07\/03\/world\/asia\/india-stampede-family.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vinod Kumar was away from home on Tuesday, as he usually is for days at a time in search of masonry work, when he got the dreadful call. All the women in his family, three generations of them, were dead, crushed in a stampede. For the rest of the day, Mr. Kumar and his three [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/07\/03\/multimedia\/03india-family-01-kmbz\/03india-family-01-kmbz-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6499,17,8279,273,7343,13585,3653],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86865"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86865"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86867,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86865\/revisions\/86867"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}