Dr Minakshi Dewan (pictured), in her book The Final Farewell: Understanding the Last Rites & Rituals of India’s Major Faiths, delves into how different religions deal with a loss of life, pre-death rituals, styles of mourning and even the monetary cost of death.
Dewan was impelled to write this book after her father Vijay Dewan died in 2019. She mentions having "experienced these rites first-hand as chief mourner, watching everything closely.” When the Covid-19 pandemic struck, people were forced to adapt to different ways of handling death and rituals. "Péhlé insaan kandhé par aata tha (At one time the family members......