They keep the Hindu funeral pyres burning, but at what cost?
For the men and boys of the Dom community in Varanasi, sacred cremations demand a lifetime of exhausting, dangerous labour
by Radhika Iyengar
Radhika Iyengar is an award-winning journalist whose work has been published in Al Jazeera, Atlas Obscura and Esquire (India), among others. She is the author of Fire on the Ganges: Life Among the Dead in Banaras (2023). She is based in Mumbai, India.
Written by Radhika Iyengar