Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer

I finished reading Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer today. What pulled me to this book was its extraordinary title. Frankly, I didn’t realize that there was a job like that before reading this book. Yeah, there must be because someone has to take our loved ones to burial grounds but I never gave a thought to their lives and struggles. This book opened my eyes to look at life from a corpse bearer’s eyes. Despite being born in the family of priests, the protagonist, Elchi becomes a corpse bearer to marry the girl he loved, Sepideh. Here starts his struggle wherein he is ostracized by his family and the entire Parsi community. His father, who is a priest in a fire temple considers him unholy and refuses to see him. His superiors afflict long hours of work without food and rest. Untimely death of his beloved wife does not help reduce his sorrow. Following the words of his wife, he leads a successful strike for better working conditions of corpse bearers. His daughter, Farida becomes the only source of his happiness.

The book also tells the story of a Christian-Parsi philosopher on his deathbed, who despite being a Christian all his life, desires a Parsi funeral. The author poses powerful questions such as “Which religion does a corpse belong to?” through his characters and describes the hypocrisy of orthodox Zoroastrians who refuse to give a Parsi funeral to a person who never had a Navjote and blatantly refuse to let him have a Navjote as well.

This book takes you to Elchi’s journey of life, his struggles, spiritual encounters and dreams and tries to answer the questions of life, death and religion. I appreciate author’s delicate portrayal of an ostracized section of people.

All through the story, you try to grasp the true nature of evil, good and bad. The so-called priest refuses a woman her property and drives her to become a whore, self-righteously puts the blame of his wife’s death to her refusal to accept orthodox restrictions put on women, ostracizes and isolates his son because he was a corpse bearer and opposes Parsi burial of a faithful man just because he was born out of mixed marriage. Is that what you call religious? Is that what you call good? Or is that what you call bad?