TOPSHOT-INDIA-RELIGION-DEATH

TOPSHOT – In this photograph taken on June 16, 2024, a cremator (C) of the Dom community cleans a pyre after funeral rites, at Harishchandra Ghat along the banks of river Ganges in Varanasi. Some stay only days, others wait decades, but the crowds of elderly Indian Hindu devotees are calm and confident that their one-way pilgrimage to death will deliver everlasting peace. Smouldering funeral pyres line the Ganges river in India’s holy city of Varanasi, where thousands of Hindu faithful travel to each year from across the country to spend their final days by waters they believe to be sacred. (Photo by Niharika KULKARNI / AFP) / To go with ‘India-Religion-Death’ REPORTAGE