Nagapattinam in last lap of funeral rites

Nagapattinam on Monday observed the 16th day ceremony of its dead. For the Hindus this is an elaborate ritual. There are new clothes to buy for the family and Brahmins to feed when the family's mourning period official ends.

In Nagapattinam, however, improvisation was required. Entire families were wiped out by the tsunami, so the headman conducted a simplified ritual on their behalf.

The surviving relatives of families "" and every fisherman's family has lost at least one member "" conducted the rituals for their dead.

It was a simple function. A brick from the dead person's home was brought to the sea shore where wavelets playfully drenched the sand with spray.

On that damp waste "" where huts used to be squashed cheek by jowl before the tsunami hit "" a priest put kumkum, sandal and nine essential items (sesame seeds, durva grass, etc) on the brick. Some chanting later, the brick was carried by the surviving male member of the family to the shore.

He waded into the sea and placed the brick in the sea."The sea will take away the sorrow and carry the atma of the dead to peace," explained the priest.

"We had to truncate the ceremony because there are not enough resources to do this puja for around 3,000 people."

The headman of the community, Narayanaswamy Natar, let tears roll down his cheeks as he explained that the responsibility of this ceremony, the final of the last rites, had fallen on his shoulders because "there is nothing left here".

Women squatted and watched, their heads in their hands, eyes still glazed. Some sat, utterly lonely, amid cardboard boxes of relief materials, garishly coloured plastic buckets and bottles of kerosene, too tired to weep.

Anger is jostling with sorrow here. The fishermen community is highly volatile at the best of times.

Now, weighed down by grief, reduced to queueing up and begging for their livelihood, women are just waiting to pick a fight with anyone they can. For many of the men, the Rs 4,000 the government has given as spot relief is a way to blunt sorrow with alcohol.

Sundar, a driver, said in the last three days, he has managed to narrowly avoid running down three drunk men. In queues waiting for relief material, the sour stench of country liquour is overwhelming. It is the same story everywhere.

In Chennai, liquour shops along the Marina have reported a 40 per cent increase in collections, officials say. The government's money given as relief, is returning to the government as revenues.

The stories are bleak and cheerless, though the relief effort is showing its effect every day.

Electricity supply has been restored, telephones work, there is water, and some amount of cooking is on in the camps. About 150 Non Governmental Agencies (NGOs) are parked here, though those that came to provide immediate relief - like Hope, comprising retired Gurkha Regiment officers - is returning today, because they feel their job is done.

Several organizations offering medical assistance - like a group of doctors from as far away as Sardarshahr, Rajasthan - say they were getting some broken bones, but now the ailments are infected wounds, colds and upper respiratory tract infection and some cases of colitis. There is no diarrhea, nothing that suggests any other epidemics like cholera or typhoid.

In Nagapattinam, the mourning may be officially over. But there is a sense of exhaustion that comes from grief.