The pursuit of mukti...

The eternal truth the moment we are born is that death is inevitable. Some continue to live in ignorance while some strive to realize the truth. But the clock ticks, taking us everyday a step nearer to death.

Yet for someone to checkin into a hotel, with the purpose of dying is eerie, that too with approval of the hotel is eerie. Call it Hotel Death but its real name is Mukti Bhavan , located in Varanasi. the sole aim of the existence of the hotel – the aged and those closer to death can checkin and wait for death. If you are young, hail and hearty, and do not die after checking in for two weeks, you are evicted. The hotel feels they are serving humanity in the highest form as it is said that if you take God’s name and die there, you attain moksha or salvation, which is freedom for the soul, a release from the constant cycle of rebirth.

It is a dull, morbid hotel, charging Rs.20 per night and services for last rite, priest at hand for the last prayers are all provided. Here people see death in a new light, where relatives of the one waiting for ‘mukti’ speak about it nonchalantly. The place has 12 rooms but it gets so crowded that beds are set up in corridors and courtyard. Well, and you thought you had seen and heard all in life….