Bizarre though it may sound, people are making a quick buck by betting on the dead.
Betting and fixing, apparently, is not restricted to cricket alone and in Varanasi’s famous Manikarnika Ghat, the bookies make fast money by betting on the dead.
The Manikarnika Ghat in Varanasi is considered the most pious cremation ground for Hindus and it is believed that the fire in the pyre never dies down here.
Bookies have turned something as solemn as cremation of bodies into big business.
According to an insider, heavy bets are placed on the gender of the body being brought for cremation — whether it is male or female — then on the direction from which the body is being brought in, the type of vehicle the body is being brought in and even the quality of wood that will be purchased by the relatives to burn the body.
The bookies, mostly the local people, come to the Manikarnika Ghat before sunrise and betting begins from around 4 am.
“Each bet is around `1000 and at the end of the day, each one of us makes around `4,000 to `6,000. Those who lay bets on the gender of the body, direction from which it is being brought in, kind of wood and even the time taken for the body to get fully consumed by fire obviously end up winning or losing more than `10,000 per day,” says Rajan, a bookie.
He explains that they can easily decide the financial status of the deceased from the kind of people accompanying his body.
“We can tell if the relatives will buy sandalwood and desi ghee for the cremation or use ordinary ingredients. The kind of vehicle is another tell-tale sign. A person from an affluent family will be brought in an ambulance or hearse car while the poor will bring in the body in a tempo or a jeep. We place our bets after studying these factors,’ he says.
Betting at Manikarnika Ghat is done through cell phones, without uttering a word. The dozen odd bookies sit around the ghats without interacting with each other and send signals when they sight a dead body.
“Even the local people like shopkeepers and priests do not know that we indulge in betting. They think we are simply loitering around doing nothing. If our ‘business’ is disclosed, we may have to leave because of the religious sentiments involved in this,” says Rajan.
Sources at the ghat say that the local police are fully aware of the bookie business and even take a “cut” regularly.