Less squeamish about dead people here in India

I was unwrapping my naan from the newspaper it came in the other day when I saw two pictures of dead faces. One was a woman named Sumitra, the other an unknown man. “APPEAL FOR IDENTIFICATION,” the ad said. “General public is hereby informed that one unknown person age: 50-60 years, has been found near the park Baljeet Nagar, in the area of PS Patel Nagar on 23.06.2009. The body has not been identified till date…Sincere efforts have been made by the local police to trace out identify of dead body but no clue has come to light so far. Any person having any information or clue about this dead boy may kindly inform to the following.”

I asked an Indian friend about this ad, and she said that Indian police are required to follow certain steps upon finding a dead body, including reporting it in the newspaper.

This is strange to me, since in the U.S. it’s a big deal for a media outlet to display dead bodies. We can’t even show the coffins of dead soldiers without controversy. Yet Indians post pictures of their dead in the newspaper as a matter of course.

It’s not just newspapers either. I was at the Sikh Museum at the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar, reading about the many ways Sikhs have been martyred over the years (and oh my GOD, it reminds me the many horrifying ways humans have managed to torture each other over the centuries. We’re talking dismembering children and making their parents wear the body parts as necklaces). One of the displays featured about 20 Sikh men killed (in an incident I don’t recall). As part of the display, there were giant pictures of the men’s death faces, about 1.5 by 2 feet. Their eyes were closed and bloated, their faces bruised and smashed. In the corners were smaller pictures of the men in their prime. For me, it was surreal.