Waiting for the return of Indias’ frozen guru
India’s frozen guru, benefits of the living dead and more modern Lazaruses...
KEEPING BODIES
On 5 July an Indian court allowed a guru’s disciples to preserve his body in a freezer, as they believe he is in samadhi, a deep state of meditation, and will return to life. Ashutosh Maharaj, the founder of Divya Jyoti Jagrati Sansthan (Divine Light Awakening Mission), apparently died of a heart attack in January 2014. Since then, his body has been kept frozen at his heavily guarded 100-acre ashram in the northern state of Punjab. His disciples insist that he had regularly attained samadhi in the subzero Himalayan temperatures that descend on Punjab in the winter. The guru was born in Bihar, the poorest state in India. He founded his mission in 1983 to promote self-awakening and global peace. The sect has millions of followers worldwide and is estimated to be worth £92 million. The group has a vast property portfolio, with buildings worth tens of millions of pounds on five continents. The Punjab and Haryana High Court dismissed a three-yearold petition by Dalip Kumar Jha, who claims to be the guru’s son and who wishes to thaw the body and cremate it in accordance with Hindu ritual. The court, while rejecting the plea, set aside a 2014 judgement that had ordered his cremation after doctors confirmed him clinically dead. Mr Jha’s lawyer said that it was unclear whether the judges had accepted the sect’s claims that the guru was still alive, and that the case would be taken to the Supreme Court. Mr Jha alleges the sect has clung to the body to keep control of the group’s wealth. Both he and the guru’s former driver have called for a criminal investigation into his death. Disciples have responded by saying that Mr Jha wants to stake a claim in the business. D.Telegraph, 6 July; Times, 7 July 2017.
An embalmed couple were to be buried after their son kept them at his Edinburgh home for more than 20 years. Mervyn Marcel wanted to build a refrigerated unit to store Hilda and Eugenois, and later planned to remove their remains to the West Bank in the Middle East. Hilda Marcel died in 1987 aged 68 and Eugenois in 1994, aged 91. Edinburgh council, which has held the bodies in the city morgue since police found them in May 2002, was given permission by Lord Mulholland at the Court of Session to bury them. Times, Guardian, 4 Feb 2017.
A man who hid the body of his dead girlfriend in the airing cupboard of their flat for 15 months while he claimed her benefits has been jailed for four years and four months. Andrew Reade, 43, wrapped the body ofVicky Cherry, 44, in a duvet and plastic sheeting after her death in October 2015 and hid it at their home in Bolton, Greater Manchester, until it was found in a police search last January after her family filed a missing person report. Ms Cherry’s cause of death could not be ascertained because
of advanced decomposition. Neighbours in the quiet culde-sac had noticed “a dodgy smell”, but believed Reade when he told them Ms Cherry had left him to stay with her mother. D.Express, 18 Feb; D.Telegraph, South Wales Argus, 6 June 2017.
Another cul-de-sac, this one in Scotland, held a similar macabre secret. Sharon Greenop, 46, is believed to have lain dead in her bed for months while her teenage daughter Shayla and her younger sister Lynnette carried on living in the house. Police discovered the body after being called to the terraced property in Troon, Ayrshire, on 10 November 2016. Inside they found a number of creatures, including two tarantulas, rats, a rabbit, a blind cat and a three-legged sheepdog. The family were well known in the town and were often seen out walking the dog, which had lost a front leg in a road accident. D.Express, 24 Nov 2016.
For the last round-up of kept corpses, see ‘Departure denied’, FT349:20.
DEADLY ERRORS
The broadcaster Sir Jimmy Young, who died on 7 November 2016 aged 95, feared being buried alive. In his will, drawn up in 2008, he wrote: “I hereby express the wish that my Trustees will use their best endeavours to ensure that after I have been certified dead and before I am buried my body shall receive a lethal injection.” According to the Sun, friends confirmed that the celebrated Radio 2 DJ was given the said injection. D.Telegraph, Sun, D.Mail, 4 April 2017.
Msizi Mkhize, 28, was walking home with a friend when he was hit by a car in KwaMashu, a township north of Durban, South Africa. He was declared dead, taken to a mortuary, and placed in a fridge. When his family arrived for identification purposes the next day, he was found to be alive and rushed to hospital – but died five hours later. Times, 12 Dec 2016.
Mr Huang’s family gathered round his coffin to pay their final respects more than eight hours after he had been declared dead. The assembled mourners were shocked when they heard a knocking sound coming from inside, and were even more alarmed when the lid appeared to have moved. When the lid was removed, the 75-yearold was still alive and asked: “What’s happening? Are you preparing my funeral?” His son Huang Mingquan said his father, who had been battling cancer of the oesophagus, has stopped breathing and had “cold feet and hands”. He was said to be recovering from his premature departure, which happened in the district of Yuling in China’s western Sichuan province. Sun, 13 Jan; Times, 14 Jan 2017.
Police found tarantulas, rats and a threelegged sheepdog
A Russian was mistakenly declared dead after drinking too much vodka at a party in Khasansky. Waking up in a packed mortuary freezer in the dark, he felt a frozen limb of a body next to him and banged on the door to be let out. When he returned to the party, he found it had become his wake. A friend passed out at seeing him alive. Sun, 2 Jan 2016. A Chinese baby who was declared dead and spent the night in a morgue began making a noise as he was about to be cremated. He had spent 15 hours in a morgue in Pan’an county, near Jinhua city in the eastern province of Zhejiang at a temperature of 10.4˚F (-12˚C). The boy had been born two months early on 8 January, weighing just over 3lb (1.4kg), and spent 23 days in an incubator. Doctors were cautious about his chances of recovery. Times, D.Telegraph, 10 Feb 2016.
Four-year-old John-Henry Birtle fell into a hotel pool in Slough, Berkshire, and lay beneath the water for nine minutes. He was dragged out apparently lifeless and given CPR by staff. His pulse did not return for 11 more minutes and it was a further eight minutes before he began to breathe on his own again. His mother Roseann, who pulled him out, said: “He was starved of oxygen for 28 minutes. For those 28 minutes he was gone.” Doctors warned the family from Newark, Nottinghamshire, that he would never have a good quality of life; but he was walking and starting to speak again just weeks after the accident. D.Mirror, 13 May 2017. For the last round-up of the “Lazarus phenomenon”, see FT334:10-11.