This paper studies death and dying in two socio-cultural locations–in an ashram in Kasi or Banaras in North India, and in an urban, comparatively secular setting of a neighbourhood in North Kolkata, in East India. It argues that the values attached to dying in these two separate social settings, and the meanings associated with death evoke different emotions and varied social attitudes towards death qua the dead because of a change in the socio-cultural registers. Social attitudes towards death/the dead have a universal similarity across India. The pan-Indian affective matrix with regard to death and the dead may share similarities in texture and lexicon, but inspite of this shared affective register that underpins death/dying, the social attitudes, weightage and consequently, the emotions that death, dying and the dead command varies across socio-cultural settings and even during periods of social transformation and chaos, such as the Pandemic. Notions of the 'good death' and 'bad death' inform meanings and interpretations of death/dying in India. However, the emotional quotient keeps changing depending on how such shifts are negotiated within particular socio-cultural locations, and during specific social situations. In short, dying is performed differently and death assumes different meanings depending on the cultural context/s within which it is embedded, the religious-cultural significance of the place where it unfolds, and its manner of occurrence. This paper makes the case for a continuum between socio-cultural particularism and universalism with regard to emotions pertaining to death in India, situating it against the larger backdrop of South Asia, where attitudes towards death/dying are fraught with ambiguities. It achieves this by showing how the affective fabric might be the same but the social attitudes and emotions that death/dying and the dead evoke, are contingent upon specific social-cultural-temporal contexts. Hence, the values associated with death/dying are also shifting.
