The religious rites of Sraadha, Pindadaan etc. in Prayag, Kasi and Gaya.

Allahabad (original Hindu name is Prayag) This is one of the places that we did the rituals for the departed souls. Rao and Umamaheswaran went to the banks of the river Ganga with the local priest to do this. Nirmala and I stayed back. I was able to help the other staff in the Mutt in organizing the area for the procedures after their return from the River. The reason for doing these here is to make sure all the departed souls in the family and immediate relatives did not miss the proper 'send off' after death. I still cannot understand why we had to do it again and again. Interestingly, we did it for ourselves too, just in case no one does it for us after our death. Kaashi/Varanasi/Benares This link below may be useful for you all of us: http://wikitravel.org/en/Varanasi In Kasi, we started off the rites the previous day itself under the guidance of the priest Sivakumar. He was very thorough, knowledgeable. Spoke Tamil and the local Hindi dialect. But was fluent in English and hence it was of great help to my husband who knew only Telugu. Even though Uma was trying his best to maintain the Tamil communication, the priest was very thoughtful. After the rites, we had clean, simple home cooked meals prepared by their staff in each place. The surroundings are very clean here. Ganga waters are also cleaner in Kasi than in Allahabad. Gaya We did 64 pindas here. The ladies of the Mutt cooked and I prepared the pandas for the daan. I have written in my older post a few years ago about this and also posted some photos then. No Bathing in the river here. Not much water around.