White Is the Color of Death

By Shraya SinghSeptember 12, 2026

A veil like a tomb for the body before it is burned, before it is buried, last rites before decay. White is what’s left of the night. Broken promises. Buckets of milk. My grandfather’s body was wrapped in yards of clean white cloth the morning after he died, his nostrils stuffed with cotton. Mango leaves garlanded around his neck, limestone chalked on their deep green surfaces in stark contrast to his skin, like a pinhole camera pierced through leather: cold, dark, creased. White is the color of guilt–of the last time I saw him breathing, of the last time I stood by the foot of his bed, my nose scrunched at the stench of his age, his sickness, his decay. There were six hours between my home and his, the life I lived in Delhi and what was left of his own in the outskirts of Budaun. White was the color behind my eyes as he asked me to stay, as he begged me don’t go, as I took those final inevitable steps away. I did not wash the weathered veil of his body, I did not touch his skin as he lay in the center of the courtyard or […]

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White Is the Color of Death

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