Dharma Katha · Season 1: Pitru Paksha · Episode 11

A father sits alone in his hermitage. His son is dead. He has performed all the proper rites for the body. The fire is out. The mourners have gone. And now, in the silence, he does something no one has ever done before. He begins to cook.

Source note. Label: scripture. This story is from the Mahabharata, Anushasana Parva, section ninety-one in the Ganguli translation. The lineage from Brahma to Atri to Dattatreya to Nimi to Srimat, Srimat's thousand years of austerity and death, Nimi's grief, the new-moon offering to seven Brahmins seated on kusha grass with unsalted rice, the rice cakes offered with the name and family of his son, Nimi's fear that he had done an unordained act, Atri's appearance, and Atri's statement that the rite was ordained by the Self-born Brahma, a ...