An Indian man pretended to be dead to spy on guests at a funeral (4 photos)

A 74-year-old Bihar resident named Mohan Lal decided to test whether people would sincerely mourn him. To do so, he faked his own death and staged an impromptu funeral.





Very spry for 74

This respected old man, a veteran of the Indian Air Force, persuaded his relatives to lie about his death and gather people to carry his coffin to the crematorium. He then lay down in the decorated coffin and closed his eyes. In addition to friends who performed all the necessary rituals, residents of his village, Konchi, simply supported the family in the procession and joined in the mournful music. All this pleased Mohal and assured him of the community's respect.



This treacherous individual lies there.

When they reached the spot, Mohan Lal rose straight from the coffin, shocking everyone. To prevent any curse from coming upon those following the empty coffin, a symbolic effigy was burned. Otherwise, everyone would have feared that since there was a funeral, someone was bound to die soon. When everything came to light, he explained his stunt this way: "After death, people carry the coffin, but I wanted to see it with my own eyes and understand how much respect and love people have for me." To make the locals forgive him for the staged funeral, Mohan Lal organized a huge feast for everyone.

Everyone in India loved it.





In 2023, an English TikToker did something similar, even lying to his own children. He was simply decried online, but the Indians had no such thing.

To me, this is a terribly cruel joke, as people mourned him sincerely (except for his devoted relatives). But since he was known in his village for his community work, even initiating the construction of a crematorium there, they forgave him for his eccentricity. Basically, it's the plot for an Indian comedy with lots of dancing—it fits their mentality. Incidentally, such things aren't always jokes. Just recently, in 2024, in India, a young deaf-mute man revived on a funeral pyre. He was incorrectly pronounced dead. He jumped up on the pyre (not yet lit, but he smelled the torch), but later died while being treated in a Jaipur hospital.



The smell of India's funeral pyres is hard not to wake up to.

Doctors were fired after this, as panic spread across the country: what if they were burning people who were still alive!? So old Mohan's joke was a bit ill-timed.