Covid-19: At funerals, distance between the living and the dead gets wider

Amidst the spread of the Covid-19, the nationwide lockdown has led to unusual scenes at the crematoriums and burial grounds.

Five masked men stood a few feet from each other around a pyre while a weeping teenager walked around it as part of a funeral ritual. Every now and then, he pulled down his mask to wipe his nose. A short distance away, a girl recorded the rituals on her phone while two other women held her and wept even as the priest repeatedly asked them to stand apart.

At the Nigam Bodh Ghat, a major cremation ground in north Delhi, where there were earlier 60 bodies being cremated a day, the number has almost halved.(Photo: Sonu Mehta/ Hindustan Times)

“I have been cremating bodies for a decade. Never before did we have to interrupt relatives grieving over a dead body,” said another priest Arun Sharma, while he watched the proceedings at the Shiv Shamshan Ghat in east Delhi’s Geeta Colony.

Several kilometres away, at the Shaheen Bagh cemetery in south Delhi, Habib Ahmed is resting after three hours of digging a grave with his colleague on being intimated about a death in the neighbourhood.

“Often, the relatives of the dead choose to dig the pits. But we have disallowed that for now. We have to hurry up the burial process for social distancing,” said Ahmed, adding that residents here were told to ensure that the cot carrying the body is shouldered by only four persons.

Amidst the spread of the Covid-19, the nationwide lockdown has led to unusual scenes at the crematoriums and burial grounds.

The funeral rites are done quickly, the mourning is subdued, the attendance at crematoriums is unusually thin, close relatives are deprived of a chance to say their final goodbyes and the last rites have a changed format.

“My uncle Amrit Lal wanted his last remains to be submerged at Haridwar. But we beg his forgiveness and will submerge it in the Yamuna near our home,” said Amir Chand, a resident of Karawal Nagar at north Delhi’s Nigam Bodh Ghat – one of the biggest crematoriums in the national capital region.

A dozen relatives and friends of Lal -- who died of old age -- turned up at the Nigam Bodh Ghat in north Delhi. Only four of them were allowed to board the hearse van while others followed on motorcycles.

Lal’s daughter couldn’t visit Delhi from Mau in Uttar Pradesh due to the lockdown. She tried to make it to Delhi, but couldn’t get beyond a couple of police checkpoints. “We will share a live video of the funeral with her,” said Chand.

Behind them, another family walked in with a body on a bier. “My grandfather was loved by all and every relative wants to shoulder his bier. It has been painful for me to deny them the chance,” said Gautam Singh.

Singh’s family will keep his ashes at their home for how long it may take, but they will submerge it in Haridwar.

At the same crematorium, four pyres burnt adjacent to each other without anyone in attendance. “We are requesting the kin of the dead to leave immediately after hitting the pyres with sticks (as part of the rituals),” said Vishal Mishra, the supervisor at this crematorium.

The supply of wood at the crematoriums has been hampered and the staffers are asking the kin of the dead to opt for the CNG cremation. “But we don’t want to add to the pains of a grieving family, so we don’t insist on it,” said Mishra.

He said that there are many who have put off or even cancelled their immediate plans to carry out the last rites – which mostly involve submerging the ashes of the dead in the Ganges at Haridwar. “They are either submerging it in the Yamuna or leaving them in earthen pots in our lockers,” said Mishra.

The 228 lockers at the crematorium here are fast filling up, but Mishra said that they have relaxed the rule of collecting the last remains within 15 days.

Suman Kumar Gupta, the chief manager of the Nigam Bodh Ghat, said that while he expects the kin of the dead to collect the last remains after the lockdown ends, those that still get left behind will be submerged in the Ganges by his staff who will take the ashes to Haridwar.

At the Shaheen Bagh cemetery, caretaker Abdur Raziq, said that when the kin of the dead alert them about a burial, they are in turn told to ensure not more than 20 people visit the cemetery – as per government orders for the lockdown.

“During the burial, they are required to stand around the grave and not in a huddle. We keep a watch on them when they take turns to throw mud at the grave as part of the last rites,” said Raziq, adding that having the local police station right next door has helped with enforcing social distancing.

‘Fewer unnatural deaths’

Delhi has about 50 crematoriums and 10 cemeteries which are run by the civic agencies, apart from a few which are privately managed.

Not only has the attendance of people visiting the major crematoriums have dipped, the number of bodies being cremated here too have reduced.

“There are much fewer unnatural deaths, almost no accidental deaths in the city. Earlier, we would cremate 60 bodies a day on an average. During winters, when homeless people died, I remember two bodies being cremated on one pyre on multiple occasions. After the lockdown, the number has dipped to 30-40,” said Gupta.

The dip in funerals at Delhi’s crematoriums is also because hardly any bodies are brought from the neighbouring cities. “Many from Noida, Ghaziabad and other parts of Delhi preferred crematoriums like Shiv Shamshan Ghat and Nigam Bodh Ghat due to their proximity to the Yamuna. But now they are cremating them at the nearest crematorium,” said priest Sharma.

From 10-12 bodies a day, now only about five-six bodies are brought to the Shiv Shamshan Ghat, he added.

While a few are able to arrange vehicles for bringing the bodies for cremation, during the lockdown most others are relying on hearse vans run by crematoriums and hospitals. “RWAs and people in residential neighbourhoods usually have the contact numbers of our hearse vans. The numbers are also mentioned at hospitals, at the crematoriums and other such places,” said Gupta.

The people venturing out of their homes for cremations do not require a special permission, said the police.

“They are not stopped at the checkpoints. Our only focus is to ensure social distancing everywhere, be it in the hearse van and other vehicles accompanying the bodies. Our PCR teams are also helping move bodies and arrange for hearse vans if needed,” said Anil Mittal, Delhi Police’s additional spokesperson.

The crematorium staffers said most kin of the dead have behaved responsibly because of which social distancing has been possible during the funerals. At the Shiv Shamsham Ghat, about 10 relatives accompanying the body of an 85-year-old woman repeatedly reminded each other to stay apart.

“On another day, there would be 300 people attending my mother-in-law’s funeral. But we didn’t allow relatives from even other parts of Delhi to visit us,” said a woman, Mridula.

The last rites, which as per the Hindu customs are performed after 10 days of the death, too have witnessed a change.

Ram Singh, whose mother Chameli succumbed to tuberculosis a day after the lockdown was announced, said that he not only regrets not being able to throw a feast for his mother’s death, even the prayers and rituals 13 days later were curtailed. Upon much insistence, a priest visited his home to perform the hour-long prayers in just 10 minutes.

“We’ll ask other priests if we can hold another prayer and feast maybe a year later,” said Singh.