Widow conducts funerals of dead in crematorium in MP town for 20 years
International Women’s Day | Widow conducts funerals of dead in crematorium in MP town for 20 years, as social service, shudders when she recalls human tragedies during corona period
Mandsaur (Madhya Pradesh), Mar 7: Death of her two sons in a gap of barely one year had devastated her and the unprecedented scale of human tragedies, witnessed during the corona period, made her a ‘zinda bhoot’ (live ghost).
Fifty-eight- year-old Nirmal Devi, the ‘Mukti Dham Sevak’ in the city crematorium in district headquarters of Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh, is no longer moved by the sight of the grieving families carrying their dead members to the crematorium for the last rites.
“I burn the bodies in the crematorium mechanically without any emotions or feelings. I feel a soul is liberated when the last rite of a body is performed”, Nirmala who lost her two sons, in their 30s, during the corona period, told this newspaper on Friday.
Nirmal shudders when she recounts the sights of unending rows of hearsays standing along the crematorium to unload the bodies for their funerals during the corona period.
“At that time, my mobile phone used to ring almost the whole night to inform me in advance of the arrival of bodies from different places inside and outside Madhya Pradesh to the crematorium and that I needed to arrange for their funerals”, she recalled.
Nirmal and a ‘lakdi wala’ (a man in-charge of arranging logs for funerals) used to burn the bodies in the crematorium during the period.
She narrated how the bodies were carried by hospital employees and often barely accompanied by any family member.
People often asked her during the pandemic if the deaths did not scare her.
“I have become a ‘zinda bhoot’. How can death scare me”, she used to reply to them.
Nirmal lost her two sons during the corona period. But the human tragedies she had witnessed during the corona period had hardened her heart so much that her own loss in terms of death of her sons could hardly move her at the time.
She felt the pain of loss when the Covid-19 pandemic started receding and deaths due to Covid-19 started declining.
Loss of her two sons then devastated her, but Nirmala recovered from the shock very quickly since she realized that she had to shoulder the responsibility of their widows and children.
Nirmla lost her husband two decades ago and used to do some small jobs to bring up her two sons.
She had decided to do social service after the death of her husband by doing funerals of the bodies in the crematorium.
Nirmal has so far conducted funerals of over 15,000 bodies in the crematorium.