[Reader-list] Death and Bazaar: revisiting the graveyard

[marya shakil]

Dear all,

Looking forward to your critical views on our posting.

Three women presenting a sight….reminding of Macbeth’s witches…….no other 
women beggar is allowed in their domain…hailing from Bihar, Sakina has been 
living there for more than 8 years. Her job profile includes sitting on an 
old grave and waiting for a “allah ka banda” to donate her some money. For 
her the graveyard is like any other place where she can get some cash. 
Although the money is just sufficient for her “chai  paani” but she 
continues to live there despite, her family being miles away.
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A man of words, Ghulam Rasool regrets why he couldn’t make money in the 
industry in which he is. ‘Mere jagah par koi bhi rehta to crore-pati hota’. 
He is the self-appointed caretaker cum gravedigger at the Nizamuddin 
graveyard which shares a common boundary with the Lodhi road crematorium.
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Till 1947, the adjacent crematorium and the main road were a part of the 
graveyard, he claims. And the graveyard’s boundary wall is a 10 yr old 
phenomena, an MCD doing. He also has grievances against the wakf board. 
Despite the matter being subjudice, some of the claimants of the Delhi Wakf 
Board went ahead pasting names on the disputed wall. And Rasool feels such 
irresponsible and other behaviour on part of the Wakf board is ruining the 
place.

The legacy of maintenance of the graveyard was handed over to him by his 
father.
A politically cautious man, he fails to quell our enquiries into his 
officiating capacity. How does he issue a death certificate, without any 
government authorization?

Here we would like to add that the government man, whom, we had met on our 
first visit and about whom we had talked in our first posting, was missing 
and Rasool refused to talk about him.

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He lives with his family which includes a wife and seven children among the 
dead in a fairly well constructed house within the boundary of the 
graveyard. Predicament of his life heightens when he mentions that the 
meaninglessness attached to his profession puts him at a somewhat least 
bargaining position in the social hierarchy. Because of which he has failed 
to marry his daughters as he is a “kabar khodwa”
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The grave digging and making of a box like structure costs somewhere between 
Rs 3000 and 3500.But a sympathetic treatment can be won by someone who 
“cannot afford”. There are 2 people who work under him and look after the 
graves. They dig graves and cut grasses that grow over them, a paltry sum of 
Rs 150-200 per grave, depending on the ‘haisiyat’….

A project of path construction is in the pipeline as some “benevolent” 
Turkish group who had come to visit their loved one in the graveyard found 
it inconvenient to move on the somewhat non-existing path.

Their livelihood depends on the generosity of the VISITORS OF THE DEAD.

The burning of the dead in the ‘modern fashion’, (the Japanese sponsored 
electric crematorium) leaves occupants on the other side choked, adding to 
the politics of the space.

The trespassing of the fumes across the shared boundary.


thanx

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