At Indiaâs Funeral Pyres, Covid Sunders the Rites of Grief
Relatives performed last rites at the Seemapuri cremation grounds in New Delhi on Thursday.Credit.
May 8, 2021Updated 5:44 a.m. ET
Mourners in protective gear, or watching from home. Long waits at the cremation grounds. The trauma of loss has become both lonely and public.
NEW DELHI â The lifeless are picked up from infected homes by exhausted volunteers, piled into ambulances by hospital workers or carried in the back of auto-rickshaws by grieving relatives.
At the cremation grounds, where the fires only briefly cool off late at night, relatives wait hours for their turn to say goodbye. The scenes are photographed, filmed, broadcast. They are beamed to relatives under lockdown across India. They are shown on news sites and newspapers around the world, putting Indiaâs personal tragedies on display to a global audience.
Balbir Singh gently places the last of the wood slabs over his 27-year-old sonâs unlit pyre. He observes it for a moment and then walks around to the other side and carefully replaces a loose slab. He looks around perplexed, as if wondering if someone will show him what to do next. âI have never had to set alight a pyre by myself before. He was supposed to light mine,â he says, trying to hold back the tears, as they roll into the mask hanging loosely over his nose. He is Covid-positive too.
Itâs 12.30pm and Balbir is at New Delhiâs Seemapuri crematorium. He spent the previous night running from hospital to hospital. His son Sagarâs oxygen saturation levels had fallen precipitously by early evening, dipping to 60, 25 points below normal. With no doctors answering calls, and the government helplines constantly busy, Balbir took matters into his own hands. Unable to get an ambulance, he relied on the generosity of an auto rickshaw driver in his neighbo
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People wait to cremate victims who died due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at a crematorium ground in New Delhi, India, April 23, 2021. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
India had once declared victory over Covid-19 but is now reeling amid an unprecedented health crisis. It has put Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in the dock, with critics saying they monumentally mismanaged the pandemic.
Bodies are lined up at India’s cremation grounds as smoke from continuously-burning funeral pyres streaks the skies of cities. Outside on the streets, patients gasp for breath as oxygen is administered by volunteers and many more queue up outside hospitals begging for admission.
May 04, 2021
Jitender Singh Shunty makes a note of cremations that his organisation has conducted in New Delhi
South China Morning Post
Suited up in blue protective gear and wearing a face shield under his bright yellow turban, Jitender Singh Shunty sprays disinfectant on bodies at the Seemapuri cremation ground in northeast Delhi.
He has to be quick as corpses are arriving faster than they can be burned. Families and friends of the deceased, who had tried to find hospital beds and oxygen to save their relatives, are thin on patience.
“We are doing everything we can to help these grieving families at least have a decent funeral of their loved ones,” he said as he hurried to attend to another ambulance which had just arrived with two bodies.