New Delhi: 39-year-old Pappu places three sticks on the CNG incinerator and sets it up for another Covid casualty among those already lined up. Meanwhile, he shows the severe burn scars on his elbow which he sustained while placing a body on the machine a week back.
He asks, "Kya kare sahab...sewa kar rhe hai aur aage bhi karte rahega...hum nahi krenge to kon krega?" (What to do sir...I'm doing my service and will keep doing it in the future...if we won't do it, who will?")
Pappu is among the countless workers at crematoriums and burial grounds who have been facing renewed pressure and challenges as the Covid second wave grips the capital.
Doing the job for 12 years at Nigambodh Ghat, Pappu says that everyday is a challenge as bodies keep piling up at the crematorium without end. "It's 4 PM and around 26 bodies have arrived as of now...there is a lot of pressure...sometimes the relatives are very impatient and want their kin to be cremated first...how is that possible?" he asks.
"We have to conduct everything as per rituals, I can't put two bodies into one incinerator...this has added to the pressure," he tells Millennium Post.
Father to four kids, he says, "My children tell me not to go to work, but I tell them if I won't, who will? I get a lot of unidentified bodies...we ensure that they are cremated with all rituals...our salary should be increased from 11,000 in view of the challenges we have been facing".
Raju (37), who also works at the CNG incinerator, says that after returning home, he throws off all his clothes and takes a bath before isolating himself in a separate room. "I have been working at Nigambodh since last year and the death rate this time has gone off the roof...it's almost double of what it was the last time," Raju adds.
Hailing from Kashganj in UP, he says that he doesn't fear Covid despite his challenging job. "I've gotten used to it and have been doing it for too long," he says.
Meanwhile, as has the number of casualties increased, so has the amount of wood required to burn them. Navraj (45), hailing from Nepal, who makes around 15 trips carrying his trolley of wood to and fro in half-an-hour, says that he has been doing the job for five years and has never seen such a death toll. "There is no count of how many times and the amount of wood we carry...it's unstoppable" he says. "We aren't even provided any safety gear...our job has also become challenging," Rahul, another worker, chips in.
At the ITO burial ground, JCB driver Sher Singh (37) says that after digging the soil, he alights and stands far away from the body. "Our cemetery is anyway running out of space and it is a task to accommodate so many bodies...we have to somehow manage, the pressure has increased fourfold," Singh says.
"I tell my children not to come near me as my job involves a lot of risk now,"
he adds.
25-year-old Rohit, a gravedigger, says he hasn't informed his family in Bhagalpur in Bihar about his job. "I ensure that I wear a PPE kit everytime I bury a body...but it is a task when a number of bodies come at one go," Rohit says.
At the Old Seemapuri Crematorium, Shravan Sharma (38) says that he has been doing everything from placing wood, adjusting the bodies to conducting rituals for 21 years. Working a shift from 6 am to 12 am, he says, "I feel bad while cremating so many old people, young children are losing their parents due to this virus...god knows when will this end".