Women lend a hand in overwhelmed crematoriums | Economic Times

GANDHINAGAR: As the sun descends in the west, 55-year-old Gauriben Purabia wipes the sweat off her forehead. Gauriben, who is one of the many women who work in a crematorium in Gandhinagar in Gujarat, wipes the floor using water that’s mixed with sanitiser – the tiles must stay sparkling clean at all times.A few meters away, her daughter Ambika and her husband Prakash prepare a body wrapped in a plastic bag for the CNG furnace to devour – another victim of Covid-19. A little further away, her son Vikram lords over the fire to ensure nothing is left behind. Vikram’s wife Bhavna, meanwhile, cleans up another furnace.The torrent of death that the second wave of Covid-19 in India has brought with it has numbed these women.“It’s become like a stone inside,” said Bhavna Purabia, in her late 20s and a mother of three.The women in this Gandhinagar crematorium have been as busy as their male counterparts cremating the dead since the onset of this Covid-19 wave, sharing all tasks.“When we started working here back in 2009, we were assigned tasks like keeping the place clean, assisting the gardener and so on. But now, everyone is doing what needs to be done first,” Bhavna told ET. “From arranging logs on a pyre to cleaning them, cooling the furnaces down, we do it all. After all, this is our job.”The crematorium management has added more open furnaces to handle the additional rush.“As of now, we can manage 18 bodies at one go,” said Jilubha Dhandhal, the manager of the crematorium.On an average, about 60 bodies are cremated here daily, with about 90% of them brought in body bags since the devastating second wave started, Dhandhal said.“Normally, It’s six to seven cremations a day – 10 at the most,” he added.The nine women who work in the crematorium were recruited with their husbands. The crematorium management provided them quarters and arranged to send their children to school.“When we started out back in 2009, not too many people wanted to join and so we decided to employ families and here they are,” Dhandhal said.However, after the tsunami of the pandemic, everyone’s job description has changed drastically.“The hierarchy makes little sense now and all hands are on deck,” said Apeksha, who initially used to tend the garden and now assists in the office, having studied up to class 12. “The supervisor himself is burning bodies. The women who were supposed to keep the campus clean are arranging logs, setting up piers, collecting the asthi and cleaning them up. We have to stand up to the situation and without hesitation.”The crematorium workers are aware of the risk of catching the dreaded disease themselves but are undaunted.“We have been working here for the past 12 years, but now the pressure has increased manifold,” said Bhavna, who has just finished cooling an open furnace with water. “We are not scared. We have been unscathed so far and someone up there will protect us in the future too.”The only caution the families exercise is to keep their children away from the crematorium area.“Earlier, they used to come around this side and play, but now we have asked them to stay indoors,” Bhavna said with a smile on her face. Her eldest son, is in class eight, dreams about joining the army someday.Two more ambulances pull in bringing more bodies. The team sets out to carry out its tasks. Once again.