Mahadeva will ensure you rest in peace

Mahadeva, a resident of Bangalore, has been burying the dead for the past 40 years, but instead of being bogged down by the morbid job, he believes he's blessed. For 40 years, Mahadeva has given a dignified exit to at least 75,000 dead people, most of them unclaimed. "This is the only work I know. No one cares about these bodies and they would rot somewhere. So I feel it's like a duty of mine to give them a proper burial, make them feel happy, at least in their after life," said Mahadeva. He has also cremated some high-profile people like Sivarasan, one of those responsible for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. His work has thankfully not gone unnoticed. Bangalore police works with him and calls him whenever there is a case of an unclaimed dead body.
HTML5 Developer? Open source backend as a service   REST API for mobile applications www.dreamfactory.com Ads by Google Bangalore: Mahadeva, a resident of Bangalore, has been burying the dead for the past 40 years, but instead of being bogged down by the morbid job, he believes he's blessed. For 40 years, Mahadeva has given a dignified exit to at least 75,000 dead people, most of them unclaimed. "This is the only work I know. No one cares about these bodies and they would rot somewhere. So I feel it's like a duty of mine to give them a proper burial, make them feel happy, at least in their after life," said Mahadeva. He has also cremated some high-profile people like Sivarasan, one of those responsible for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. His work has thankfully not gone unnoticed. Bangalore police works with him and calls him whenever there is a case of an unclaimed dead body. "He is doing a very good job; nobody touches or bothers about an unclaimed dead body. We do believe in rituals, the belief is that if you are not buried properly the Aatma will not rest in peace, so in that way this man is doing a great job," said Sunil Kumar, Additional Commissioner, Law and Order, Bangalore. Mahadeva's biggest problem now is the lack of burial space in Bangalore. "There are few burial grounds in Bangalore; all are being encroached for shopping malls and residential areas. I request the government to spare some land for the burial of unclaimed dead bodies otherwise I'll have no place to bury them," said Mahadeva. Even though his is largely a thankless job, the countless blessings of those unnamed souls inspire Mahadeva to continue.

For Mahadeva, the burial ground is his karmabhoomi. He is comfortable there, it is his workstation. But he is equally at ease with the accolades and fame that have come his way. These include a couple of movies on him, innumerable articles and felicitation by chief ministers. Still, once the medals and citations are rolled up in a gunnysack and chucked into the attic, Mahadeva is back to doing what he does best: burying those whom nobody wants. How did he embark on this rather terminal journey?

"I am from Anchipura village, 30 kilometers from Nanjangud in Mysore district," Mahadeva says, squatting by a dead body and sipping tea. "I was eight years old when I brought my ailing mother to Bangalore in 1969, after the doctors in Mysore suggested that she be taken to a better hospital. In Bangalore, we used to sleep on the veranda of a ward. I would beg the street-side vendors and fruit sellers and coax them to give me some food. I was young and happy and spent my time playing outside as my mother lay dying. When she finally passed away, I was in the dark about it for three days."

Mahadeva pauses. Perhaps, he is recalling those images from the past. "My grandfather was an undertaker. It was he who took my mother's body to the mortuary. But the fact is that my mother's death did not affect me. I stayed with my grandfather, and I would see him going about burying the dead. Though my grandfather spoke Telugu and I spoke Kannada, we understood each other very well." Mahadeva puts the cup down and gazes at the corpse at his feet nonchalantly.

He resumes. "Suddenly, one day, my grandfather took ill. This was in 1971. Without a second thought, I took charge and buried an unclaimed body. I earned Rs 2.50, which was a fair amount then. And I realised burying the dead was my vocation."

For Mahadeva, the burial ground is one home. The other being the mortuary at Victoria Hospital. His family, however, stays in a rented place about 10 km away from the burial ground.

Mahadeva's job has thrown an occasional spanner in his life-works. He had, for instance, a tough time getting a wife. Not many wanted an undertaker for a son-in-law. In 1979, in a unique case of desperate corruption, Mahadeva paid his prospective father-in law Rs 2,000 in bride price after he initially refused to give him his daughter's hand.

At first, Mahadeva used to take the unclaimed bodies on a mobile-stretcher to the burial ground. In 1979, the year he got married, he bought a horse and started using a horse carriage for transporting the dead to their final destination.