PALAKKAD: A graveyard keeper’s job is not a sought-after one, especially for youngsters belonging to affluent families. More so, if highly educated. But Ramesh Korapath chose to differ. He did not have any ancestor in the profession either. Now 51, he is a postgraduate degree holder in Economics who quit his cosy job of a CRPF sub-inspector to take up cremation for a career.
For the past two-and-a-half decades, Ramesh has been performing the final rites for the dead at the Ivor Madom in Thiruvilwamala, located on the Palakkad–Thrissur border. “All work is noble, the only ignoble thing is to live without working,” Ramesh says quoting Maria Montessori, the renowned educator. His phone rings day and night, and he and his team of around 50 members are always prepared to take up the duty that not too many others would be willing to.
They either bring the body in their ambulance to Ivor Madom where the funeral pyre is lit or a team leaves for the particular house to perform the last rites.
“In my teens, some of the workers in my house used to undertake cremation at Ivor Madom. I used to go out with them, and gradually began to perform funeral rituals. By the age of 20, I had learnt the procedures as I was, in a way, interested in the profession,” he confesses.
Ramesh also has a dairy farm of native cows -- around 40 cows, and over 50 bulls and calves. “These cows are of the Vilwadhiri breed of Thiruvilwamala. Another 25 cows are there at home. The native cows have been reared at our home since the time of my ancestors. They are resistant to diseases,” he points out. He says they use the “panchagavyam” from cows while performing the final rites.
“It includes milk, dry cow dung, urine, ghee and butter milk. At least 20 litres of milk is needed daily for the rituals, and this is received from our small goshala. I don’t rear high-breed cows,” says the bachelor dressed in his customary baggy cotton shirts.
The period following the Covid outbreak was particularly trying for the team. “I used to sleep in our office in the crematorium as I feared I might end up spreading it in my family. I contracted Covid three times. Poor families couldn’t afford PPE kits, and most often, we bore the cost. Sometimes, the health department would supply the PPE kits,” Ramesh recalls.
As nobody could accompany the bodies, he and his staff doubled up as sons and relatives of the deceased.
“The crematorium has been following the Covid protocol,” says Padmaja, the Thiruvilwamala panchayat president. “The panchayat is planning to improve the infrastructure and to unify the customs and rituals observed by various private crematoriums.”
Ramesh was born to Raman Nair and Kalyanikutty. As his father had retired from the defence services, he wanted his son -- who was dabbling in journalism as a freelancer and teaching at a private college -- to join the CRPF. He says his mother had learnt about the philosophy of death, and therefore, there was not much of an opposition from within his family to his choice.