Death knows no religion, and this Muslim woman cremator’s hands are full
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Hindu tradition has long resisted the presence of women at funerals. Then what if the funeral director is a Muslim woman? At a time when Covid is taking a toll on people in the state, 29-year-old Subina Rahman, arguably the first woman cremator from the Muslim community, is cremating bodies at an electric crematorium run by the SNBS Samajam, an Ezhava community organisation, at Irinjalakuda in Thrissur. She has been overseeing the funeral rites of Hindus and Christians, although Muslim community is yet to come to terms with the practice of cremation.
When the TNIE team met her at the crematorium behind Christ College, the place was a hive of activity with ambulances carrying corpses queuing up. “An average of two bodies used to come in pre-Covid period. But now I cremate seven to eight every day. It takes around two hours to cremate a body and clear the ashes. Since the second wave hit, I have been taken aback by the flow of Covid patients’ bodies.
I have been working at this crematorium for two-and-a-half years and I have never had to cremate bodies beyond its capacity. But in the past few weeks, we have often postponed cremations to next day. I took up the vocation out of sheer passion. But now this has become a challenging job, as I have to spend around 14 hours a day here,” she says.
Though she was given a job of office staffer in the crematorium initially, she used to attend the funeral rites and assist the cremator. Later, when the post of cremator became vacant, Subina, mother of an eight-year-old boy and commerce graduate, took up the job. Her unusual career choice surprised many, but her family — especially her husband — has been supportive. She admits without hesitation that she took up the job not to become an example of women empowerment, but only to earn money to run her house.