Living with the dead 

I manage the jadid qabristan (new cemetery) on the Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, which is known to be the oldest and one of the largest Muslim cemetery(ies) in Delhi. I am 70, and I have been working here for 45 years, having taken over from my father, Masood Ahmed, when I was 25. The cemetery is over a hundred years old. The land here is owned by a private trust and was allotted by the British colonial authorities to the family who used to manage this place before my father took over. So, our family has been living on this property for 90 years now. Yes, our family home and the office are located here itself, which is convenient since this is a roundthe-clock job. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Delhi University, I didn’t want to take up this job. But my father’s deteriorating health and my brothers’ reluctance to manage the graveyard meant that I was pushed into this profession. First few days into the job, I was worried while signing receipts but then, gradually, over time, I got accustomed. My job here is to collect money and sign receipts from the bereaved families who come looking for a burial spot. Besides, I also manage the staff, comprising four diggers, two guards and gardeners and a waterman. We charge `1,500 for a grave and `2,500 for the burial service. When I had just started out at this job, we didn’t get more than 15-20 burial requests a day. Nowadays, there are times when there are 200-250 new burials happening. Despite the business picking up, we just manage to break even. Most of the earnings go into paying the bills, salaries and running my family. I don’t save much at the end of each calendar months. I have two sons, 25 and 24, and two girls, 22 and 21. The elder of both my boys and girls are married.

While I am in the vicinity of dead bodies at all times, I still squirm at the sight of one. It has been like this all along. So, it is mostly my staff who handles the dead whenever they are brought in. I wouldn’t say that I enjoy my profession, but, at 70, there is nothing else I could think of doing better. Neither of my sons want to follow in my footsteps and run this place, which is completely fine with me. A reason that this cemetery has survived the assault of privatisation is that it is not owned by any of the Waqf Boards. The other cemeteries in Delhi, like the one that was located where the Millennium Park now stands, was sold to the government by the Waqf Board. I have lost count of the number of graves we have in this cemetery. Sometimes, it gets difficult to locate the grave of a person whose family member may be visiting to pay their obeisance to the deceased. In many cases, we are asked to dig out graves so that a member of the same family could bury another of their loved ones. There is already shortage of space for burial in Delhi. A good thing about our cemetery is that Muslims from all sects, be it Sunni or Shia, can bury their loves ones here. We don’t discriminate at all. The same is not the case with other cemeteries in Delhi.