Muslim men at the forefront of arranging funerals of Covid victims in Bhavnagar

andhinagar: Savita Dodhiya died of Corona in Bhavnagar on Wednesday. Her family was in no position to arrange for her funeral. Her brother was in Mahuva a hundred kilometres away from Bhavnagar.

But nothing stopped her from getting a funeral, all complete with the necessary rituals of her religion. In death, she found a brother, who did the necessary: Arif Kalvaa, a hotelier and social worker.

After his father Abdul Karim’s death, Imdad Sheikh was clueless. He had no idea on how to arrange for the funeral of the man, who was the first casualty of Corona in Bhavnagar.

Karim had contracted the virus from Tablighi Markaz in Delhi and had informed the authorities accordingly.With fear and confusion galore, Sheikh, a businessman dialled Arif Kalvaa.

Karim was buried with all the dignity that he deserved. Sheikh now has joined Kalvaa’s team in ensuring the funerals of other victims of the deadly virus across religious lines.

“People are scared and more often than not, refuse to even touch the bodies of their dead kin,” says Kalvaa, who had started helping the poor and the needy with ration kits as the lockdown was announced and moved on to arrange the funerals as the body count grew. Out of 13 deaths in Bhavnagar districts so far, Kalvaa has ensured funeral for 10, cutting across religious lines.

“There are more than one crematoriums in Bhavnagar, but people are not comfortable in letting the cremation of Covid positive patients happen in most of them,” says Ashok Trivedi, a lawyer and President of the trust that runs Kumbharwada crematorium in Bhavnagar. “Often, people are so scared that they wouldn’t even touch their dead and that is when Arifbhai who stepped in. He got in touch with us and we opened the doors of our crematorium for the Covid victims. Now he and his team brings the bodies of Hindu victims here and we take care of them with full dignity,” he adds.

“You will hear a lot of war cries in the name of religion otherwise, but when the time to show humanity came, it is a Muslim guy who is now accompanying every dead to their final journey. No, we have not seen any Hindu outfit coming over to do this job so far,” says Arvind Parmar, a municipal councillor and a trusty of the crematorium.

Kalvaa however brushes all these aside. “This is the time to build the bridges, not to burn them,” he says. “It hurts to see dead bodies being dumped in garbage vans or being pulled by hooks in other states. This is not the India that we want to show to the world. In their final journey, everyone deserves their share of dignity,” he adds.

“Our funeral ritual entails the brother giving a Chundari (stole) over the dead sister, but we couldn’t do that for our sister Savita when she died. In fact there wasn’t anyone to take her to crematorium,” says Mahesh Chauhan, brother of Savita Dodhiya. It was Arifbhai who did everything including the job of the brother. How do we ever repay him?” he asks.

“You do somethings simply because they have to be done. There is no religion, no other consideration that come in the way in such situation and here is one such. We are doing what we are because this is what needs to be done. Let the dead have their dignity,” Kalvaa adds