Bhavani’s relatives felt embarrassed at her financial position and backed off.
Bhavani(the deceased), a 52 year old woman died due to cardiac arrest on Saturday in Janavasathi Colony in Puttur taluk’s Vidyapura, Karnataka. A group of young neighbours pooled in money and gathered a sum of Rs.5,000 to arrange the transportation to move the body to the cremation ground. They were accompanied by the Anganwadi teacher and few women’s. The reason being that she was a beedi worker.
The residents informed that her family members did not come forward to perform her final rites, even they didn’t take the consideration of the plea by Krishna, her cousin with whom she was residing with for almost a year. Krishna had informed her parental cousins and few other relatives who lived a few kilometres away but they denied to come forward. Krishna and her relatives were economically poor and the family members who denied to come felt embarrassed of her financial position being a beedi worker. Krishna said, “She wsn’t married, she had been living along with us for over a year. We all knew they were not in talking terms with her, but we exactly don’t know the reason behind that.” Bhavani had been working in a private company as a beedi worker for about 45 years and Krishna was a coolie. None of the 160 families participated in the ceremony helped them.
Krishna waited till 01.30pm and none of the relatives came forward to help him, being a coolie he didn’t have the required amount for the transportation purpose. Shaukath, Hamza, Nazeer, Riyaz, and Farooq came to know about the helplessness of the situation which Krishna was facing and decided to help him. They gathered a sum of Rs.5,000 and gathered few ladies including an Angawadi teacher, Rajashewari and few locals Safia, Zubaida and few other women who gave bath to the deceased’s body. Then, the body was ferried to the cremation ground for cremation process in an ambulance. The body was cremated following the Hindu rituals respectively.
Farooq said, “We didn’t do this for publicity, we came forward to help. We wanted to send a message that the dead should not be denied the last rites. We’ve earlier heard of such incidents from northern part of India, it would have been very sad if we had let such a thing happen in our own locality. Irrespective of what differences the relatives had with Bhavani, they should’ve seen her off one last time. It is their loss”.
Sankirtha S
Photo Courtesy : Google/ images are subject to copyright
