Date:03/04/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/04/03/stories/2008040359330300.htm

Andhra Pradesh

They guard the dead

Staff Reporter

The ‘katikaparis’ are living in dire straits as they are not paid salaries at some of the burial grounds

R. Ramesh and R. Veerubabu, heriditary caretakers of Akkayyapalem burial ground

VISAKHAPATNAM: In this materialistic world where even relatives and friends neither have the inclination nor the time to wait till the pyre is fully burnt, the ‘katikapari’ or ‘barikodu’ (caretakers) stand guard till the end. All that they get is peanuts for all their hard work and sometimes are pestered by relatives of the dead.

Twenty-year-old Raavada Ramesh had studied till 6th class. His father – Appanna – was a ‘kaatikapari’, who later became a ‘Thalayari’ in the Revenue Department. Ramesh has been assisting his father at the burial ground from a tender age. He took to full time work at the Akkayyapalem burial ground after the death of his father a few years ago. The caretakers hang around the burial grounds all through the day waiting for the arrival of bodies. Sometimes the wait proves futile as no one turns up for days on end.

“Sometimes people come with bodies and insist on burying them. Though we tell them that it is not possible to do so as the bodies buried earlier were still fresh, they do not listen and insist on our digging the graves. Recently, a body was dug up before it was fully decomposed and had to be buried again.”

“We have been doing this work for generations and can tell whether the body has fully decomposed or otherwise by just feeling the surface soil. Sometimes we have to go without work for days on end. I am planning to switch over to some other job,” he says. His elder brother R. Veerubabu has become a ‘Thalayari’ in the MR Office at Seethammadhara following the death of his father. Veerubabu hasn’t given up the traditional family occupation and goes to the burial ground at Akkayyapalem whenever he finds time. “The place is very small and residential houses have sprung up all around,” he says.

The ‘katikaparis’ are living in dire straits as they are not paid salaries like the workers employed by the municipal corporation at some of the burial grounds.

But, who cares for the undertakers?