Post by Tomspy77 on Jan 24, 2016 5:31:55 GMT -6
For crematorium staffer, the fear is of snakes and drunks, not ghosts
IT’S a chilly Wednesday night in Mumbai, and a fog has settled on the crematorium. The vast Worli Shamshan Bhoomi, housing a crematorium as well as cemetery, is cloaked in darkness but for the incandescent street lamps throwing long shadows at the entrance. It’s spooky, but does not scare Pappu Kamble, 38, who works the night shift at this central Mumbai crematorium. He’s not afraid of ghosts, given he’s never seen one.
What does unnerve him, though, are snakes, “big ones, several of them” that sometimes slither out of holes at night. For Rs 3,000 a month, Kamble’s job is to provide firewood for the funeral pyre and to make arrangements whenever the dead are brought for cremation at night, not a customary practice but not rare either. His is a 11 pm to 7 am job, one Kamble has been doing for 22 years now. Before him, his father Shreebhau Kamble held the same position, as did his grandfather. Early in their marriage, Kamble’s wife coaxed him to look for other employment, but the Std IX dropout knew only how to cut and stack wood. “I never applied anywhere else,” he says.
Source: indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/night-shift-for-crematorium-staffer-the-fear-is-of-snakes-and-drunks-not-ghosts/
What does unnerve him, though, are snakes, “big ones, several of them” that sometimes slither out of holes at night. For Rs 3,000 a month, Kamble’s job is to provide firewood for the funeral pyre and to make arrangements whenever the dead are brought for cremation at night, not a customary practice but not rare either. His is a 11 pm to 7 am job, one Kamble has been doing for 22 years now. Before him, his father Shreebhau Kamble held the same position, as did his grandfather. Early in their marriage, Kamble’s wife coaxed him to look for other employment, but the Std IX dropout knew only how to cut and stack wood. “I never applied anywhere else,” he says.
Source: indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/night-shift-for-crematorium-staffer-the-fear-is-of-snakes-and-drunks-not-ghosts/