Death Takes The Stage

Morning office-goers, schoolchildren in crisp uniforms, shopkeepers and bystanders stop to stare at a funeral procession winding through Thiruvalla, a midsize town in central Kerala, flush with expat remittances. A well-modulated voice ann­ounces over the microphone: “It’s the last journey of the dearly beloved son of this town....” He then gently informs the townsfolk, some just waking to the day, that the deceased looks so peaceful: “Looks as if he is just sleeping.” The glass-panelled hearse allows onlookers a glimpse of the body as the procession passes ever so slowly. The man at the mike loops them in with some generous sentimentality: “This son, who had loved this town so dearly, and in turn was loved, is now going away forever....” He then breaks into a funereal dirge in Malayalam: “Nearer, my God to thee....” Once the coffin is placed in the home, the announcer, Niranam Rajan, positions himself in a corner of the pandal with his team and proceeds to the second part: provoking emotion and sympathy with songs and stories till the last leg of the journey to the grave.

It is a full-package day for Niranam Rajan, 53, a well-known kathaprasangam (story-narration) artiste, now a funeral manager. He has done close to 2,000 Christian funerals and is now expanding into Hindu and Muslim last rites too. Rajan says he strayed into this profession by accident when a relative passed away. He volunteered to sing at the funeral, but his motives were questioned: for the folk art that is kathaprasangam is usually confined to festival grounds, marketplaces, street corners and town and village squares; people haven’t thought it befitting a solemn occasion such as a funeral.

But when Rajan picked the microphone and rendered some soulful funeral songs, and then used story-telling devices from kathaprasangam, the audience was moved to tears. “When I entered this field, kathaprasangam was facing an existential crisis. It was a matter of survival, and the funeral event just clicked.” Since then, he has been called over and over again to manage funerals. Rajan’s full package costs Rs 50,000: it includes a custom-made hearse with glass panels, an audio system, singing of mournful songs, a band to lead the procession.

Till a few decades ago, breast-beating and loud wailing were characteristic of Christian mourners at funerals. But that has long  disappeared, and instead, the wake is now directed by professional event management companies who orchestrate the sorrow, the prayers, the condolence messages. It seems to work well for a large section of non- resident Keralites—away in the Gulf countries chiefly, or in the UK or US—who rush home only when a loved one passes away. The sons or daughters, having lived abroad for some years, have no clue where to get the coffin, the chairs, the flowers and the rest for the funeral. And to make matters worse, they also have no idea about church rituals or government formalities, like registering a death.

Says Raju Kannampuzha, MD of Executive Events, “We ventured into funeral services in 2014 when I was asked by a friend who was in the Gulf to help out when his father suddenly died. We took over and did everything...right from informing relatives to taking care of hospital paperwork and government formalities. By the time my friend arrived, everything was arranged. Unlike weddings or conferences, we are fighting with time here. We have to move fast.” His firm has a dedicated funeral package branded ‘It’s My Day’. He says there are always a few special requests: one family wanted only white flowers at the funeral, another wanted a particular brand of coffee to be served.

It’s in central Kerala, where towns like Thiruvalla are home to many nris, largely Christian, that demand for funeral event managers is on the rise. Rajan’s fee is modest compared to the bigger firms, which charge anything from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 10 lakh for a funeral.  There is a plethora of items to choose from: there are imported coffins (euphemistically called swargapetti, or heavenly box) from China for as much as Rs 2 lakh; there are coffins which play music; flowers may be brought from Bangalore, or anywhere else, for that matter; there’s a whole range of catering services and menus at different prices, with waiters and security guards in your choice of uniform; there’s a choice of convoys of black or white cars. Nothing needs to be left to chance. Says Sanjay Mathew, who runs Coconadu Events in Thiruvalla, “Funerals here have become westernised—like how undertakers do it abroad. Most of our clients are from the US and the UK, so they insist on certain events and practices commonly prevalent there. We offer a host of services, including live streaming of the event for relatives who cannot make it to the funeral. We also use drones fitted with cameras to take overhead shots.”

What was once a community event at which church members and neighbours pitched in to help cook for guests sees very little community support these days. Rev George Mathew, 56, vicar of the  Jerusalem Mar Thoma Church, Kottayam, recalls how 50 years ago, it was the responsibility of the church prayer-groups to take over the funeral when someone died. They would get the carpenter to make the coffin because  readymade coffins were not available then. Everyone would sing and pray at the wake. And the neighbours would make a simple meal of gruel and payar (green-gram) for the guests, because there would be no cooking in the house of the dead.

That may be a bit too spartan perhaps, but what is bizarre is the scale at which the funerals of today are being done. It sometimes borders on the ludicrous. Priests and bishops seem to have adj­usted to the social changes. “Sometimes we have to send a fancy car for the bishops and have to shell out money for his entourage. Even politicians can be booked for a fee,” says an event manager. Another says one family insisted he keeps the body of their aged parent in the mortuary for a week. He says, “We thought this was because there were people yet to arrive. It turned out they were waiting for colour-coordinated sarees, blouses and dresses to be organised for the event.”

People seem to have accepted that it is only close relatives who feel the pain; for the rest, funerals have become a social event. Says Father John Kavalakatt, a Syro-Malabar vicar in Karur, perhaps the last of his kind, who leads a simple and rigorous life, “Funerals have become a celebration. People decorate their home, the coffin and the church with an avalanche of flowers. It is deplorable that even the way they cry is a form of exhibitionism. One might as well outsource grief—hire actors to cry for funerals, that would at least make for good watching,” he says. There are at least some like Kavalakatt, who think of the effects such ostentation can have on the well-being of a society. In a market-diven, consumerist culture, human relations get commo­dified, lose value and depth. Perhaps it is time for a radical change; time to heed Jesus’ words: “Let the dead bury their own dead.”

By Minu Ittyipe in Thiruvalla