Khaki, The Earth Colour

Trigger Why we are doing this story

• The police have done a better job of earning infamy. Last week, Mohali DSP Raka Gira was arrested by CBI taking a Rs 1 lakh bribe.

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It all began in 1993 when Ramana, now 47, a rookie constable, was posted in Porumamilla in Kadapa district. “I was off duty but present at the police station that night for some reason,” recollects Ramana. The village head came in to report that an old beggar woman’s body was lying in a stream in a nearby hamlet. “When my head constable asked me to accompany him to the body, I cursed my luck and told him I will come along if he gave me leave the next day. My boss agreed and I followed. We reached the spot and saw that the body was already semi-decomposed. I just couldn’t leave her like that. I asked my boss’s permission to bury the body after a small prayer.”

After the burial that night, Ramana went home with a heavy heart. “I wondered how the woman’s life must have been. Her childhood, her dreams, hopes, and her tragic end. But as I slept, I felt a strange peace descend upon me. It was as if I had carried out God’s will.” A few months later, a beggar was killed in a hit-and-run accident. This time Ramana garlanded the body and arranged for a few more rituals at the funeral. A few months later, when Ramana was transferred to the Kadapa traffic police wing, he came across the death of an unidentified person—a sadhu who had died at a bus station—and performed his funeral too. “Slowly I realised that performing funerals for these homeless persons gave me a sort of direction in life. It became my mission to ensure that these human beings—forlorn and deserted in life—were given respectable farewells,” says Ramana. Early on, his parents had instilled in him a spirit of social service. They were poor farmers but would never let anyone who came to their house asking for food go hungry, even if they had to skip a meal themselves.

These days, some friends and colleagues help Ramana with the funerals. Unidentified bodies aren’t the only ones they take care of. People who die of AIDS or leprosy, and whom even family members shun, are also cremated by Ramana. “I am the first person people think of when they spot an unidentified body or a dead beggar,” he says. Ramana’s friend B. Nagaraju remembers a touching incident a few years ago. A middle-aged man from a nearby village had committed suicide on the rail tracks of Kadapa town. When the body was taken for post-mortem, they found a letter in his pocket. It said he was taking his own life due to financial woes, and that he wanted his last rites to be performed by Ramana. “So, he tracked down the man’s family and fulfilled the dead man’s wishes by organising his funeral,” says Nagaraju. When Ramana is busy at work, or out of town, his son Yashwant, an engineer, performs the social duties. Initially, Yashwant resented the time and money his father spent on social work. But a visit to an orphanage with his father changed all that. “I saw the difficult lives the kids were leading...now I help my father in organising food and clothes for these children,” he says.

Ramana spends Rs 800-1,000 out of his pocket on every funeral. “When I don’t have money to spend, I borrow and return it as soon as I can,” he says. As head constable with over 15 years in the police force, Ramana earns Rs 27,000 a month. The family lives in a rented house, at Rs 4,000 a month. “I am hoping that one day we will be able to build our own house because all his colleagues have done so. I am tired of living in rented houses,” says Sujata, Ramana’s wife. But that may have to wait. Ramana recently sold some agricultural land he inherited from his parents for Rs 15 lakh. “I wanted to build a house for myself but then thought, if I were to build an old age home for the poor, it would form a shelter for so many. Needless to say, my wife was not too pleased about this but she understands,” he smiles. He has bought a 4-acre plot and is confident of raising the funds needed to build his cherished home. He plans to name it Tapovanam.

Meanwhile, Ramana’s work for orphanages has gathered pace. He has set up 12 collection boxes in Kadapa town where people are urged to deposit bread, biscuits, fruit and chocolates, or any other non-perishable goodies for kids. Money is not solicited. These are then collected around 5 pm every day and distributed to about 200 children in the town’s orphanages. At times, Ramana himself goes to distribute the food; at other times, his friends and colleagues help out. As a gaggle of small, shiny-eyed girls run out of an orphanage to greet Ramana, he turns back and asks, “Can anything else give you more joy than this?”

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Also Bhopal April 18, 2011

• It was 2 am, and the Mumbai-Delhi Rajdhani Express hurtled down the tracks, its passengers sunk in sleep, unaware of the spark of fire in a bogie. The first to notice the fire was pantry worker Pawan Kumar, who first pulled the chain to stop the train, then ensured all 150 passengers of the burning bogies were safe. He then fought the flames with a fire-extinguisher himself.