“I have been digging graves morning to night… the work never ends”

Munna, a grave digger in Tarinpur, in Sitapur district, Uttar Pradesh, says he has been digging graves for the past thirty years but has never seen this number of dead in such a short span of time.

Mohit Shukla
| Updated: May 20th, 2021

Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh

On the blistering hot day, Munna stopped his back-breaking work for a while to rest under the neem tree. “The work never stops,” the exhausted gravedigger told Gaon Connection.

“Ever since COVID, I have been digging graves almost non stop. There are days when I have dug ten graves in a row,” he said.

“I want to give it all up, but I can’t refuse the relatives of the dead who beg me to dig a grave. Morning to night, it is all I do these days. How many more…” the 54-year-old sighed.

Also Read: Graves by the Ganga: a surge of COVID deaths and moneyless families burying, not cremating their kin

“There are days when I have dug ten graves in a row,” said Munna.

Munna has been a grave digger for over 30 years, at the cemetery in Tarinpur mohalla in Sitapur that has been there since colonial times. Before him, his family did the same job for three generations, he said. He lives nearby, next to a dargah.

“I wake up at five in the morning, do my namaaz and after a simple meal, I leave for work,” said Munna who has a family of five and lives in Tarinpur in Sitapur district, Uttar Pradesh. A daughter is studying law, a son runs a provision store while his youngest, is nine years and is in school.

“I have been digging graves for thirty years and have never seen this number of dead in such a short span of time,” Munna told Gaon Connection. “Even after spending hours digging graves all day, there are still more graves to be dug,” he said.

Munna has a family of five and lives in Tarinpur in Sitapur district, Uttar Pradesh.

Before the second wave of the pandemic hit, according to Munna, he would prepare just a grave or two per day or every other day. But, these days, he has lost count. “Earlier I might have taken home not more than two hundred to five hundred rupees home. Now because of the increase in the number of graves I dig a day, I take home up to two thousand rupees sometimes, but that does not make it better. I am exhausted all the time,” Munna said.

Also Read: “We cremated 140 bodies of those who died of COVID 19 in the past one month”

After he digs the grave and the body is lowered into it, he has to then cover the grave, which takes at least another half an hour, he said. Since the second wave of COVID19, the gravediggers have had to travel to other villages and towns too, to dig graves.

Munna has been a grave digger for over 30 years.

When Gaon Connection asked Munna if he was not worried about spending so much time in the proximity of COVID19 victims,  that too without the protection of a PPE suit, he smiled. “We get thousand rupees to dig one grave. We are usually five of us digging that grave and we share that money. We cannot afford the PPE kits that cost up to six hundred rupees each. We wear our masks and leave the rest to Allah,” Munna said. “Our families have also left everything to Him. His will be done,” he said.

Also Read: Versha Verma helps perform the last rites of 10-12 COVID victims every day. The calls for help are increasing

There are days when they work hungry for the most part. Munna said, “Shops are shut because of the lockdown, so we can’t buy anything to eat. And we certainly can’t demand food from a home where there has been a bereavement. We wait till we get back home and only then feed our hunger,” he said.

Written and edited by Pankaja Srinivasan.