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Following her father's footsteps

Correspondent

GRAVE REASONS: Janjeti Chellamma, keeper of a cremation ground at Kottavalasa in Vizianagaram district. — Photo: C.V. Subrahmanyam

VIZIANAGARAM: Janjeti Challamma has made the graveyard her home for professional reasons.

The woman lives alone (her husband and son are no more) in a small hut in a corner of the graveyard that has thick vegetation all around. Panchayat officials showed her the place after she was forced to vacate from the nearby office at Kothavalasa, 36 km from here. She has been living there manning the burial ground for over five decades. "I now sleep in front of shops on the road for fear of snakes and scorpions. The hut has no power supply," she says.

Challamma is probably the first in this part of the State to take up the `kaati kaapari' job, which women in Hindu families will never dare to do.

No salary

She digs graves, arranges wood and stokes the pyre till the last bone is turned into ash.

And this is done without anticipating anything from the bereaved families. "Some kind-hearted people offer money after the last rites. The Government or the panchayat pays me nothing," she says.

Though unable to tell her exact age the grey-haired woman is able to recall the last words of her father, who died when she was in her teens, that she must continue the family legacy.

She is last of the 25 children her mother gave birth to.

She and her two brothers were around when her father was on the deathbed.

The brothers refused to step into her father's shoes and left the place. Finally the burden fell on her.

She has no clue where her brothers are now.

Being unlettered, whenever a body is brought in for cremation she informs the panchayat officials who issue a death certificate after obtaining her thumb impression.

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