Hyderabad: Trying to avoid a watery grave

Hyderabad: Rain made it a tough night for Hyderabadis but it was toughest for me as it made the last rites of my aunt (chachi) an ordeal. The biggest challenge was to get her a decent burial ground.

Pounding rain had flooded the city’s low-lying areas. Burial grounds here were water-logged and thus out of bounds.

Searching for a ground became tedious as one after another ground-keepers said it would be difficult due to accumulated water from the heavy downpour. Her Bora-banda locality was also flooded by the time we located a site in Habeeb Fatima Nagar, helped by elders and local leaders who identified a particular burial ground used only during emergencies.

Labourers helped us drain the water from the open grave and cover it with an iron sheet so that it did not fill up again while we carried the body to the graveyard from my uncle’s house for last rites. When my aunt’s last journey began, after prayers at the Masjid-e-Meraj at Borabanda around 8.30 pm, the rain eased but picked up when we reached the graveyard. Water had filled the grave despite our precaution and also some of the grave’s mud sank due to the downpour.

With great difficulty we found sandbags to cover the water. Only then could we bid a final farewell to my aunt.

The heavy rain left my cousins, friends and I with a terrible experience in laying my aunt to rest after her 75-year-journey.