The life of a gravedigger: He buried the dead during Covid-19. Could he bury the grief too?

On an October evening, Bloc 8 of the Rayerbazar graveyard was quiet, peaceful even. The man who dug the 1,445 graves (or monitored the burial process) on the block was walking down one of the aisles, pointing at each of the graves as he passed them while he spoke.

He came to a stop at an open grave. Turned back and said, "see here now, this is a grave prepared in advance for a Covid-19 victim. We only have one now, but during the first wave, there were 10 to 15 open graves like this one."

Mohammad Golam Rabanni is in charge of a 27-person gravedigger team at the country's largest graveyard. Wearing a checkered pair of pyjamas, a shirt and a prayer cap, Golam pointed at the far opposite end from the open grave in Bloc 8 and said, "you see there, one of my sons will come running to me at any minute now from his madrasa lessons."

The graveyard that sits on a 96.5-acre land has three gates (two of which are usually kept locked). There is a mosque close by and a madrasa school adjacent to the mosque.

The world may have moved on, attested by the bustling markets and loud road traffic, but inside this graveyard lies, possibly, the country's largest singular reminder of the ultimate havoc left behind by the virus.

On April 30, 2020, the North City Corporation designated the Rayerbazar graveyard as the official Covid-19 burial site. Prior to this, 192 Covid-19 victims were buried at the Khilgaon graveyard.

Although many of the families in Dhaka opted to bury their loved ones in their respective hometowns across the country, the now quiet Bloc 8 alone houses nearly 1,500 people who perished to the virus in Dhaka over the last 18 months.

Perhaps it is a humbling reminder of the devastation after all. And Golam remembers it all too well.

"The sound of the ambulance 'whistle' [siren] brought this whole area down to its knees in terror. Of course, we were scared too, but quickly realised it was, in fact, heading to us."

Golam and his team knew they had to stand their ground and work through their fear. "We had to do it, simply because it was our job," he said.

Golam was speaking of the first couple of weeks of their new assignment. The caution and the heavy-handed cruelties of the virus took a toll on his nerves.

"It took us a good 7-10 days to rid ourselves of the fear of Covid-19," Golam remembered, "because we understood by then that if infected, the symptoms will show within a week, or worse, the body will deteriorate fast to death."

"And by the grace of the Almighty," he continued, "not a single person on my team fell sick in the last 18 months."

The city corporation provided the staff with PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), safety measures like sprays and hand sanitisers that came with strict instructions in advance to April 30, according to Golam's boss, Abdul Aziz, Senior Mohrar (official) at the graveyard. 

Along with his uncle, Liyakat Sarkar (who also works at the same graveyard), Golam remembered lowering the very first bodies of the Covid-19 victims to their graves in Rayerbazar. "The heat was unimaginable. Have you ever worn a PPE, those white suits?" he asked. "I felt as though I was completely toasted," said the gravedigger.

Within the first week, the city corporation arranged a small excavator to expedite the burial process. "Digging a grave properly takes about four hours in time," Golam explained, "which we simply did not have to accommodate the onslaught of the bodies."

The highest record of Covid-19 victims buried at the graveyard on a single day is 14 to date.

On top of everything, because of the contagion factor of the virus, the higher management's directive was that the staff work thoroughly and quickly so that families (wearing the PPE) do not have to wait long.

During the first wave, there were several cases when the deceased's family was not able to come in to pay their last respect before the burial, according to Golam.

"We stood in for the families who could not come," said Golam. He also proudly claimed, thanking the Almighty, that there had not been any errors in their service in the last 18 months. "All the graves are marked properly and accounted for," said Golam, now sitting in mohrar's office across from his boss.

One of Abdul Aziz's job duties is to maintain a record of the burials, based on the death certificate and identification document that come with the body. According to their records, the majority of the Covid-19 victims was above the age of 60, with the youngest victims belonging to the 25-40 age group and estimated to be nearly 100 in number.

"Moreover, you need to take into consideration that the number of non-Covid burials has been 2-3 times more than that of Covid-19 burials," said Abdul. This gravedigger team had been very busy.

"After every burial, I hold up my hands for monajat (a special prayer for the dead)," said Golam, who has been working on the same job site for almost five and a half years now.

"I do not cry as much as before, but there is still much emotion that I feel for the families," said Golam, adding, "There were times I didn't even know of my tears until I touched my face. I think of my own parents, my father, and cry with the families who come here to bury their loved ones."

Golam lost his father over a decade ago. While his mother lives in Rampura with his siblings, his wife and three sons live in a home, 2 minutes away, on foot, from the graveyard.

"While my team members work in 8-9 hour shifts, I come here and stay from 6 am to 11 pm daily," said Golam.

He is working at the graveyard on a private contract under the city corporation. The job comes with no fixed salary. "I look after about 20 graves, when the loved ones come to pay their respect, they pay me tokens of appreciation amounting to Tk.200 or 300," he said. "Enough to run my family," he added.

Son of a pandemic paranoid mother, the 47-year-old gravedigger never misses his mother's phone call. "Even now, every single day, my mother will call and ask how many Covid-19 burials there have been and remind me again of the safety measures I should be taking," said Golam with a chuckle, "like I do not already know."

In Golam's home, although he tried in the beginning to maintain distance from his children and wife, especially his youngest five-year-old, it was not possible for the family to follow through.

"I continue to take all measures even now and keep praying to God that whatever happens, do not let my family get infected," said Golam. "And my wife was not that scared of the virus from the start," he added.

The mother of three, Afrin Begum remembers how her family told her to take all safety precautions, "and we do, from the hot shower when he (Golam) comes home to hand sanitisers," Afrin added.

"And I remember what everyone tells me 'The work of a gravedigger, the work of taking care of graves, is a noble one,' and I believe them," she said.

So where do you get the courage, now and especially back during the Covid-19 peaks? "It must have been given to me by the Almighty," replied a pious Golam, who is thankful for not only have survived the pandemic but also to have been capable of standing in for nearly 1,500 families to bury their loved ones; and hopefully, bury some of the grief with it too.