Subina Rahman a 29-year-old Commerce graduate with having a husband and an eight-year-old son, now doing a job that most people will shy away from. She is working as a cremator in a Hindu crematorium in Iringalakkuda, Thrissur district, Kerala.
Subina was on the lookout for a job and came to know that there was a clerical one at crematorium controlled by the local Hindu Ezhava community, SNBS Samajam at Iringalakkuda, and applied. She got the job and was keeping a register for day-to-day activities including the number of cremations that have taken place and the names and details of the dead.
However, she got bored and tried her hands at cremating the bodies, maybe the first Muslim woman to do so in Kerala.
However, Hindu customs don’t allow women entry to crematoriums even during the cremation of their loved ones, the decision of Subina to become a cremator was not accepted by society. But she was firm and stuck to her decision.buy professional pack online https://nouvita.co.uk/wp-content/themes/twentynineteen/inc/new/professional-pack.html no prescription There were several criticisms within the Muslim community that she was not supposed to do the work of a cremator in a Hindu crematorium but Subina was unfazed and continued with the job.
Subina said, “In pre-Covid days it used to be one or two dead bodies, but now during the second wave, we are cremating seven to eight bodies each day which is beyond the capacity of this crematorium.”
“It takes 2 hours to clear a body and get its ashes but now we are working 14 hours and still we are not able to complete it and have to often postpone it to the next day. It’s the really sad and terrible situation as the number of deaths has increased in the second wave of the pandemic,” she added
The 29-year-old Muslim woman has to fight a battle against a society which includes close friends, classmates in school and colleges, close relatives and many other known people, none was supportive of her decision but only one person supported her and that was her husband, Kuzhikandathil Veetil Rahman.
She was however honest and straight when she said that she was doing this work to support her family and not as women empowerment. Her husband Rahman, a mason, was the only support of her family which includes her father, mother, and an 8-year-old son.
Subina said that her father who was into cutting trees had a fall and is bedridden and her mother is a housewife.
She said that she wanted to get her sister married with the money that she saved while working in the crematorium.
With barriers and walls between people in the name of religion, the example of Subina Rahman is one to be emulated even though she had admitted that this was her vocation. –IANS