Guess what this Bengaluru undertaker did to Rajiv Gandhi’s killer ?
- In 1971, Trivikrama Mahadeva started this vocation of giving the city’s unwanted dead, a decent burial
- In his entire worklife, there was this was one body, which caught Mahadeva’s attention
- It caused him to go against his normal calm nature even
FollowDisposing off the numerous unclaimed dead bodies in Bengaluru is the job of the (BBMP) municipality, yet he does it without proper means or any complaints. Mahadeva is the person who makes sure that the thousands of unclaimed dead bodies that lie in Bengaluru hospital morgues or on the streets, do not feel unwanted or uncared for in death.
In 1971, he started this vocation of giving the city’s dead, a decent burial. Till date he has buried over 1 lakh bodies. For his service, the Karnataka government has awarded him with the Chief Minister’s Medal and he also has received a medal from the former president of India, APJ Abdul Kalam.
Mahadeva has been very much in demand. Every time the police came across a dead body that had no claimants, he would be called. Initially, he would hire a horse-drawn carriage, put the stiff body on it and take it to a burial ground – all by himself and in return he would be paid a measly sum. Once he was able to collect funds, he brought a horse-drawn carriage for himself and he continued with his job.
The undertaker goes about his work with precision and rarely gets unruffled. So many years of burying the dead, in all sorts of conditions, has made him immune to shock or disbelief or any other severe reactions that one of us would have on seeing a dead body.
He also confessed that he becomes very distressed when he sees criminals, but his very next statement highlights that sometimes the job does get to him. He says, “As there was no companion for a poor person like me to socialise, given the nature of my job, I bonded with dead bodies.” He further added that, as he was upset with humans for their cruel nature, he sometimes used to vent his ire by slapping such dead bodies.
Asianet Newsable spoke to Mahadeva a year ago and here’s his story:
The world may know him as only an undertaker of unclaimed bodies but few know that his hands have also held and buried the man who assassinated former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, in Sriperumbudur, in Tamil Nadu.
Sivarasan had fled Tamil Nadu after leading a nine-member hit squad to conduct the assassination. The man landed in Bengaluru and then killed himself to avoid capture. Sivarasan then became just another body in lying unclaimed in the Victoria Hospital’s mortuary.
This was the only body, which caught his attention. "I do not remember any face, I used to just take them on my tricycle and dig a pit in the graveyard and would bury them with dignity. But one face which I cannot forget is that of the most wanted criminal Sivrasan. As the police got his body in the ambulance for autopsy, I was shocked to see about 200 police personnel accompanying a dead body. I thought it must be some VIP but later I was told he was a dreaded criminal who had killed a prime minister," says Mahadev recalling an incident that took place in 1991.
The body was lying unclaimed for 15 days at the Victoria hospital after autopsy and finally, the government took a decision to cremate it and had asked the hospital authorities to make the death and the disposal of the body a low-key affair.
Mahadev lets in that this was one time, he went against his usual calm nature : "I was asked to do the cremation. I loaded his body into my cart and on my way to the graveyard, I spat on him for the act he had done. I even slapped him a number of times.”
