This woman has been providing dignity in death to thousands for the past five years

Asha Swamy and her team after conducting funeral rites of an unidentified body. 

Asha Swamy prepares food for distribution.

At just 28 years of age, Asha V Swamy from Ramanagara has earned a tall reputation for herself — one of providing dignity in death to those who have been denied exactly that.

In the last five years, she has personally performed the last rites and burials of over 3,000 unclaimed and unidentified bodies and has traced and transported over 4,000 bodies to their families. In fact, if there is a death on any track between Kengeri (in Bengaluru) and Mandya, the railway police call her. Even the local police approach her whenever there is some unclaimed body.

The circumstances of those who die alone may be unfathomable but in Asha’s experience, she usually encounters the bodies of the elderly who have been abandoned by family, those who are depressed and those stricken by poverty. In cases of accidental deaths, the person may be the sole breadwinner of the family and could be a long way from home.

Narrating one such incident, she remembers how the death of a construction worker prompted her team to search for his family for two days. Unable to trace the whereabouts, her team buried the body after conducting the last rites. Two days later, she received a phone call from an anxious family member from Telangana. “He used to work here to send money to his family,” says Asha adding that such incidents have left an indelible mark in her mind.

Read | Cousins give dignified burials to the Covid victims

“Whenever there is an unclaimed body, I keep thinking what if someone from the family--parents, children or spouse are waiting to hear from this person. That is why I try my best to reach out to them,” she says.

Her team and the police scour the site for any identification markers -- ID cards, mobile phones or photographs. If there are no markers, they put the details on social media and hope that some family member gets in touch. Otherwise, they step in and perform the final rites.

Limited resources

When Ravi Shetty, president of the Karnataka State Labour Council was hurrying through a railway station one day, he saw a woman carrying a corpse to an ambulance. Intrigued, he struck up a conversation and learnt about the work of Asha and her team. He discovered that Asha, who worked as a farmer and farm labourer, did not have an abundance of resources.

“Yet, she finds a way to feed around 200 people on a daily basis, helps students with school fees, and also buries abandoned bodies,” he adds.

Gauri (name changed), a mother of two daughters, recently was on the receiving end of such benevolence. After she lost her husband to Covid last year, paying the fees of her college-going daughter caused worry. “Asha supported at the right time and my daughter was able to continue with her online classes,” she said.

Also Read | Doing it for humanity: These volunteers offer Covid-19 victims a dignified farewell

Asha finds a way to help those in need because her friends and family contribute whatever they can to Jeeva Raksha Charitable Trust. With meagre incomes, sometimes people are able to contribute only Rs 10 to Rs 20, but all of it counts, says Asha.

One such contributor and volunteer in her team, Rakesh R Gowda, has been helping Asha move bodies and distribute food for five years now while juggling three jobs — as a food transporter, delivery person and milk unloader. After an exhausting day, he heads out to help Asha. “Everyone deserves respect in their death,” he says.

After having witnessed her work in person last year, Channapatna DySP Ramesh K facilitated the transfer of an ambulance from the Jnana Yogi Lion’s Club.

Not an easy job

Even Asha does not find this job easy. Her stomach turns when she encounters some corpses, or when the thought strikes that she may have buried someone before the family could have had one last look. But she chooses to continue. She first made this choice in 2016. As an ambulance driver, her cousin Praveen Kumar would often get phone calls about unidentified and abandoned bodies on railway tracks.

On one such occasion, she decided to accompany him. What she saw shocked and saddened her. Hundreds had gathered at the railway station, gawking at the body, looking at its gruesome state as though there was a spectacle. “Nobody came forward to help, to clear the tracks. I was moved and wanted to find a way to help provide some respect in death,” she says.

Her decision to help the dead was initially not welcomed by many in her family. Her parents, husband and even cousin did not like the idea of her attending to dead bodies. “It took some time convincing them but finally they came around,” she smiles.

Praveen says there was no stopping her once she made up her mind, “I used to refuse to take her initially. She used to get an auto and arrive at the location, determined to help,” he said.