Mumbai: With more churches in Mumbai promoting shroud burials and some outrightly discouraging coffins, a funeral undertaker in Thane is offering a hybrid funeral of sorts - a shroud burial using a lavish coffin that is later reused.
The funeral method uses a mechanical system that lowers a shroud-clad body into the grave in a coffin. Mechanical levers open the bottom of the coffin, leaving the body in the grave. The coffin is pulled up, ready to receive another body.
The experiment was tried a week ago at a Bhandup church. The family of the 86-year-old man who was interned is reported to have said that they found the method 'meaningful - as if their loved one had gone in a coffin'.
Churches in Mumbai have been promoting shroud burials, where bodies are just wrapped in cloth without a coffin, to reduce costs of funerals that have been rising because of the prices of coffins. Also, a shortage of burial space means that graves are reused more frequently, said advocate Peter Dias from Thane where a severe shortage of burial space has set off a trend for shroud burials. "Shroud burials are compulsory here. There is no proper place for burials and the existing graveyards are inadequate," said Dias.
Tony Pereira, the Thane undertaker who has provided funeral services for more than four decades, said that bodies buried in a shroud decompose in ten months. "Those in coffins placed in concrete crypts take four to five years," said Pereira.
Father Nigel Barrett, spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Bombay, said shroud burial is not compulsory in the Archdiocese of Bombay. "A family volunteers for it," said Barrett.
Still, attempts to promote shroud burials have been met with opposition from church members who believe in sending off their loved ones in elaborate coffins. Pereira's invention offers a middle ground. In the current method of shroud burial, the body is carried in a casket and lifted out of it to be placed in the grave. According to Pereira, his method offers the 'dignity' of a coffin interment at the cost of a shroud burial.
"The body goes inside the grave with great respect in a coffin and all the standards of a superior burial are met," added Pereira who is offering the new method at Rs 10,999 when an average funeral with a coffin can cost between Rs 50,000 and Rs 60,000. More elaborate funerals featuring teak wood caskets with polished brass accessories can cost even more.
Mumbai's Auxiliary Bishop Allwyn D'Silva, who is Chairperson of the Commission of Ecology, Conference of Catholic Bishops of India, said that though there is compulsion, shroud burials are being encouraged in the city. "More and more people are opting for shroud burials. People who do not like this can go for coffins. There are many reasons why we are encouraging shroud burials. There is a problem with burial space. So many people are dying, especially due to the pandemic," said D'Silva. "But it is also encouraged for environmental reasons (to discourage wooden coffins that take a long time to disintegrate). Shroud burials are also cheaper. Some people are also opting for cremations."
