The Professional

A person who has a professional work dealing with dead bodies lives in the outer part of New Dehli. Unclaimed dead bodies. His name is Naresh and came to Dehli as a child. One day his mother and Naresh needed to live on the streets but his mother made enough money to support him. One day his beloved mother got sick and was admitted to a hospital and her son made the streets outside. A few weeks later her mother died but Naresh refused to move back to his city and instead helped the hospital and an old man. Naresh grew up under the man's tutelage.

One day a police cop came and asked him if he could bury an unclaimed dead body and paid him Rs 200 (5 dollars) for the job. After doing the job he hanged around the hospital to be summoned to dispose of the next unclaimed body.

Naresh did his work with such dedication, focus, care and concern that he was demanded quite often.

He bought his own horse-drawn carriage and a horse but three years later the horse died. People who had watched Naresh taking care of more than thousands corpses raised money for an auto-rockshaw. The local petrol pumps did not charge him for his selfless service to the abandoned citizens of Dehli.

Naresh is proud of his work and business, and today his son joined him.

In his business, Naresh doesn’t choose his clients. He accepts them in whatever size, shape or state they come. He treats them with care and respect and due to dignity, covering them with a white sheet.

Naresh has buried more than 42.000 corpses in his lifetime and his dedication has earned him phenomenal public recognition.

The cops do not supervise Naresh, he is not an employee and he has no boss. In most work environments on the other hand, people who produce anything of economic value usually need supervision.

Whenever Naresh picks up a corpse, it goes straight to the burial ground – no place else. He completes the task with the immediacy it demands.

That certifies his own completion of the assignment: between the living and the dead there is no one to question him.