There is no use in running after money, says 52-year-old K.Hari, the go-between among surviving relatives and the bodies that are brought for cremation to the Thathaneri burial ground. “Rich or poor, our life’s journey ends here. In death we all are same, reduced to ashes. So why not be different and help others while we live,” he says.
To help others is Hari’s addiction. If he earns Rs.500 in a day, he spends Rs.400 on those who are in need. It leads to frequent tiffs with his wife of 25 years. “I know she gets angry but has stood by me,” he smiles.
Ask him why does he have to be the Good Samaritan while fighting odds in life? Pat comes his simple answer: “The good work I do will remain and may be also have some impact on few other people after I am dead and gone.”
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From the days he can recall, Hari has been doing good. He started with buying food for beggars and street urchins because as a child by the roadside, he often went hungry stomach. “I have memories of being beaten by people for stealing mangoes from the orchards. I know what hunger is,” he says.
Apart from distributing food to the poor and abandoned people he finds on pavements, Hari buys books, notebooks and other stationery items for school going children in Thathaneri slums. “I have never been to school and I know families in the slums cannot afford to buy their children books,” he says.
He helps poor widows with food, utensils, clothes or money. He has gifted mattresses to the Government Rajaji Hospital and also bought a tricycle for a physically challenged woman among so many other acts of kindness. “I was five years old when my parents separated. My mother could not take care of me or herself and she died young,” he says.
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Hari was a loner and a wanderer till his father who worked at the Thathaneri burial ground called him over. “During those five years in between I encountered enough situations that required compassion,” he says.
From the age of 10 Hari started accompanying his father to the burial ground. He would do the odd jobs like fetching water or arranging the logs on the pyre and get paid 50 paise to one rupee. As he stayed and ate at the burial ground, Hari says, he started saving every coin he earned from day One. After his father passed away, he started working as an assistant to the other staff. In 2008 he came on the rolls of Madurai Corporation as a grave digger when the civic body took over charge of the cemetery.
His duty hours are from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. and after that he goes on what he calls his ‘social service rounds’. “Daily I am out till 8 p.m., meeting people living in shanties or by the street side and cannot afford food, medicine, clothes for themselves. I just cannot walk past them without helping them,” he says.
Hari does not rest on Sundays either. His weekly off is spent in planting saplings. Hari says he is inspired by former President Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam and launched himself in this green drive a decade ago. So far he has planted 1,960 saplings mostly in the vicinity of the burial ground.
Why should cemeteries be identified as haunted and macabre grounds? he asks. Hari’s immediate target is to cross 2,000 saplings and turn the cremation ground and other surrounding pockets – where people have to wait long hours in the sun -- into green zones. And he dislikes waiting for support. Anybody can take the responsibility of doing something good, he says. “You don’t have to be rich with money to do simple things. All you need is willingness, love and dedication.”
Hari’s work has been acknowledged by various organisations and individuals and he has received 30 different awards so far. “Wherever I go people describe me as the man from the burial ground who gets money from the dead and spends on human beings,” he laughs.
Hari claims that in the last four decades, he has seen or helped in cremating 2,98,000 bodies. “I have seen so many scary bodies from accident sites or victims of blasts, burns and other injuries but never felt afraid. But now he says he fears his death because he wonders whether anybody will even care to know about it. A thought that made him donate his body to the Rajaji Government Hospital for cadaver transplant and medical research. “After my death, at least it will help somebody else. And that is also a service,” he adds.
“Even if the going is tough”, says Hari, “my mind is at peace because I carry no money with me, only peoples’ goodwill.”
(Making a difference is a fortnightly column about ordinary people and events that leave an extraordinary impact on us. E-mail soma.basu@thehindu.co.in to tell her about someone you know who is making a difference)