By 1 p.m. on Wednesday, employees at the Lodhi Road crematorium began telling ambulances lining up outside to try and get a slot elsewhere. “ Kuch khali nahi hain. Kahin aur jao [No slot is empty, go somewhere else]”, the ambulances were told.
With the gates being manned under strict supervision from within the premises, staffers tried to assert that they had no options but to turn away the hearses.
For relatives and friends of those who lost the battle against the COVID-19 to convince the crematorium staffers to at least let the ambulances enter the premises so that they can wait till a slot opened up, was another added battle.
“You can go inside and check. If you get even an inch of space where you think the pyre can be lit, you take the body. There is nothing left inside – no space,” said a crematorium staffer to one such family.
After about 15 minutes, the ambulance was permitted to enter the premises and had to wait behind a queue of ambulances before it could reach the ultimate spot.
“We are running out of wood also. Where do people think the cremation can happen? To add to it, the heat is such that it is becoming impossible to light the pyre. We will most likely have to begin once it cools down. As it is, there is not enough wood left. We lost count of the number of pyres being lit these days. It is an endless process,” said the staffer, while taking a break from managing the groups of people arriving.
South Delhi resident Ranjan Kumar had come to the crematorium after a family member passed away. “My sister-in-law, who was only 45-year-old, died. She was admitted in a hospital in Delhi Cantonment for the last five days. She was on oxygen support throughout the time and unfortunately, we could not save her. We got here in the morning and had to wait for about two hours before our turn came,” Mr. Kumar said.
Strict instructions
After about an hour later, another staffer arrived with strict instructions for those manning the gates. “I do not care who is arriving. No more bodies can be allowed inside right now,” he announced.
