Many of us get completely embarrassed when they are faced with making the arrangements of a funeral of a relative in any country of the world. Unfortunately, I had to face one such situation recently during my visit to India in last winter. My cousin brother expired suddenly at the age of 58 years without any long sickness. He died of a massive stroke instantly in the city of Vadodara in the State of Gujarat in India. As none of our other relatives were present at that time in the house, I had to do all funeral arrangements myself within couple of hours only. And believe me, it was really challenging. I am going to share few very useful tips on how to proceed for making the complete funeral arrangements in the shortest possible time.
First of all the place of death is very important. If the death has taken place at the hospital, you will have to obtain the death certificate from the treating doctor prior to shifting the dead body from the hospital irrespective of the age of the dead person. This certificate must be in the doctor’s letterhead with the cause of death clearly mentioned in it. The registration number of the doctor also must be mentioned in this certificate. If the death has taken place at the home, you will have to call your family doctor to check and issue the death certificate giving all the details as narrated above. The death certificate is definitely required in case of death at home for the people who died at the age of less than 70 years. In case of the persons who died at home at the age of more than seventy years, such certificate may not be required to obtain. The certificate must be taken with you to the funeral home and must be shown to the government authorities at the funeral. This would help you to get the official death certificate from the government authorities, which is very vital for all the legal procedures after the death like changing the names, withdrawing the money from the bank accounts etc. The next step is to decide the exact funeral home where you want to take your relative for the cremation and the time at which you want to start the funeral procession from the home. If the death takes place after the sunset, the body is taken for cremation on the next day morning generally.
There are generally 4 to 5 funeral homes in any city like Vadodara. It is better to select the main funeral home of your city so as to have more facilities at the funeral home. The smaller funeral homes may not have all the facilities for cremation. You must ask one of your relative to inform all the friends and relatives about the death of a person on one telephone in parallel. Side by side it is vital to get all the items that are required for the funeral as per the Hindu customs. There are around 7 to 8 such places where all such items are available on sale. Try to contact your local friends and relatives who might be familiar of such shops of your area. The next step is to book the ambulance that will carry the dead body from your home to the funeral home. Recently, there are large carriers available for this purpose in which around 40 people can also be accommodated along with the dead body. Such buses can be booked by giving a phone call to the fire station of that city. Mostly, the phone number of such main fire station in all the cities of India is 101.
On completing these formalities, you must arrange for the last holy bath for the diseased with the holy water of River Ganga. Some local Hindu temple managements can also supply such holy water at nominal charges. Sometimes, the priests are also required for performing the last pooja. Some local priests can be called for this. The metallic stretchers to carry the dead body are available at the funeral homes from where you will have to bring them to your home and then, same can be left in the funeral home only. Once you take the dead body to the funeral home, it would be necessary to decide what type of arrangement you want to burn the dead body. The wood, the gas, and the electrically operated facilities are available. However, in view of the present environmental problems, it would be much better to select either gas or electrically operated arrangement. This would take much less time as compared to the wood burning and would also be more hygienic. The ashes can be collected from the same funeral home on the next day and then, may be taken to any holy place as per your wish. The official death certificate will be available to you from the concerned Municipal Corporation office after about seven working days of the funeral.
I hope that this article shall help many of my Indian AC friends to tackle such sensitive and delicate issue with more ease and confidence. If any of my AC friends have any questions on this, they are free to contact me at any time.
