Online funeral service :Mourn your loved ones with your virtual presence

The Wadi-a-Hussain cemetery has a website that will soon launch the facility of live streaming funerals

KARACHI:

The Wadi-a-Hussain cemetery is all set to enable people across the world to attend the funeral of a loved one in Pakistan. All you need is an internet connection.

Wadi-a-Hussain is situated near Karachi and covers an area of 98 acres. Moreover, it has a website that serves as a database including information of as many as 120,000 graves.

Wadi-a-Hussain information technology head Abu Zar Zaidi told The Express Tribune that the graveyard will provide this opportunity within two months as live streaming of funeral services will now be possible through internet protocol (IP) cameras. Earlier media reports wrongly reported around 10 years ago that the graveyard has already enabled mourners to participate through live streaming, Zaidi said that the facility is now soon to be launched. It will be a world record, he said.



“There is no precedence for this kind of online, well-managed cemetery in the Muslim world at least,” he said. “If a relative cannot attend a funeral of a loved one in person, they can experience it live through our website.”

Talking about the graveyard, Zaidi said that since 1999, when the cemetery was established, the management has adhered to sequence, continuity and a non-discriminatory policy. It was set up by two brothers, Shaikh Sakhawat Ali and Shaikh Yawar Ali. However, now it is run by the Nargis Begum Trust, owned by Sakhawat’s late wife, Nargis Begum. The idea of a website for the graveyard was conceived by Zaidi’s father.

“We don’t allow shades on the graves as it is not possible for everyone to afford it,” he said. Although he has allowed the installation of solar panels on few of the graves for illumination at night, Zaidi intends to discourage this activity in the future.

Until the year 2001, the cemetery had not more than eight graves on the 12-acre land, said Zaidi. “Now, the area sprawls on 98 acres, with an average of 80 to 90 graves being dug each month.”

According to Zaidi, the serial number allotment is the success recipe for the well-managed cemetery. “You just have to mention the serial number of the grave on the website to get the details of the deceased, including a picture of the grave.” The graveyard has a proper drainage system through which rainwater is stored in a tank for future use. “With the help of a few engineering students, we are planning to install windmills to bring proper electricity to the graveyard,” he said. “We will also install LED lights in the entire graveyard.”

The mourners

“It’s not about the money,” said Afshan Hussain, while watering her father’s grave. “It’s about the care of our loved one’s grave. At least I am confident that I am not going to find someone else in my father’s grave five years later.”

“In the other graveyards of the city, we can never be sure who is in whose grave,” said Masood Zaidi after burning incense near his mother’s grave. “I was charged Rs9,000 to get this grave,” he said. “The cost includes a piece of land and a fully furnished grave with a headstone.”

He went on to narrate how people keep coming to the graveyard to offer ‘Fateha’. “They distribute confectionaries and fruits in the name of niaz,” he said. “No one goes from here with empty hands.”

Imran Khan, 22, who is a gravedigger hailing from Gilgit, told The Express Tribune that there were 70 gravediggers in the cemetery. “Our pay ranges between Rs10,000 to Rs12,000 per month and we live here.”

Published in The Express Tribune, December 16^th, 2014.