The Final Goodbye_ These Women in Kerala Ensure Dignity in Death _ I Witness

A group of affluent Muslim homemakers in Mattancherry do what few anywhere would volunteer to do — bathe and clean the bodies of dead women and children and say a final prayer before the funeral. As doting mothers, they have lovingly cared for bodies, mostly sprung from their own, have fed and nursed them. Now, they abide by an even nobler calling, tending with equal compassion to bodies of strangers, bodies that no longer breathe.