Rukhsana Syed Akhtar has been bathing the dead for the last 11 years. She is what the community calls a ghassal. The Nagpada resident is a familiar face at the 193-year-old Bada Qabrastan in Marine Lines as the only woman to perform the religious obligation for deceased Muslim women—bathing their lifeless bodies before shrouding them and performing the last rites when they are lowered into the grave. When COVID-19 struck and the Muslim cemetery was struggling under the load of countless bodies, Akhtar remembers standing in between the dead, calling out their names, as if they were patients waiting outside a doctor’s office.

Rukhsana Syed Akhtar outside the ghusl khana and mosque for women that has come up at Bada Qabrastan, Marine Lines. The dedicated structure allows women the right to pray, grieve and bid goodbye to the deceased in privacy. Pics/Shadab Khan