About 20 to 30 members of the community die each month in the area, according to the Indian Cremation of Chicagoland NFP.
The metropolitan Chicago area has over 1 lakh Hindus, Jains and Sikhs whose religious belief dictates cremation as a final death rite in a majority of the cases. About 40 percent of them are senior citizens.
"We never plan about death or cremation ahead of time," says Dr Chandrakant Modi, chairman of the group that was formed last year. "When it happens, the relatives are stressed. They do not know what to do or how to get help. Some funeral homes found it as an opportunity to make money. They charged four to five times more. We wanted to do something about it."
The group, comprising 10 organisers and 30 volunteers, identified 15 funeral homes with cremation facilities. The directors of the funeral homes were helpful and the organisation reached in an agreement with them for a fixed price for a simple funeral tailor-made to Hindu customs.
The ICC also printed 10,000 booklets with information about the rituals, a checklist for funeral homes and contact details for priests. This is also available on the organisation's Web site, www.indiancremationnfp.org
"This informational Web site and this companion book represent tremendous work by the ICC team. Our officials and volunteers contributed countless hours of personal time with very little sleep to collect, and organised this information to meet the deadline," Modi said.
"Funeral homes are not supposed to charge more than what they agreed upon," he added. "The minimum charge for a Hindu funeral is $1,850 (Rs 86,765) and the maximum is $3,350 (Rs 1,57,115)."
Though Hindus do not keep the body for more than three to four days, he said, "We have the facilities to keep the body for some time."
The funeral homes have also agreed to allow a three-hour puja at the chapel. They have also organised for some relatives to be present during the cremation. Some funeral homes offer rental caskets till the time of cremation. In some cases, the ICC tries to get reduced rates for families facing economical difficulties.
"Ultimately, we want our own funeral home for the community as in New Jersey," Modi said.
Image: Members of the Indian Cremation of Chicagoland NFP
 |
