'P Murugiah – humanitarian who tends the unclaimed dead and the living'
P Murugiah – humanitarian who tends unclaimed dead bodies and needy living
by Himanshu Bhatt
P Murugiah, a Hindu welfare icon in Penang, has helped arrange funerals for the most destitute and forgotten individuals in our society. Many years ago, scores of unclaimed dead bodies, including those of homeless children, were piling up within the Penang Hospital mortuary. It pushed P. Murugiah into a lifelong mission reserved for only the most selfless of hearts.
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Sometime in the early 80s, the now defunct The Echo newspaper ran a story about unclaimed bodies piling up in the mortuary of the Penang Hospital.
There was talk of bones and skulls seen floating at a river near the Batu Lanchang cemetery.
The report intrigued a young man who had joined the Consumers Association of Penang (CAP) as a despatch clerk just a few years earlier, and who was now its research officer.
P. Murugiah decided to investigate further. To his horror, he discovered that the human parts in the river were of bodies from the Penang Hospital’s mortuary. Almost all were of Indians.
“The hospital staff assigned to bury the bodies at the cemetery had dug holes only 2 feet deep. During heavy rains, many body parts got washed out,” recounts Murugiah.
The
hospital workers were underpaid and, understandably, the task was as gruesome
as it was
thankless.
Murugiah raised the matter with CAP head S.M. Mohd Idris who suggested he contact Indian organisations to see if any was willing to handle the dead bodies.
All declined, except the Malaysia Hindu Sangam. It became a turning point that set a lifelong calling for Murugiah.
With his friends, he went on to arrange funerals for or more than 580 unclaimed bodies, without gaining a single cent for himself.
In fact, the youngsters forked out of their own pockets the cost of RM150 for each body – covering expenses for coffin, transport, undertakers’ fees, and for ritual objects like garlands, flowers and incense.
“The undertaker said we would run away after a short time,” recalls Murugiah, affording a smile now.
The situation was so ghastly that each mortuary drawer, meant to house only one body, was crammed with at least three.
“When you removed one body, the skin of the other would peel off. It was terrible.”
Many of the bodies were of children and newborn babies. Some were from poor estates, and had died of malnourishment and diseases like malaria.
But the friends persevered, making themselves available for bodies of any race, and learning to clean the bodies with soap. “We just picked it all up,” Murugiah says.
They once even did a funeral for a penniless tourist from Ghana who died in Chulia Street and whose relatives could not be reached.
“Some
bodies had been found in drains, some in the sea. Some had been left in the
mortuary for 2 or 3 months… Sometimes the smell would stay with us for
about a week.”
The cost later escalated to almost RM400 for each body.
Finally, some of his friends could no longer stand the smell and afford the money, and left.
Support from generous souls
As financial strain mounted, the group was compelled to go to the press. When the story came out, many Malaysians were moved.
One lady named Molly in Bukit Mertajam started selling her biscuits and cakes from house to house, so that she could give all proceeds to the funerals.
Another individual named S.C. Leong and his wife were so touched that they came in to sponsor the funeral costs for at least 180 bodies.
Inevitably, they became Murugiah’s lifelong friends.
Murugiah admits the situation has improved considerably today. “In the old days we would get about 25 bodies a month,” he had said in an interview in 2005. “Now we only get one body every 3 months.”
Inevitably, the group’s charitable services expanded. They started to give aid to impoverished living people as well.
Murugiah today helps at the Sivasanta Charity Clinic, which coordinates free treatment by 45 doctors, all volunteering their time and service. He also helps organise programmes to feed the poor and homeless.
“Since 2000, we’ve handled up to 10 bodies a month, with each burial or cremation now costing between RM600 and RM800. It only cost about RM150 for a coffin and transport when we started in the 1980s,” he had said in an interview with The Vibes in September 2020.
He is indebted to the Penang Hindu Endowment Board, which has subsidised his efforts over the last two years.
The board
charges Murugiah RM500 for each cremation.
His early mentors in selfless charity
Significantly, Murugiah’s vocation was grounded in the influence of his late parents, both active social workers. As a schoolboy he used to follow his father K.P. Samy in giving service at the Ramakrishna Orphanage.
“At times I feel that I have neglected my family and my work,” Murugiah now admits. But his spirit, encouraged by his guru Swami Shantanand Saraswathi, has hardly faltered over the years.
He agrees, however, that youths today enamoured with material comforts have little exposure to the suffering of others.
“We should bring them out and show them,” he says. “Just like my parents showed me the way.”
In fact, Murugiah counts himself lucky and privileged to be one of the “gifted souls” to do be able to give such service.
“We are God-chosen ones… Not everyone has the opportunity to do this,” he says. “We are very lucky. So when the opportunity comes, just take it positively and do it.”
Murugiah
is today the president of the Penang Hindu Association with whom his
humanitarian and charity work continues. This story is mostly based on an
article by journalist Himanshu Bhatt published in New Straits Times, Malaysia,
in December 2005.
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UNCLAIMED BODIES 1,2": P. Murugiah says "my parents showed me the way" in helping others selflessly. Photo taken by Himanshu Bhatt in 2005.
> TOP: Murugiah helping to perform firewood cremation for an unclaimed Indian body at the Batu Lanchang Hindu Cemetery.
> BOTTOM: Murugiah (left) doing traditional final rites for an unclaimed body by immersing the remains in the sea.
The body of 4-year old S.N. Chandran, son of a delinquent estate worker, who died of acute malnutrition at the Penang General Hospital on 12 June 1986. Doctors found at least 1 gram of sand in his stomach. The boy had eaten the sand due to extreme hunger. Murugiah's team of sevaks conducted the funeral rites for little Chandran.
>TOP: Selfless... Murugiah's selfless sevaks doing the rites for an unclaimed deceased person at the Penang Hospital around 2005. Photo courtesy of P. Murugiah.
> BOTTOM: Dr. S Balakrishnan providing free treatment for impoverished folks at the charity clinic. Photo courtesy of P. Murugiah.
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