How About Raising Money for Him Instead of The Star Wars Kid?

July 29, 2003 5:08 AM

How About Raising Money for Him Instead of The Star Wars Kid?Perhaps the most faithful of Delhi's unpaid city servants turns 80 on Tuesday, but has no plans to retire. Mohammed Habib has had the grisly task of collecting the city's unclaimed corpses since he was 12. He says he has disposed of hundreds of bodies - and all for free - in a country where millions live in poverty.
posted by turbanhead (8 comments total)

Yeah, this guy could use an iPod.
posted by crunchburger at 5:19 AM on July 29, 2003

Because the web is filled with fat (or formerly fat) Star Wars fans who feel sorry for lumpy kids who remind them of their unhappy childhoods. There aren't so many people who used to dispose of corpses for free in Delhi when they were small.

Next!
posted by websavvy at 6:20 AM on July 29, 2003

Gack, this poor fellow's miserable life sounds like that Monty Python skit (y'know the one: "I lived in a box." "Well, I lived in a box in the middle of the road"):

"His wife, Nabina, who is blind, helps him to carry the corpses. The two met when he went to pick up the bodies of her parents who had been run over by a train."
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 6:30 AM on July 29, 2003

"His wife, Nabina, who is blind, helps him to carry the corpses. The two met when he went to pick up the bodies of her parents who had been run over by a train."

"Habib and his family live with only a plastic sheet for shelter near the GB Pant hospital in Old Delhi..."

"He says there have been times when he has had to sleep with a corpse for the whole night to protect it from animals."

That's so pathetic it's hilarious. You can't make this shit up, folks! But seriously, it's amazing that when confronted with such a horrible reality, some people can be so self-sacrificing for the greater good. These are the folks that keep society from devouring itself.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 7:37 AM on July 29, 2003

I dunno - I'm sure there are medical schools in India - I think he coulda make a buck or two somehow - regardless of corruption in the police force... after all - he decides how to dispose of them, they could be cremated afterwards just the same.
posted by jkaczor at 7:45 AM on July 29, 2003

The Indian government can support the retiring elephants, but they can't spare a dime for this guy?
posted by eyebeam at 9:00 AM on July 29, 2003

this poor fellow's miserable life sounds like that Monty Python skit

**BONG**

"Bring out yer dead ..."

**BONG***

"Bring out yer dead ..."
posted by ZenMasterThis at 10:29 AM on July 29, 2003

The amazing part in the story, for me, was that though he is a Muslim, he raised his adopted child in the child's mother's religion, Hindi. Would that we had that sort of religions tolerance over here.
posted by notsnot at 5:09 PM on July 29, 2003