The coffin makers

For nearly 90 years, Vincent Parker Funeral Directors has been helping families bid farewell to deceased kin, many of whom were VVIPs

- BY LAKSHMI SUBRAMANIAN

MAY 22, 1991. A little past midnight, a sleepy household in Vepery, north Chennai, woke up to the shrill sound of the phone ringing. And then came frantic knocks on the door. A groggy-eyed Stanley Michael, head of the joint family, opened the door to find a group of senior government officials, including the home secretary—all grim and grief-stricken. An officer told Michael that they urgently needed a metal coffin placed inside a wooden one. No other information was shared; Michael had no idea who the coffin was for. By then, his cousin-partners—Samson Edward, Simpson Kumar and Baskar Edward—had joined him by the door. The officials left in 15 minutes, and the brothers got to work at their rented 500sqft workshop. It was only hours later that they realised that the coffin was to carry the mortal remains of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, who was assassinated by cadres of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam at Sriperumbudur, to New Delhi.

"We made the coffin in two hours," recalls Michael, eldest among his cousins who run Vincent Parker Funeral Directors, one of the leading coffin makers and funeral services company in Chennai. “It was sent to the government hospital in Chennai, where his body was kept, before dawn.”

Those days, Vincent Parker only had teakwood coffins, adds Michael. They would keep semi-finished coffins ready. When there was an urgent request, they would do the final padding work with cotton and satin cloth. That is how they finished the coffin in two hours that May.