Post Air India crash, Vadodara coffin maker races to deliver 100. Last bulk order was after Bhuj earthquake

The Print

9 hours ago

In a large hall of the church, Nelvin's family and a dozen others from the Christian community are racing to finish the order, so that the coffins can be sent to the Civil Hospital Ahmedabad where the bodies are being kept.
Nelvin wasn't prepared for such a large request. 'But I couldn't say no. This work is for the country. Even small children died in the accident,' he said to ThePrint, never pausing as he continued building coffins at the Centenary Methodist Church complex in Vadodara's Fatehganj area.
Vadodara: Around 8 pm Friday—a day after the Air India 171 crash—Nelvin Bhai Rajwadi got a call from an Air India official in Ahmedabad. The official placed an urgent order for 100 coffins.
Nelvin recalled, 'When I first got the call, I thought it would be just for a few coffins, but it turned out to be a bulk order. Within 2 hours, with support from the community, we managed to arrange plywood, white cloth, and other materials needed to make them,' he said. 'For the past 24 hours, we've been working non-stop.'
Around 15 members of the Christian community were involved in the effort. On Friday night, plywood and cloth were transported to the church complex, and work began.
'We worked all night together to finish and help the administration in this tough time. We took it as a challenge…. We got a chance to serve the country and this is our contribution,' said Nelvin, adding that a coffin that would normally costs Rs 6,000 is being provided for Rs 3,000 for this order.
On Saturday night at 10 pm, when ThePrint reached the Church complex, 35 coffins were loaded on the truck and sent to Ahmedabad.
Nelvin is the only one to have received a bulk order. The administration ordered a few from Ahmedabad before the process of handing over bodies to families began Saturday.
On Thursday afternoon, the London-bound Air India flight crashed near Ahmedabad airport minutes after takeoff. The flight was carrying 242 people, including crew members. All but one passenger—a British national of Indian origin—died in the crash. The crash also claimed several more lives when the aircraft slammed into the hostel mess of BJ Medical College.
Most of the bodies, charred beyond recognition, are in the process of being identified through DNA testing. Civil Hospital Ahmedabad has also collected DNA samples from the relatives of all passengers and crew members who were on board the aircraft for DNA matching.
The Gujarat government has created 230 teams to establish contact with families of victims of the plane crash.
Also read: This Air India crash eyewitness cheated death by a whisker—'a blast, then a fireball, just 200 m away'
In coffin making for three decades
Nelvin, 60, has been in the coffin-making business for over three decades. The last time he received a bulk order from the administration was during the 2001 Bhuj earthquake.
Nelvin recalled that during the Bhuj earthquake, they made coffins right on the roadside and managed to dispatch 40 of them at record speed. He has also supplied coffins to the Railways and the Air Force.
Nelvin also runs an ambulance service in Vadodara. Until last year, he held a technical position at MS University, Vadodara, before retiring.
'We have seen many tough times but the scale this time is very big,' said Nelvin.
It takes about 2 and a half hours to make one coffin which has a standard size of 6 feet by 2 feet, said Sanjeev, who has been doing this work for years. 'It's a difficult task,' he said, while fastening a coffin with a stapler, 'but it's nothing compared to what the families who lost their loved ones are going through.'
Explaining the process, Sanjeev said that first a structure of a coffin is made from the raw material and then white cloth is wrapped around it.
'Nelvin bhai got a call and then reached out to everyone. We gathered here and started working. We're doing this for the people of the country,' said Aldrin Thomas, a social worker based in Vadodara.
Breena Rajvadi, wife of Nelvin's son Arnish, immediately stepped in to help with the coffin-making as soon as she heard about the order.
When I heard about the crash, I had a feeling that my father-in-law might get a call for coffins,' said Breena. 'We were thinking that Papa might be contacted, given the scale of the tragedy. And the next day, we got the order.'
She added that making the coffins at speed has been an incredibly challenging task.
Arnish, too, is hard at work beside his family.
'Mentally we were not prepared but we are working continuously to complete it. We worked all night and started working as soon as we got the phone call,' he said.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
Also read: Air India crash: All 4 hostel buildings of BJ Medical College emptied amid site investigation