546 DEAD-END JOB: The plight of crematorium workers needs attention even as bodies are piling up during the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. PTI Mallepalli Laxmaiah Chairperson, Centre for Dalit Studies, Hyderabad THESE are dark times. Many people are losing hope of seeing their loved ones survive the Covid pandemic. Funeral pyres now require a queue and death is the word that is ringing across India incessantly. In this dire situation, one cannot even afford a decent cremation for one’s loved ones. A dignified death has become rare. But the only ones who are in service day and night to those departed are the crematorium workers, known as Dom. Members of Dalit castes all over India invariably are the ones who stand at the burning pyre for the last journey of the dead after the rituals are over.