Public Service

My aunt spent her last days surrounded by family. She joked, laughed, made us all feel seen and loved and was an example of how to face death with dignity.

On the day she passed, despite knowing it was coming, we were devastated. The news of her death spread and my cousin had to field several condolence calls - even as he was running around trying to finish the formalities in the hospital.

He hadn’t yet had time to begin processing his grief when he received a call from a number. The man on the other end briskly introduced himself as representing Kodavaame and insisted on speaking to an immediate family member and asked for “details of the person who had died”. My cousin politely said he would call back. He hung up, spoke to me about how to proceed and we decided to call back and give the number of another in the family who would be able to coordinate.

I was with my cousin when he called back and his phone was on speaker. The person at the other end first answered with a curt: “Why couldn’t you have given this number to me earlier?”. My cousin, still trying to be polite, said, “I’m still in the hospital. It’s been only 30 minutes since all this has happened”. He was told “So what? We are all going through things. Don’t act as if you are doing me a favour. Kodavaame is doing you a service. If you are not interested, we don’t need to publish this news”. Not wanting to waste anymore time on this person, my cousin hung up, put the man out of his mind and we went on with our day - honoring our aunt as best we could..

It is frankly astonishing and saddening that anyone would think it is ok to call up a bereaved family member and treat them this insensitively. This is not service by any measure but misplaced entitlement. And if this is what the word “service” means to Kodavaame , we are all better off without it.