There is a kind of loneliness that outlasts death. In India, thousands of people die each year in bus stands, on railway tracks, outside temples and hospitals — their bodies unclaimed, their names unknown, their passing unremarked. 

For them, the end is not just the loss of life, but the loss of any last rite of belonging.

P Karthik, a constable posted at Chengalpattu Town Police Station in Tamil Nadu, has made it his mission to change that — one cremation at a time.

Over the past three years, Karthik has personally overseen the last rites of more than 70 unidentified or unclaimed bodies. He garlands them, arranges proper rituals and stands in as family — because, in that moment, he is the only family they have.

"I see them as my own," he said simply. "Everyone deserves a respectful farewell."

A first encounter that never left him

It began with an elderly woman found lying outside a church in Chengalpet, Chennai. Karthik recognised her — she had survived by begging in the area, a familiar, invisible face on a familiar street. 

With no one to claim her, he took the body to the mortuary and spent nearly three months trying to trace her relatives. When all efforts failed and the body began to decompose, Karthik performed her last rites himself.

"That moment stayed with me,"........

© The Better India