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Chandu Tailor leading a funeral procession in London.

Virendra Pandit

Ahmedabad, Nov. 6 Chandu Tailor & Son Ltd, a London-based business house run since 1993 by a Gujarati family of Kenyan origin, now plans to expand its activity in India. Nothing unusual, except that the registered, tax-paying company is in an unusual business by Indian standards: organising funerals!

The private limited company, which provides comprehensive services for the last rites of Hindus and Sikhs in the UK, is considering taking up Zoroastrian funerals as well in India. For this, his firm is eyeing Navsari, Chandu Tailor, who belongs to this district in South Gujarat, told Business Line from London.

Navsari and Surat, at whose Dumas coast off the Arabian Sea had landed the Zoroastrians (Parsis) in the seventh century and settled down, boast of a sizeable population of the minority community.

“At present, we are studying the issues involved and working out modalities. We expect to start work in a few months,” Tailor said. The Zoroastrians bury as well as cremate their dead, he said.

Chandu Tailor & Son also offer a “Golden Charter” pre-paid funeral plan for clients. It is like an insurance for which the client pays at today’s price the ‘premium’ equalling £2,299 for the basic plan. When the client passes away, Golden Charter pays for the funeral cost from the accumulated fund.

Another London-based Gujarati family in the same business is that of Bharat Shah who, in 1984, became the first Asian funeral director for the Hindus in the UK. “Our charges depend on the family’s requirements. Each case is very individual. We also consider the charges if the family is genuinely poor,” said Shah. The UK has over 3,000 companies of last rites organisers, called ‘funeral directors’, including 300 in London alone, but they mainly cater to the Christian burials.

Most people outsource the last rites of their dear ones to these established companies. Only five companies organise Asian funerals. The Tailors and the Shahs, both family-owned firms, handle around 400 deaths each per annum.

The ‘cost of dying’ in Europe has skyrocketed from £1,900 in 2004 to £2,700 ($7,100) in 2009, according to a recent survey by a life insurance company. The funeral industry, therefore, is on a high. Chandu Tailor & Son Ltd’s turnover for the last accounting year was £7,50,000 with a gross profit margin of 48 per cent. “My company is taxed as any other business. The only thing that does not apply to the client is the value-added tax (VAT),” said Tailor.

While the Shahs’ firm, Indian Funeral Directors Ltd, has associate offices in the US and India, Chandu Tailor & Son has one in Mumbai. Before he entered the unusual business, Tailor was in the tailoring profession with 600 clients, many of whom have remained with him in this new endeavour as well.

For the Hindu services, permission has been given to disperse the ashes on the Thames but some prefer to fly the enbalmed bodies of their kin to India for cremation and other rites at holy places such as Varanasi and Rishikesh.

The two companies’ associate offices handle this part of last rites, making them some sort of “multinational companies”.

“With our associate funeral director in India, we are able to offer door-to-door repatriation service to India and it is now easier and quicker to have the deceased repatriated from India to the UK as well,” Tailor said.

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