The makeshift arrangement for conducting last rites by Varasaave villagers. Pics/Hanif Patel

This isn't how you would want to bid adieu to your departed loved ones, under plastic sheets or tarpaulin on a pyre made in a forested spot, but residents of Mira Road village Varasaave have no other option. With no crematorium in the area and repeated pleas to the authorities to address the issue going unheard, that's how they have been forced to conduct last rites during the monsoon.