In Kerala, event managers bury the dead in style; and you can see it from anywhere in the world!

Event management is a lucrative business in Kerala. Affluent Keralites, resident and non-resident, now-a-days engage event management firms for a host of services raging from marrying off their daughters to burying their deceased parents.

Resourceful event managers not only organise wedding ceremonies, birthday celebrations, house warming, baptism, threat ceremony etc, but also conduct funerals and webcast the funeral proceedings for the benefit of those who are out of station.

For the funeral service, event managers come with elaborate paraphernalia like A/C ambulance with decoration, mobile mortuary, flowers, make-shift pandal, coffin & casket, band & choir, light & sound, security guards and catering.

They also arrange priests to conduct the last rites based on your religious faith. It’s your choice to make the funeral traditional or extravagant. If you wish to send a funeral flower to your demised relative or friend as a gesture, even that will be undertaken by the event manager.

For those who are unable to come home, event managers arrange for the live webcast of your kin’s last moments on the death bed and funeral rites. It’s not uncommon these days for non-resident Keralites, who are unable to be with their parents in their last moments, to see their father or mother breathe his/her last online and take part in the virtual funeral proceedings.

Funerals webcasts are usually packaged with close and long range shots of the deceased, assembled relatives and all real-time proceedings, often set to mourning music and numbers. When streamed online, email invites are normally sent out with passwords to friends and family to enable them to access the event.

There are also those who put the funeral videos on You Tube. Virtual funerals are more popular with Christians, followed by a section of the Hindus.

As for marriages, event managers offer exotic packages ranging from cruise weddings to themed weddings and destination weddings. They organize weddings in any exotic location of your choice–be it a Palace in Mysore, backwaters in Kerala, a beach in Goa or a resort in the High Ranges.

Now those settled abroad won’t have to worry about taking care of the bills or taking a loved one to the hospital when they are away from home, thanks to the Personal Concierge Services offered by some event management firms. They also bring home-care to the doorstep of your loved ones, who may be too old or ill to fend for themselves on their own.

But you have to pay through the nose for availing these services of event managers. For instance, a funeral service may cost anything from Rs5 lakh to Rs10 lakh, more than what it costs for wedding ceremonies. So it suits the pockets of only the super rich, not ordinary mortals.

Is it time to say ‘during last digital moments’ and ‘In digital memory of?!’

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