Thelma Poojari is jokingly called the CEO of St. Andrew’s Church. A member of the parish office, she’s the busiest woman on the grounds, the go-to person for solving problems from plumbing issues to staff management. The largest part of her day, however, is spent in determining the final fates of the deceased that are buried in Bandra’s largest graveyard.

Located at the end of Hill Road, overlooking the Arabian Sea, St. Andrew’s was built by the Portuguese in 1575 (a banner at the gate proudly declares that it pre-dates the Taj Mahal by several years). It’s one of the oldest churches in Mumbai and holds roughly 2000 graves within the church grounds, although the actual number of bodies buried there is many times that number. In a city faced with a constant scramble for space, the struggle for land is as cutthroat after death.

Walking through the cemetery with her register of burials and map of graves in hand, Thelma explained how the lack of space led to the establishment of temporary graves and niches. “Out of these 2000 graves, around 500 are temporary. The Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) ruled that within 18 months of burial, the graves must be dug up and the remains taken out. We’ve set our own period of 24 months, after which the bones are moved to the niches and I allot the grave to a new body.”

Two years to the day, the church calls its gravediggers who set about the task of exhuming the remains. If the family can afford it, the decomposed bones are interred in one of the many niches in the cemetery grounds – vertical wall-like structures with small sealable vaults. The high property rates of Bandra have seeped in here as well. A niche in St. Andrews costs Rs 7,000, substantially higher than some other parts of Mumbai. If the amount can’t be met, the remains are placed in a self-explanatory “bone well”.

“The church stopped giving permanent graves in the 70’s,” said Thelma. “The existing 1500 plots are all owned by older families, and over 3 generations may be buried in a single grave. They just have to keep digging and removing bits like the coffin parts from previous burials.” The plots are in high demand and often provoke arguments; in case of any uncertainty over the veracity of claims to the grave, Thelma pulls out the parish record of family trees and carries out her own investigation.

Even whilst orchestrating this game of musical graves and bodily remains, the gregarious 49-year-old is quick to laugh, seemingly unfazed by the morbidity of her task. Although she admitted that she is hesitant about visiting the cemetery after dark, she thrives in her role as Keeper of the Graves. Strolling through the cemetery she rattles off from memory the details of each person’s death, a familiarity borne from intimacy with the local community and their family histories.

“A few months ago, one of the parishioners came to me demanding that her mother be given a plot as close to the main cross as possible because she was such a pious woman,” she snorted, “but I have a rigid system of allotment and whether you’re rich or poor, there just isn’t any space for preferential treatment.”

It’s this same no-nonsense approach that saw her leading the charge in a dispute between Salman Khan’s bodyguards and the local fishing community three years ago. A desire for an unobstructed ocean view from his seafront properties in Bandra’s Chimbai village led the superstar to (allegedly) try and displace the local fishermen and their boats from the shore. “Of course we won. I’m a proud Koli fisherwoman and there’s no way I’ll let anybody make us move our boats from our land,” she recalled with a glint in her eye. Nobody messes with Thelma’s land allotments, dead or alive.