Season of hope & despair: Unwilling to live on charity, they walked and hitched rides home  

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” - Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities

May 14, 2020:

Yesterday, I went to our rear balcony to catch up with my neighbours. And was greeted by a cold, hard, silent, cement structure. No one in sight.

I called on their mobile. They took my call and told me they were in Morena in MP. Turns out they left the construction site the previous afternoon to walk 900 kms to their village in Satna, MP. 14 adults, 8 children (the youngest, 6 months of age). They walked for six hours, then travelled on top of a vegetable supplies truck for four hours, then trudged on foot for 8 hours, before they got into a bus in Morena, MP. When I spoke to them, they were in the bus.

The song, ‘Chitthi aayee hai, aayee hai…’ was blaring in the background. They were four hours (on wheels) and an additional four hours (on foot) away from reaching their village in Satna district. Everyone was doing fine, I was told. They had come so far on biscuits and water.

They left our neighborhood because the owner of the construction company said he would not be able to pay their dues of 40,000 rupees. Work on the site would not resume. For eight weeks they had stared at hot, vacant days and nights. And they could no longer bear to ask for relief (either from neighbors like me, or from the RWA that was supplying meals)

We are workers, not recipients of charity. Back in our village, we have our homes, families and our dignity.

Why did you leave without seeing me, I asked them. ‘Oh, because next year we will return to Delhi to meet you. We will get rice and wheat and vegetables from our farms for everyone in your family,’ Chaman Ji said. And then broke into sobs.

We had got them relief and compensation for two months. But what my neighbours were telling me was that livelihood is beyond wages; it’s about dignity, agency and citizenship.

May 18, 2020:

They have now sent me pictures from their villages in Panna and Satna (MP) respectively.

Their journey was rougher than the story they had recounted earlier. My neighbours travelled 900 kms over three days, with 200 Rupees in their pocket, walking roughly for 24 hours. They were carrying three-days of ration that was left from their stay at the construction site. They had to travel light. So, they left all their belongings back in GK2 in the plot behind my house.

After 12 hours of walking on the scorching highway, the two-year old and eight-year old boys collapsed. The parents purchased cold Pepsi and put spoonfuls of the sugar drink into their mouth. After two hours of ‘trying, crying and praying’, they got the kids back on their feet. They asked the police for help, who bought bananas for the children, flagged a truck carrying iron pipes (not vegetables, as I had been told) and asked them to clamber on it.

My neighours travelled for hours perched on burning iron pipes with two semi-conscious children. They then got a bus in Murena (MP) -when I first spoke to them - and hitch-hiked to their villages. “Why then did you tell me that all went well,” I asked Sanjay. “I could not talk about the shame we went through,” he said.

At the district HQ, they got a medical examination done. They were advised to self- quarantine themselves in their homes for 14 days. But the villagers blocked them from entering the village.The school-turned-quarantine centre was three kms outside the village. It had no water, no toilet, no mattress, no electricity, and of course no provision for food.

My neighbours would have to spend 14 days of isolation here. Their extended families, struggling to feed their own, said they could not supply food for their returning relatives. The gram panchayat and helplines promised hope and support. But the communication was clear -’Fend for yourself’.

My neighbours stepped out of the school and found a clear spot in a forest nearby. They pulled out tarpauline sheets and started living under a tree. A well-wisher brought them a charpoy. On the second night, there was a thunder storm that tore through the tarpauline.

‘We have come so far. Will we now die under a tree outside our village?,’ Guddi (the young woman in the picture) asked the group? So they stole into their homes in the dark of the night. Since then, they have received appeals, threats, elderly advice and tearful requests from villagers and Gram Sachiv to go back to their quanrantine centre under the tree.

A little about their home: One set of my neighbours lives in an unfinished brick and cement home. It has no roof. They had come to Delhi to earn enough to build their village home.

The other family comprises two single women, three young men and several children. They have no money or any source of income. They have run out of ration.

“Ghar Pahunch gaye hain. Saans le paa rahe hain. Ab aage kaise gujara karenge, nahin pata,” Pancham and Sanjay said to me. (We have reached home. We are breathing easy. But we don’t know how we will survive from here on). It took me two days to convince them to let me do a cash transfer into their accounts. They relented when I reminded them that they must not ignore the request of a neighbour.

(Facebook posts by the author, who lives in Delhi)