Bunty Tyagi
New Delhi
Their dreams of returning home finally taking wing after two months of lockdown, 10 migrant workers are flying to Bihar — courtesy, their employer, a Delhi farmer, who bought plane tickets.
Their flight to the Bihar capital Patna is at 6 am on Thursday and the men, who planned to go home in April, can't believe they are going to their villages in Samastipur - not walking or cycling thousands of kilometres, or scrambling for a seat on a bus or train, but on a plane.
“I never imagined in my life that I will be traveling in a plane. I don’t have words to express my happiness. But I am also little bit nervous about what I have to do when we reach the airport tomorrow,” Lakhinder Ram, who will be returning with his son, told PTI.
He is grateful to Pappan Singh, a mushroom farmer in Delhi’s Tigipur village who is helping rewrite the migrant narrative, so far about unpaid dues, hunger and arduous journeys home resulting in illness and even death. When Lakhinder called his wife to tell her he will be leaving for Bihar on a flight, she didn’t believe him.
It was only when Pappan intervened and spoke to her that the truth dawned — her husband and son Naveen Ram, who had been working for eight years in Pappan’s field, would be flying home.
Lakhinder, 50, has been working for Pappan for 27 years, said the farmer has been taking care of food and accommodation. Pappan said he has booked tickets worth Rs68,000 and is also giving each Rs3,000 so they don’t face any problems when they reach their home state.
