Begusarai
Hospitality extended by residents of nondescript villages to passengers when the special trains make a stopover in Bihar's Begusarai district during the coronavirus lockdown is winning many hearts. District Magistrate Abhishek Kumar Singh was pleasantly surprised when he found the mention of Begusarai in a news item published in Mizoram, more than a thousand kilometres away.
The report was occasioned by a tweet from Mizoram CM Zoramthanga, hailing the Samaritans in Bihar who had reached out to the people of his state with food and water when their train made a brief and unscheduled halt in the district recently.
"Few days after stranded Mizos offers their food to Flood-affected victims on their way back, a brief halt of their #ShramikSpecialTrain at #Begusarai Bihar witnessed good #Samaritans offering them food in return!" Zoramthanga had said on Saturday. "Goodness for goodness. #India is beautiful when flooded with #Love." The chief minister's post has been retweeted over 5,800 times and garnered over 21,000 likes so far.
Zoramthanga had also shared a short video clip, barely 30 seconds long, wherein villagers can be seen sprinting up a sloping landscape, and carrying baskets full of water bottles and packets of food.
The footage, apparently shot from inside a compartment of the train while it was stationary, is a heart-warming picture of compassion transcending boundaries of region, language and ethnicities.
