With businesses and offices resuming operations, Mumbai is gradually stepping towards normalcy. After almost three months of stagnation, medium and micro- business owners are now fast-tracking procedures to get back on track.
Once again, it is the stranded workers who must bear the brunt, as their employers are raring to go and want the workers back at their jobs.
Ram Sawant, 29, is counting days, as he has a confirmed return ticket to his hometown Jehanabad, Bihar, for June 15. However, it remains to be seen whether he will be able to do so, as his employer has asked him to join duty by June 10.
"For more than two months, I was stranded in the city without any income. I somehow managed to get a ticket for home, paying a tout three times the fare amount. But my employer is forcing me to get back to work," an agonised Sawant told The Free Press Journal.
He was employed at a garment store as a salesman. Then the lockdown happened. Business came to a standstill. He was left in the woods by his employer on the grounds that business was suspended. Now that 'Mission Begin Again' has begun, his employer wants him to get back to work.
"I was not even paid for three months. Now, I have virtually exhausted my savings, so there's no way I can continue to stay here. I can barely sustain myself," says Sawant.
Echoing his sentiment, daily-wager Prakash Saroj, 37, says his employers are literally threatening him and others like him to get back to work, saying if they don't do so, they will not be hired next year.
"We come to Mumbai every year and work for these businessmen for six months. Now that gradually businesses are starting, they want us to stay back and resume work, " said Saroj.
"We are in no state to start work. Even if do start working, we will not be able to sustain it for longer, considering the state of our mind," says Ramesh Kumar, another worker.
Both Saroj and Kumar work for the same employer. Both of them have requested their employer to grant them leave as they are mentally fatigued. However, business owners are reluctant to do so, considering the losses they have suffered.
"In my village, everyone who works in different cities has returned home. Only I was left behind. I know how I am struggling to make my ends meet and there's no way I can working right now," says Deepak Neogi, another worker.
Neogi has family in the coastal Odisha. His village has suffered severely during the recent Cyclone Amphan.
"My family is suffering and there is no way I am staying back. Even if it means that I will not be able to work here in Mumbai anymore," says a resolute Neogi.
As for the businessmen and employers, they are defending their stand of not allowing the workers to go back home.
A business-owner in Andheri says, "The retail sector as a whole has suffered huge losses. Now, we want the labourers to get back to work for their own good only. Without their resuming work, it is impossible for business to resume and if they join work during this crisis, we may reward them with bonuses as well."
