Like every year, Iqbal Shaikh came to Mumbai from West Bengal in January this year to earn some extra money for his family. But like fate had it for him, in the last three months, not only did he lose all his earnings but also had to take a debt in order to sustain himself in the city of dreams.
Since 2014, Shaikh has been coming to Mumbai where he works for six months as a carpenter. On an average he earns around Rs 15,000 per month in Mumbai, of which more than half he remits back to his family. However, as lockdown was imposed this year to contain the global pandemic, Shaikh's earning came to a halt as his work stopped during the first week of March.
"I received my full payment for January and February. I didn’t receive any payment for March. I had remitted more than half the money to my family and the rest got spent in sustaining myself," Shaikh told FPJ.
"We were living at a congested chawl in Govandi area and had to pay Rs 3,000 each. Other than this we had to make our own arrangements for food and water as well due to which we ran out of cash completely this year," he adds.
Shaikh returned to his hometown, Bengal's Canning district on May 29. Adding up to his plight, he found out that all the crops in their agricultural fields got destroyed by the cyclone Amphan. Now Sheikh has no other resort left as his only alternate way of income is also severely affected.
"Every year we save nearly a lakh by working on both fields and working for some extra months at Mumbai. But this year we have barely earned anything and above all our savings are over and we have debt on our heads," Shaikh states.
Dibrugarh's Namit Chungroo had taken a loan five years back to buy two tractors for his terrestrial fields. Being the only member of his family, the responsibility of paying back the loan was on his shoulder. Every year Chungroo visits Mumbai to sell garments in order to earn some extra cash.
"For my business in Mumbai, I have to invest a lot of money every year. Like every year, this year too I invested, but this whole thing backfired as I failed to earn a single rupee and on addition to this I have a surplus of raw materials left which I had to sell at half its price before returning to Assam thus incurring further losses," said Chungroo.
Chungroo's village also didn't survive the wrath of nature as his village was severely affected by the recent floods that took a toll on the state of Assam. For the second consecutive year, Chungroo's crop got destroyed due to incessant rains pushing him into sheer dilemma.
"Last year our crops got destroyed due to the floods, this year I thought of making some more money in Mumbai which also didn't work out and to my dismay this year also our crops were destroyed" an agonized Chungroo told FPJ.
Chungroo barely has any saving left and on top of it he has to pay back his loans and pay for the medication for his ailing mother as well.
"I somehow managed to return to hometown hoping I will live in peace for someday but it seems now that my plight has doubled," stated Chungroo.
