Fed up of being locked down in a ten feet wide congested duplex with twelve others, a group of seven migrant labourers from Ratnagiri district footed more than half of the 350 kilometres to Mumbai, from so that they could be assured of boarding a passenger train to Uttar Pradesh.
Tarkeshwar Kumar, 25, is from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh and was employed with a firm laying out pipelines at construction sites and industrial complexes. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the nationwide lockdown on March 25, Kumar and his 11 coworkers found themselves stuck in a chawl, without income and struggled for day-to-day survival. When Lockdown 4.0 ended, so did their cash.
We were locked in a small room for more than 50 days. We spent all our money in this time. There was nobody to help," an exhausted Kumar told The Free Press Journal on Tuesday afternoon, as he was waiting for a passenger train that would leave Bandra Terminus at 10.30 pm on the same day.
"We had painstakingly filled the forms and registered ourselves for the Shramik special trains at the Ratnagiri district office in April. They kept us waiting all these days. Whenever we asked them for updates, they would say they didn't have any. That's why we decided to come to Mumbai and make our own arrangements," said Kumar.
Kumar and seven of his colleagues decided to cover the 350km distance separating Ratnagiri and Mumbai by walking. They set off on Sunday afternoon, with just one aim in mind - to reach Mumbai. How they would reach UP from Mumbai, they did not know. But on the way, they learnt that passenger train services had resumed. Kumar contacted a local travel agent who put him in touch with a tout, who helped the group with reservations by charging them thrice as much.
"We covered more than two hundred kilometres in less than 30 hours and collapsed on the road. We were unable to move. The scorching sun and hot winds took a heavy toll on us," recalled Kumar.
"That was when a truck driver approached us and offered us a ride, at the rate of Rs 2,000 each. What else could we do but accept?" the 25-year-old recounts.
On Tuesday, Kumar and the others managed to reach Bandra Terminus, from where he would be boarding the 'Avadh Assam Express'. By this time, the group had run out of all its savings, having spent a precious amount on travelling so far.
"We had been skipping meals for the last one month, to save money," said Manoj Yadav, Kumar's co-walker.