On a regular Thursday evening, while I was aimlessly scrolling through my Twitter feed which was torn between the ongoing tensions between India and China and discussions about the credibility of the media, my phone rang. It was my friend from college who was stuck in Bangalore because of the pandemic, while we brainstormed on the country’s tense socio-political situation, Ram bhaiya entered my room with a plate of fresh Alphonsos, which he slices for me every day after lunch. “Sanya, khana mat bhulna roz ke tarah (Sanya, don’t forget to eat them like every day)”, he smiled and left the room in a rush to prepare dadi’s Protinex milk. My ignorant self often forgets to thank him for the numerous things he assists me with but that day I felt a little more compunctious in comparison to other days since only 7 days were left for Ram bhaiya’s departure for his home in Uttar Pradesh.

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                                                       Ram bhaiya running errands around the house in his red-checked apron   

                       

 

Ram bhaiya has been working as a house help for my family for 22 years now. I’ve never known a year in my existence when he wasn’t there to cook ‘paranthas’ for us or tell me stories about his distant village. From teaching me how to make a roti, to watching Tarak Mehta ka Oolta ka Chashma as soon as the clock struck 8.30, he has been an indelible part of my life. However, he stays with us only for 6 to 7 months every year and the rest of his time he spends farming with his family in his distant village. Like every year, he was supposed to leave for his village in June to begin working on his fields. But unlike every year, this time, I was apprehensive about his departure.

On March 18, Prime Minister Narendra Modi appeared on national television and urged Indians to observe a self-imposed “janata” or people’s curfew in the wake of the slow but increasing Corona positive cases in the country. At 8 pm on 24 March 2020, the Government of India ordered a nationwide, starting midnight, for 21 days, limiting movement of the entire 1.3 billion population of India as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 pandemic in India. It was ordered after a 14-hour voluntary public curfew on 22 March, followed by enforcement of a series of regulations in the country's COVID-19 affected regions. The announcement set off an exodus of migrant workers who feared the closure of work in cities would leave them vulnerable. But as they rushed to get back to their villages, the Indian Railways cancelled most trains. On March 21, the entire rail network came to a halt. Overnight, lakhs of these dispossessed workers, kicked out of their informal jobs started their journeys home, on foot, cycle-carts, jugaad scooties, cement mixers — scenes which have been imprinted indelibly on the country’s consciousness.

 

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                            A bottle of hand sanitizer and a pair of gloves has become part of Ram bhaiya’s daily grocery shopping.

 

 

However, Ram bhaiya , like most of the citizens under the influence of our Prime minister’s fervent oratory skills believed that the lock-down was a matter of only a few days and the resumption of the so called “achhe din” was assured to come after these days 21 days and he and my mother, like most middle class families, started hoarding essentials like pulses, Maggi and most importantly Dettol hand wash and sanitizers, the yellow and blue liquid which have become modern day elixirs to fight COVID-19.

 

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                                         Ram bhaiya proceeds to wash stuff brought from the market with a disinfectant liquid soap

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Nevertheless, during the first 2 phases of lock-down, from aloo ka paranthas to puris, from paneer makhni pasta to gulab jamun, Ram bhaiya continued cooking scrumptious food for my Punjabi food connoisseur family and the now and then activities, organized by our PM ‘in public interest’, kept everyone occupied.

But beyond this extrinsic jubilant semblance, everyone was dealing with undercurrent feelings of hopelessness, despair and qualm, the future clenched to. I, a student, worried about the commencement of my college exams, my grandparents worried about their health and vulnerability to the virus, my mom perturbed about the health of the family, my dad distraught with looming thoughts of his slumping business. Everyone was fighting with the demons inside their heads and making attempts to stay sane. However, Ram bhaiya’s cause of distress and despair was different from our ulterior motives. He just wanted to go home and be with his family.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                         Ram bhaiya enjoying his evening chai

 

 

He kept scrolling through the screen of his second-hand smart phone in the hope of getting a positive news concomitant with decline in the number of COVID-19 positive cases so that he could go home safely, but all he came across were aggravating number of cases and tragic death of workers like him on their way back home, some crushed under wheels of big trucks and some under the inefficiencies of the system.

Since our local recharge shop was shut, sometimes he would come up to me requesting me to recharge his phone or his wife’s phone, who was sitting kilometers away in UP. The other times he would find joy in just drinking chai after being through with his chores or talking to his children and friends

in the evening.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                Shopping's complete for Ram bhaiya’s trip back home with the purchase of a new pair of black shoes for himself and a red bag full of chocolates and instant noodles for his children.       

                                                                                        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                         Ram bhaiya's luggage sits packed in his room on the day of his farewell.

 

 

However as soon as the news of the end of phase 4 of lock-down was announced by the PM, he rushed to my dadu and asked him to book his train ticket back home. He was elated that finally he could go home but because of the perils associated with travel and substandard care provided in the quarantine centers, we told him to rethink his decision of going back and told him to stay with us for a bit longer but he replied by saying “Ghar wapis jane mein kya sochna, jis haal mein bhi hoon, apne biwi bacho ke saath toh hounga ( There’s no point of reconsidering my decision ,in whatsoever condition I might be, at least I’ll be with my family)”, and in that one sentence he managed to explain to my privileged family the anguish of all those workers who we thought were cuckoo to walk kilometres to go back home until now.

When Ram bhaiya’s ticket finally got confirmed, he called his wife to inform her about his homecoming. He told me that his 9-year-old daughter is very excited to meet him after so many months.

When I asked Ram bhaiya about the first thing he was going to do when he reaches home, he said he would start working on his field which were being taken care of by his ailing father and brother. “Maki aur chawal ugaunga (I’ll grow corn and rice)”, he said in an exuberant way.

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On 25th June, my mother and I dropped him outside the station.

While he walked in his new striped red shirt with a black mask on his face, gloves on his hands, his sweaty fingers trying to cling on to his bag and a hand sanitizer in his pocket, he assimilated into and became one with the hoard of people struggling to maintain social distancing rules. Some coming back to the city in search of work and some escaping the madness of cities and going back to their homes, and I couldn’t do anything else but pray for not only for Ram bhaiya but the well-being of these victims of an incompetent, duplicitous system and sat morosely contemplating at a fiasco caused by the rich and privileged whose dupes were these hapless individuals.

 

 

 

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