“I walked all night to escape the police checkpoints. I'm so tired,” said Keshav Kumar as he rested under a tree with his family. Keshav’s family lived in a makeshift house within an apartment complex in Bengaluru and worked as cooks for two years. Come the pandemic, they were given the monthly salary and then asked to leave. With nowhere else to go, they turned home-ward, towards New Delhi.
"My shop is closed due to the lockdown, but I sold provisions to them as they arrive here with nothing,” said Nagesh, who runs a stall near the Nelamangala toll booth. He has witnessed thousands of migrants waiting for trucks, goods vehicles, tractors or just anyone who can offer them a ride.
At the toll booth, volunteers and good samaritans, too, offered food, fruits and water bottles to the migrant workers.
A group of migrants walked 50 km from their temporary homes in Marathahalli. "Our contractor fled with our salary and has switched off his mobile phone. We waited for three days and decided to leave. I just want to go home now,” said one angrily as they walked on. “I will never return to Bengaluru,” thundered another.
Sridhar and his wife arrived in Bengaluru from Kalaburagi six months back in hopes of finding better education for his two young daughters. Sridhar made Rs 500 a day working at construction sites while his wife worked as a domestic help. Together they earned Rs 17,000 a month until they lost their jobs due to the pandemic. The family was desperate to go home as the younger daughter fell ill. “We had our time living in a big city, but it'll never be at the cost of my children's health." The efforts by the government and NGOs to help the migrant workers came only after many of them started leaving the cities. It's imperative that the government protects them. They are indeed people who build the city we get to call home.