Take it from Lilaben when she says travel is not all fun and games as she makes her way back to Gujarat all the way from Ghaziabad during the lockdown. The 55-year old agricultural laborer from Bajana, a small village in the Surendranagar district of Gujarat interlaces her duties as a mother with an opportunity to make some money for the family. Her older son, who is now 30, moved to Ghaziabad along with his family of 5 – a wife and 4 children – 8 years ago. Since then Lilaben makes a visit to Ghaziabad twice every year in the non-agricultural season to meet her son and his family. She uses her time there to transpose as a spice seller, buying spices and dry fruits from the main wholesale market, making small packets and ferrying door to door, on foot, to sell them. If she puts in 7-8 hours a day knocking on doors, she is able to bring home close to Rs. 300 per day. Her husband follows the same routine back home, all year round. Together they manage to bring in Rs. 10,000 a month of which Rs. 2000 goes for home rent, between Rs. 3,000 – 4,000 towards food and ration and they manage to save the rest living a life of minimal needs.
Lilaben’s second son who is 26 also moved to Ghaziabad with his wife and kids just before lockdown. He moved there in search of more opportunities in order to make more money for the family given that they need to collect funds for his youngest brother who will soon be of marriageable age. Stuck without a wage in Ghaziabad, the families – Lilaben, her 2 sons and their families – faced grave difficulty in survival. Since their ration card was of Bajana, they did not receive any government help in terms of food and grains even after Government orders were released to surpass the location of the ration card for distribution of food. They were refused ration on PDS shops and since they do not know anyone in Ghaziabad, it was near impossible to receive any help from neighbors.
To add insult to injury, the family was asked by the landlord to evacuate their house immediately. The family made multiple attempts to get out of the city. Lilaben’s son finally managed, with great difficulty, to book online tickets for each of them on the Government-run Rajdhani train. Each ticket costs the family Rs. 2,500 which was a huge expense since they had exhausted all their savings on survival in the city for the past few weeks. The near 12-hour journey, laced with innumerable stoppages and security checks, was harrowing for the family, in tow with kids, especially when there was no provision of food made available in the train. There was some respite on reaching their state, however, where the Gujarat government arranged for buses to reach them from the station to their village in Bajana, for free. On reaching their home in the village, the family followed all the protocols – Panchayat arranged for testing of each member and they were quarantined for 14 days with supplies delivered to their doorstep.
The family is assigned ration in their village now – they have been receiving their due for the last two months. But all is not well. The family, to run their business of spices needs to make an upfront payment of Rs. 5,000 to buy their sell from the mandi. With no money, and the buying capacity of even their customers going down, Lilaben does not know from where to pick up the threads to start building their lives again but for now, she’s just happy to be back to the confines of her kacha home after this long and traumatic adventure.
