‘Can you help me reach Kolkata, my grandmother is in the hospital’

Nagpur: A few migrant workers can be seen on the Nagpur-Chhindwara road, unlike the other exit points of the city where scores are spotted. The road further leads to Bhopal and then Delhi. Majority of the workers who are heading towards Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh and eastern states like Bihar, Bengal, Jharkhand or eastern districts of Uttar Pradesh take other roads.
A lone traveller, Moidul Islam, walked in the direction of Nagpur.It took two days for him to walk down from Betul (170km) in Madhya Pradesh, he said. He wanted to reach Kolkata to meet his ailing grandmother.
A carpenter, Moidul, who worked at Ooty in Tamil Nadu, had shifted to Betul three months ago and was left stranded.
“I had been working in Ooty for all these years. On a trip to my home village in Howrah this year, I realized that my family needed money for my sister’s marriage. My friend arranged a job for me in Betul which I took up thinking that it is closer to home than Ooty in the south. I worked there for a month after that, the lockdown came into effect. Two days ago, I got a message that my grandmother has been admitted to a hospital in Kolkata for a kidney ailment and I set off,” he said.
“My grandmother is seriously ill. Can you help me reach home?,” pleaded Moidul, before hoping on to a pick-up van that took him 2kms towards the city.
The family had borrowed Rs20,000 for the daughter’s marriage. Moidul hoped that working hard in Betul may get him another Rs50,000. He was left with just Rs200.
Coming from Gulbarga in Karnataka, Phoolchand and three others were dropped a little distance away as they walked till the toll gate on the highway.
Door-to-door ice-cream vendors in the Sedam taluka of Gulbarga, the foursome said they survived on Jakat — charity by Muslims during the month of Ramazan.
“Once in a while they would give us food that helped us to carry on. That was not every day. As it got tougher, we set off,” they said. The group is heading towards Unnao in Uttar Pradesh.
“Every season, we go to Karnataka and sell ice-cream made by local manufacturers on a commission basis. This year, there was no business as the entire summer has gone due to the lockdown,” said Phoolchand.
Babloo, Vinod and one more friend of theirs rode triples on a 100cc bike from Pune and were going to Gorakhpur. They had taken the wrong route and should have been on the Nagpur-Jabalpur highway instead. “Not many are seen on this road. Only those going to Rajasthan or Bhopal take this road,” said Dhiraj Tiwari, a shopkeeper helping passers-by.
Brothers Anil and Babloo Sharma had taken off from Coimbatore and were going to Karauli district in Rajasthan.
Over 30 kms away, on Bhandara road, a young boy carried his sister on his back. They were going to Balaghat in Madhya Pradesh from Wardha.