Stuck at UP border after 3 days of pedalling

Aakanksha N Bhardwaj
Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, April 1

On Sunday morning, Girish Chander and Somen Prakash along with five other migrant workers and their families packed whatever they could and started from Jalandhar on their bicycles for their native villages in Uttar Pradesh.

They pedalled for three days, reached Yamunanagar on Tuesday and spent the night at a petrol station. While talking to The Tribune, they said they were not being allowed to move ahead by the police and had no idea when they would enter UP and reach their homes. “I think we have committed a mistake, we should not have come from Jalandhar. We are thinking of going back, but have no energy left,” Chander said, fearing that they might end up spending the next 14 days at the petrol station.

They left Jalandhar because they feared hunger after they were left without work due to the lockdown. For the last 20 years, both Chander and Prakash have been doing small jobs like repairing folding beds in Jalandhar. For the first time in two decades, they said they felt like leaving the city. Fearing that there would be no work for the next few months, they took the tough call to move to their villages.

Girish Chander, who belongs to Kannauj district, said the pandemic had come as a nightmare for them as they were not only without work but also had no place where they could live peacefully. Somen Prakash from Farrukhabad district lamented: “Kya karte ab yahan reh kar. Paise khatam hote jaa rahe the. Dar lag raha tha, socha vaapis chale jaaye (What we will do in Jalandhar now. We were running out of money. We were scared, so thought of moving back).”

Talking about their long and arduous journey, they said, “We were halting at intervals to take rest. It was not easy to ride with the belongings and pillion riders. Now, we only want to reach home.”

Echoing the wish, Girish’s wife Mamta said they had no shortage of food during the journey, but their only desire remained to reach home. “Now we cannot even go back, it is not possible. The only way out is to reach home and start a new life there,” she said.

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