Ajit Kumar was 17 when he left his village in Varanasi district to join a cousin working in an embroidery factory in Surat, Gujarat. As the...
Ajit Kumar was 17 when he left his village in Varanasi district to join a cousin working in an embroidery factory in Surat, Gujarat. As the eldest child of his parents, he took on the responsibility of contributing to the family income. For a year and half, he diligently sent his earnings home, minus what he needed to spend on rent and food.
But then the lockdown was imposed.
Bind stopped getting his monthly salary of Rs 10,000. There was Rs 3,500 to pay as rent. He called home.
“Mummy, paisa nahi milat rahe,” his mother, Usha Devi, recalled him saying. Mummy, I am not getting any money.
The family does not own any farmland. Usha Devi’s husband Mahendra Bind works as a labourer for daily wages of Rs 300. From their meagre savings, they sent Ajit Rs 5,000 every month and eventually decided it was best he came back home.
But the return involved more than just the cost of the train ticket.
When their neighbours heard their son was heading back from Gujarat, among the states reporting high numbers in the coronavirus epidemic, they panicked and insisted the family keep him away from everyone.
“We were ready to keep him at the village school,” said his mother, “but...
