The current plight of the migrants and their struggle to reach home has caught the nation’s attention during this COVID-19 lockdown. Amidst this crisis, Pappan Singh Gahlot, a Delhi-based mushroom farmer, made sure that 10 of his migrant workers from Bihar reach home safely.
Upon learning about the resumption of interstate flights, Pappan took no time to arrange flight tickets for ten of his workers. He spent Rs.68,000 to book these tickets for their journey from Delhi to Patna.
Hold on. There is more to it that makes this story more humane.
He gave each of them extra Rs.3000 in their pockets to meet the expenses after reaching their respective homes. A bus has also been booked to facilitate their journey from Patna to Sahasra district where their village is located. On 28 May, Thursday, at 6 in the morning all of them boarded an airplane for the first time to fly home.
“I thought I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if something happened to them on the way. That is why I thought that the plane could send them home safely… they are like my own people,” Pappan told NDTV.
After the lockdown was announced on 25 March of the year, he had also taken care of food and lodging for these workers who have been working for over 20 years with him. Not only did he try to arrange alternative modes of transportation for them, but he also attempted to buy railway tickets in the special trains for the migrants. Though initially special ‘shramik’ trains were arranged for them, he chose to send them by air to safeguard the workers from the mounting heatwave of North India. All he could think of was to wait for the right time and conveyance to send them home.
Pappan has been into mushroom farming since 1993. He squarely credits his workers’ hard-work for earning up to Rs.12 Lakh every year from mushroom farming. For him, they are nothing less than his family members.
“My workers are like my family. They are all very old employees and have been working at my farm for several years with their families away in the villages. The migrants in Delhi and other parts of the country have been returning to their villages in inhuman conditions. I did not want my workers to face the same challenges,” he told The Times Of India.
He also helped the workers to complete all the medical formalities in accordance with the guidelines specified for the travel during the lockdown period.
“They have been stuck here for the last 2 months and missing their parents and children. This was the best I could do to send them back home respectfully. Yeh log majdoor hein, majboor nahin,“, he expressed in an interview with Mirror Now.
At a time when for the migrants reaching home itself presents with logistical impossibilities, these migrants seem to have fulfilled one of the most unexpected dreams of their lives- to be able to touch the sky! Thanks to Gehlot that these migrants are not walking or cycling kilometers of roads, scrambling for a train/bus seat, or going hungry unable to find employment opportunities.
“I never imagined in my life that I will be traveling in a plane. I don’t have words to express my happiness. But I am also little bit nervous about what I have to do when we reach the airport tomorrow,” said 50-year-old Lakhinder Ram to PTI. Lakhinder has been working with Pappan for the past 27 years.
Though ‘ten’ may not seem to be a big number considering the magnitude of the migrant crisis that the country is facing today, the gesture shown by the farmer for his people wins the heart. It takes one to ponder, why cannot all the employers meet their responsibilities towards their respective workers and facilitate the workers’ well-being in the face of one of the country’s worst pandemic situations? Had each one of us been doing our bit for the fellow citizens, a section of our population would not have starved or gone penniless for days.
Are you doing your bit for the fellow countrymen?