“We left in early morning at 5, on foot. We want to go to Biloshi. There were no vehicles. Our shet [employer] had given us 1,000 rupees each. With that we bought salt and masala [groceries]. If we cannot reach home, what will we eat? We had received a phone call from our village: ‘If all of you don’t come back now, then stay out for two years’.”
That’s what the people were saying. They were carrying luggage on their heads and infants in their arms, and were walking in the hot sun. I saw them passing by my village and enquired about them. They were residents of Biloshi village in Vada block of Palghar district. They had migrated to Bhatane village in Vasai block to work on brick kilns. Children, women, men – they were 18 altogether, all Adivasis, from the Katkari community.
They were worried about the coronavirus. Due to the lockdown, there were no vehicles to take them home. And they had received that stern message from their village to immediately return home. So they had all started on foot. They had reached Nimbavali, my village, around 11 a.m, on March 29.
‘The sun was blazing. I was walking with the load on my head and fell down. I have hurt myself,” 45-year-old Kavita Diva said, pointing to her knees. Sitting next to her was 20-year-old Sapna Wagh. She was six months pregnant. She had been working at the brick kilns along with her 23-year-old husband Kiran Wagh right from the time she got married. Due to the lockdown she too was going back home carrying luggage on her head and a life in her womb.
