Delhiwale: A tale of two years

Because it was difficult to find passengers in the pandemic, Rajinder explains on phone that he couldn’t keep up with the instalments to the bank.

Year 2019, winter, a few months before the coronavirus pandemic hit the country.

Rajinder had moved up in life, he would say (the photo is from that optimistic time). (Mayank Austen Soofi)

Rajinder had moved up in life, he would say (the photo is from that optimistic time). With the help of a generous bank loan, he had bought a gleaming new auto rickshaw costing ₹3 lakh. Earlier he was a beldar, a labourer, and “I used to be covered in dust”, but as an auto driver it was no longer like that.

Rajinder’s ambition was to eventually move to driving a cab, which he had calculated would take him about two years. He would first have to pay back the bank loan in monthly instalments. Since he earned about the same amount of money that he used to make as a labourer—about ₹12,000 a month—he and his wife have had to make severe cuts to their household budget, including a total ban on eating outside, and curtailing the buying of new clothes. They also moved from their comfy room in Gurugram’s Raj Nagar (monthly rent: ₹4,000) to a smaller one in Gandhi Nagar ( ₹2,600). There were challenges but the family looked forward to happier days. They even hoped of buying a plot of land in the Millennium City to build their own house.

Year 2021, late April.

Because it was difficult to find passengers in the pandemic, Rajinder explains on phone that he couldn’t keep up with the instalments to the bank. Last month his auto was taken back by the lenders, he says. Rajinder has again become a beldar, doing “labour work” all day long. “I leave for work at 8 in the morning and usually come back home by 7... sometimes I work on the road and sometimes on the building sites. Now I again get covered with dust by the day’s end.”

Rajinder reasons that the months of the pandemic and its recent surge has forced his life to move back to where it was some years ago, when he had first moved to Delhi from his village in Bihar. “It has become worse than before,” he clarifies, before expressing satisfaction that he continues to earn enough to keep his wife and two kids well-fed. “But our dreams are over,” he says. “We don’t complain about our fate... we just want to survive.” As if in consolation, he notes thoughtfully that “everyone’s luck is failing.”