‘If four children were not depending on me I would have walked home too’

Life in the times of corona

“I have been watching the news and seeing labourers in Delhi walking back to their villages. I would have done it too if I lived alone, but I can’t put the lives of my wife and four children in danger at a time when any person can be coronavirus positive,” says 44-year-old Joginder Singh.

A daily wage labourer in the city who belongs to Nagaria Chikan village of Budaun district in Uttar Pradesh, Joginder is now struggling to provide food to his wife Urmila Devi and four children, Ajay, Vijay, Vinay and Kumari Vimlesh.

They live in a one-room rented accommodation in Pritam Nagar and are surviving only on one meal.

“Everything is expensive. A bag of atta that cost Rs 250 earlier is now being sold for Rs 400. Potatoes priced at Rs 20 per kg earlier are now being sold for Rs 40. Getting meals is a struggle. My youngest child Vinay, who is just nine years old, has started eating less considering my situation,” Joginder said.

Urmila Devi works as a domestic help while Ajay, aged 21, is also a daily wage labourer. No one’s working now because of the lockdown.

Commenting on the 21-day lockdown, Joginder says the government should take 100% responsibility of daily wage earners during this period.

“Before announcing the 21-day curfew requiring every citizen to be confined to his or her home with no source of money, Prime Minister Narendra Modi should have taken the responsibility of supplying food and other essential commodities to daily-wage earners like us. People like us now fear that starvation will kill us instead of coronavirus,” he says.