“I am Samar (center) and that’s my cousin Danish (left). We sell blouses sourced from Surat. That’s our uncle who has joined us today to help us out. We are from Uttar Pradesh.
The pandemic has been a villain in our lives too. It made us go through situations that we never anticipated. Not just us, even our families in our village suffered the consequences.
When our Prime Minister declared a 21-day lockdown, we had no other option but to head back to our village. The journey from Hyderabad to Uttar Pradesh couldn’t get tougher and rockier, quite literally. I remember walking in the scotching heat for 250 kilometers and then with great struggle we hopped onto a truck that was going towards UP. It took us 48 hours to reach our final destination.
Those were the times of “karza chukana” (pay the loans). We weren’t left with too many options on our plate. Neiither did we have sufficient money in our pockets. We sold few things from the house and one of them was a sofa that I really loved because I used to hide my toys under it so that I don’t lose them. Well, tough times call for tough decisions. Situations like these make me think about how important education is and that I shouldn’t have dropped out of it after my 12th standard.
Life after lockdown has not been the same. We came back to Hyderabad in a train, six months ago. Covid-19 has been hard on every business, no matter how big or small it is. To be honest, there have been days when it was a great struggle for us to earn as little as 200 rupees per day. We have been living in Nampally for over 4 years now and thank god, our flat owner has been quite understanding and kind, when it comes to paying the rent.
Not a day goes by without us missing our family. Infact, I feel Danish misses his girlfriend more than his parents! We make sure we call them before our day begins and before our day ends. We believe, as long as we are able to help our parents in every way we can, no obstacle in life is a tough one.”
#Humanity #Service #Life #Journey #Kindness #People #Lockdown #CoronaWarriors #Hyderabad #HumansofHyderabad