My story features betrayal, at multiple levels. I first experienced it when I realized the government had no plan for millions of laborers who had built our country. From flyovers to metro tracks, from shiny buildings to overbridges, it was the humble villager who trudged to cities for a livelihood and constructed it. Like Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, the migrant built, maintained, and was now threatening to end it all. It was the migrant who maintained the city by washing our cars, cleaning our dirty utensils, taking care of our babies while we went to work or cooking for us, guarding our homes, ironing our clothes, and selling us vegetables and fruits from carts.
The tasty pani puri beloved on the street, the momos we had, the restaurants that served us, were essentially all run by migrants. And now with everything shut and the poor migrant left with no resources, the third eye of the Shiva would be awakened soon. I knew when the lockdown was lifted the migrant would have left the city, tired of being fed on charity, tired of walking miles carrying their belongings and families, tired of living at the mercy of us richer, luckier folks who were brewing dalgona coffees at home. And when that migrant refused to return, it would be the end of this country's development as we knew it.
Maybe that was a good thing, we had for so long treated them like second-hand citizens, refusing them Sundays off, refusing them pensions or maternity leaves, negotiating to the lowest possible amount while paying their entire month's salary for a dress at Forever 21. Now, it was their turn to show us who actually held the real power in our cities, in our homes. My quarantine was thus spent in ensuring that I could do just a little bit to ensure they didn't get to that point of anger like that of Shiva the destroyer where after creating and maintaining our country, they would destroy it; not intentionally of course. I made time every day to deliver food packets, ration kits, and masks to them. In the last 60 days, perhaps 3 lac may have benefited, perhaps more.
My team in the last two weeks out of their own sense of vengeance towards the callous city also sent them back to their villages on trains. We didn't want them to come back to the urban middle class which had chosen to stay indoors during the quarantine, lighting lamps, clapping or showering petals, doing what was told them to, not what they should have. As the lockdown ends to some extent, my hope is that the new normal is a little better than the status quo we left behind. A little more empathy, a little less self-absorption, I know it's hard for a generation to do so when all its told is to post selfies on Instagram for validation from strangers, but well hope is the drug that keeps us alive after all.