Unsure if the lockdown will ever be lifted, Suresh Chandra Rawat is driving his place of work back home in Rajasthan. Once a cherished dream, the kulfi faluda counter, occupying half of the modified pick-up truck, is more of a white elephant now. His wife and daughter barely manage to slide behind the counter, atop which the helper is perched precariously.
“We were left with nothing to eat in Pune. So, we had to leave,” said Mr. Rawat, 22, headed for Chittorgarh. “Each year, I sent my parents money. This time, I had to ask them for ₹7,000 to buy food and pay for diesel and toll tax on the journey back,” added Mr. Rawat, unsure of making it home with ₹1,500 left for the remaining journey from Indore.
Seated next to Mr. Rawat, who made around ₹2,500 a day, is Durgalal Kharol, who made ₹400 a day selling ice cream. “ 2020 toh poora gaya (2020 is gone entirely),” he said morosely. The increased demand in the summer, that COVID-19 pandemic is gnawing away at, offered them an opportunity to make the yearly trip.
On the Mumbai-Agra highway , witnessing an exodus of the workforce from Maharashtra and Gujarat, are scores of ice cream and kufli vendors from Rajasthan, who’ve lost out on a year’s earning owing to the lockdown.
Only at roadside eateries offering food free do workers disgorge. And at one such eatery in Dhule in Maharashtra, the parked pick-up truck bearing the initials ‘RJ’, for Rajasthan, gave Mr. Kharol, 37, some hope. He had started walking back to Bhilwara a week ago with his younger brother, who now sits at the counter’s edge in the truck.
“After registering with the local authorities in Pune for transport back home, we waited for 10 days,” said Mr. Kharol, who entrusted his cart to his landlord. “I told him I will return. There is no work back home.”
However, Mr. Rawat will take to farming until next summer. “My earnings have been on the wane. Last year, we were shooed away from there. Now six-seven new vendors have come in my area. And now we face the lockdow ,” he said. Hoping to repay debt, his father had landed in Pune seven years ago and bought a push-cart for ₹1,000. A part of the debt is still outstanding.
