On March 5, Sudhanshu Das, 31, along with his ailing younger brother and a neighbour, boarded the Tripura-Sundari Express at Assam’s Badarpur railway station for Patna, filled with optimism. If all went as planned, his brother, who had sustained multiple fractures in his legs in an accident, would now hopefully be able to walk on his own again. The local doctors in Assam had advised Mr. Das to take his brother to Patna for a consultation with a renowned orthopaedic surgeon, who they said could possibly help rehabilitate his brother’s legs. Two days later, all three of them disembarked at Patna’s Patliputra station and headed to the Anup Institute of Orthopaedics & Rehabilitation in Kankarbagh. “I was happy for my brother,” he recalled.
But, Mr. Das’s happiness didn’t last long. The operation and subsequent recovery took longer than anticipated and even as his brother was still convalescing in the hospital, the nationwide lockdown came into effect. Sudhanshu and his neighbour Kanak Das had rented a poky windowless room at the rear of a private building behind the hospital as accommodation. “The room rent is ₹350 a day and we also pay ₹20 everyday as rent for the gas stove to cook food,” he said. Two wooden cots with barely any space between them hug the walls, while a blackened ceiling fan spins manically above. A grubby washroom is attached with a little space for a bath. Mineral water bottles, food packets, the gas stove, a few utensils and slippers jostle for space on the crowded floor. Their faded clothes hang from a hook on the wall. “This has been our world for the last 40 days and we have now exhausted all our money,” Mr. Das and his friend chorused.
Besides the money he now owes the landlord for the room, the hospital too has told Mr. Das that unless he pays the dues for the bill, his brother cannot be discharged. “The doctors have now said to start physiotherapy and for this they have asked for more money,” he said, his voice trailing off.
“When we do not have money to eat or to pay the room rent from where will we pay the hospital bill,” wondered Mr. Das, wiping away tears. By now, they have spent almost ₹3.5 lakh on the hospital alone. “I had taken money on 3% interest from a local money lender in my village... now even he has refused to lend us money due to the lockdown,” said an agitated Mr. Das. Both the brothers are unmarried and live with their elderly parents and a sister who is hearing and speech impaired in Digar Srikona village of Assam’s Silchar district. “They do not have a mobile phone but sometimes we speak to them on our neighbour’s phone,” Mr. Das added. A marginal farmer with a small patch of land on which he grows paddy, this is his first visit to Bihar. “We don’t know the place or anyone here,” he said.
When they ran out of money, they went hungry for two days before Mr. Das called the COVID-19 control room number that he saw in a local newspaper ad, seeking help. “Hunger is something no one should struggle with but this is what we’re struggling with these days,” he said, his voice revealing exhaustion. “After our call, local policemen came to us next day and asked us to go to Shivaji Park nearby where some local charitable person gave us 10 kg of rice and two kg dal. But that too finished after some time and now the policemen deliver us food packets twice in 24 hours and we’re surviving on it.” Mr. Das appealed to the Assam and Bihar governments for help. “At least if government officials can ask the landlord and the doctor to understand our situation in this difficult time and be humane to us,” he implored, adding, “we feel like we are being held hostage — by hunger, the hospital and the landlord”.
