As many migrant labourers across Tamil Nadu hope to make their way home in the wake of COVID-19, a group of doll makers in Madurai who arrived from Rajasthan around eight years ago, hope to stay and revive their lost earnings.
Bheema Ram, 40, was one of the earliest members of his family to arrive in Madurai in 2012 from Pali district in Rajasthan. He hoped to earn a living by fashioning out dolls and sculptures out of plaster of Paris. It is a skill taught in his family, he says and adds that it is valued here.
Since his arrival, around 50 members of his family have settled on a vacant piece of land owned by the State government opposite Mattuthavani bus stand in Surveyor Colony. All of them reside in hutments and have made the settlement their own. Many young children who are part of this group have been born in Madurai, Mr. Bheema Ram says and nobody has asked them to leave yet.
The news of COVID-19 first reached the family through the recorded message on their mobile phones. “Policemen who usually cover this beat also told us to keep away our usual display of dolls and told us to buy some basic necessities in advance. We did as instructed,” he says.
Ever since, the family members have been heavily dependent on the kindness of strangers for their food. Often, people passing by them in cars offer dry rations- rice, pulses, packaged tea and wheat. Without any earnings for 45 days, they have no choice but to take everything they get. “Some people travel from faraway places to help us out. Many locals too provide us food,” he says. They have been getting rations once every two days and this is usually sufficient, says Sunil Lal, another family member.
He adds that ‘government ke log ’ or people from the government- likely the Corporation, have visited them and asked them not to leave their hutments fearing the spread of the disease. They have also provided them some rations. This however, is not enough.
Mr. Sunil Lal says that starting Sunday, they have again begun displaying their dolls on the streets, hoping that people at least buy it out of pity. The relaxation across the State may allow for people to venture out, he hopes. Before COVID-19, their peak season for earning was usually Navarathri and Vinayaka Chaturthi.
“On other days, we sell around four or five dolls which are priced from ₹40 to ₹400. We hope that one day we can rebuild our earlier routine of earning a couple of hundreds a day. We have nothing to go back to in Rajasthan,” he says.
