Village Palsana, District Sikar, State, Rajasthan
A group of 54 daily wage labourers- carpenters, painters, mason and other related trade belonging to UP, MP and Haryana began their journey, 28 km from Jaipur, towards their homes, a day before the lockdown. Save in a group, and they were all strangers to each other.
They were not Covid positive, but the lockdown announced, the village Panchayat directed them to quarantine at the village school building for 14 days. They can stay with the villagers until the lockdown was lifted and could resume their journey. The anxious, broke and choiceless workers, agreed but were in for a pleasant surprise.
The villagers made the best arrangements for the 54 workers with cots, clean bed-linen and hygienic facilities. Nutritious and tasty home-cooked food arrived thrice a day for those stranded. A block-level doctor visited every day to check the workers.
The 14 mandated quarantine was over, but the lockdown continued. The touched workers decided to reciprocate the hospitality and goodness shown to them.
The school building was in disrepair, which the workers offered to redo, voluntarily and free of cost.
The villagers were overwhelmed and joined the endeavour. Repair materials were brought in, with adherence to the social distancing norms. The group of workers, strangers when they began their long walk two weeks ago, divided them into groups and ably distributed the work to scrape the layers of old paints, repair the doors and windows and repainted the school. The school shone bright and beautiful, radiating the love and gratitude of the fifty-four men, from every nook and every corner.
They explained, “We are hard-working labourers and cannot sit idle. The villagers treated us like their family members and did not charge a paise for anything. Their goodness touched our hearts, and we could repay only with our skill and decided to redo the school.”
The villagers are not moneyed either and are ordinary people, financially strained by the lockdown. They could not compromise on the traditional hospitality they always extended to stranded people. The woman in charge of the food explained matter of factly, “our men, skilled in various trades, also are stranded in many places.”
While we try to shame everything around, our nation, our government, our leaders, our people, our heritage and even our gods, it is these stories, which repeatedly restore our faith in humanity. This is the real undefeatable India, with great people and a great civilization.
The group of 54 youths consisted of both Hindus and Muslims from traditional and occupational castes. The kind villagers from Palsana too were a mixed community.
That pretty much says it all.
Let us hail the youths, the villagers, and our great country.
Jai Hind
Sampath Kumar
Intrépide Voix
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