This hardship started began on 25th of March 2020, when nationwide

lockdown was imposed by the government to control the spread of

covid 19 virus and stop coronavirus disease. This day marked as the
beginning of a yearlong quarantine and also the beginning of
hardships on the migrant labors including me. This day was one of
the darkest days in the Indian History. Everything was closed down
all of the sudden, everything including factories our source of
income, markets, Railways, Transportation, Banks, ATMs, and many
other things were shut down , those places which were unlocked
were too running under several restrictions. Even essentials things
were unavailable. Only medicines, groceries, food items and
vegetables were allowed but that also under such a strict regulation
that it was nearly impossible for daily wage earner like me to get
these essentials without any problems.
I used to work as a laborer in an Iron factory in Vishakhapatnam in
Telangana. On 25th of March 2020 we received a message from our
manager that our factory will be closed for 3 months on accordance
with Government’s decision of imposing a nationwide fully
quarantine. Without any prior notifications everything was shut
down, everything was closed for 3 months straight, and nobody
knew whether this was going to go long or not. I was a daily wage
earner , I used to get paid daily for the work I did in the day. So no
work in the factories no payment we’ll receive, the company denied
us any bonus or any source of money during the lockdown, many
labourers lost their jobs as well. We had no money saved with us, we
had barely enough to support us of couple of weeks. The pandemic
was spreading so dangerously that no one knew whether we would
survive or not. We could see death Infront of our eyes , the only
thing we could think of was to return home safely. No one wanted to
die , if not by the covid19 virus then we could have died of hunger.
All source of transportations Railways, Airways, even walking on the
road was forbidden, the highways were patrolled by the police to
ensure no one was wandering. We started our journey towards our
home with all the savings we had. Everyone wanted to be at their
home , by any means if we had a chance to reach home all of us had
tried that. It took me 18 days to reach home by foot. I kept on
walking until my legs can stand , every city we passed through we
were welcomed by Lathicharge and security checkup. We were seen
suspiciously as we were spreading the virus. No one helped us , the
police and government were all deaf , no one listened our hardship ,
no one helped us. Even after reaching home we had several
problems . we had no money , what to eat , how to survive . no
source of income.