Walking, Dodging, Hiding, Waiting: Delhi in the time of the Virus

The images of migrants crowding the inter-state bus stations to take the first bus out had its effect: A total lockdown of highways. By late afternoon, policeman Satendar Singh had emptied out two ambulances whose drivers had shown ‘dangerous’ compassion in giving a ride to a few in their vans.

An anxious Bhanwari Devi rushes to a bus near Ghaziabad border that might take her to Moradabad. Her husband is there, is all she would say.

Potato wholesaler Majid Khan points to the rickety buildings around in Ghazipur. The labourers, mostly from Bihar are gone, he says, and there’s no buyers even at half the price. He’s planning to shut shop and leave too, for home, elsewhere.

Like illegal migrants who cross borders elsewhere in the world, people heading out to their villages walk, wait, run and dodge behind residential complexes adjoining the Delhi-UP highway. They’ve walked for hours from across Delhi to get here and see no reason to turn back. There’s nothing back there, many say, as if referring to a city that no longer exists.

So many samaritans on an afternoon doling out food and water, that this could rewrite the book. People on the move were refusing food offered from vans that pulled up frequently and from carts lined up along the highway, because there was so much of it. 

Muskaan walks on an empty road in Kalindi Kunj with provisions on her head, turning occasionally to look for a vehicle that might offer her a lift towards Tughlakabad. The 34-year-old mother of four, Muskaan had waited seven hours for her turn at the ration shop in Abu Fazal Enclave.

Saurabh Bidhuri and his posse of cousins pace around his ‘gold-plated’ car, parked in their narrow galli in Khadar, Delhi. Grounded now due to the lockdown, Saurabh says it is ‘despairing’ that he can’t take it for a spin.

Babban scrambled to get on this bus to Bareilly that the police allowed on a sudden whim, to prevent the state border from getting choked with stranded migrants. Why the hurry? Because his sister-in-law, who is pregnant, couldn’t bear the thought of him hanging around in Delhi without any money to send home the next month.

‘Social distancing’, chuckled Arun Narasimhan, a retiree, earlier in the month, pointing to his wife sitting in front, awaiting their checked in baggage,  ‘you don’t need a virus for that, 40 years of marriage will do it for you’

The warnings about the virus’s spread in india had begun early this month. The humour was palpable among some on boarding—those jokes about the superhero dusting off a fleck of coronavirus on the tip of his moustache….

The humble ‘rumaal’ is the Great Protector of sorts in these times. Ask Bechan Kamat, vendor of handkerchiefs and ‘mata ki chunni’ (a fabric offered to a Goddess) for the last 22 years in Sarita Vihar. Handkerchief sales have overtaken the chunni, he says.

The bus stand at Shaheen Bagh that housed a busy library during CAA protests now stands empty.  Who would’ve thought that an invisible germ would uproot the firm protestors from their now mythic tents?

Riyaj sits down after an afternoon spent handing out cups of water to families on a long walk back to their homes in Delhi after arriving in Noida by bus from Uttar Pradesh. Riyaj, whose family runs the Royal restaurant in Okhla, heard about the families last Saturday and organised a water booth within an hour.

The food delivery guys are warriors of the night too. Sachin Verma from Swiggy and Rakesh Singha from Zomato wait for their delivery orders from Burger King in Connaught Place. ‘We feel the fear too. A lot of our orders are from doctors and medical teams in hospitals and medical hostels. Aren’t we doing our bit too with our lives?’

Ramesh Kumar, an attendant at the Bharat Petroleum pump in Connaught Place says he has never seen anything like this before.  They sell less than 20 litres a day, mostly to the delivery-wallas on their bikes. End of shift and Ramesh Kumar is cycling home on borrowed cycle tonight to Dabri Mod, 20 km away, since there are no buses.

A crow, considered a vehicle of the God of Death in mythology, at dusk overlooking the Raisina Hill. The authorities are tackling a logistical nightmare as the virus rides on many, to states across the length and breadth of India. And it’s merely Day 8 of the lockdown.