At the age of 40 when you are just working as a daily wager in a factory in the economic hub of the country, what can one expect of life? They call it the “Mayanagri” a city which is one of the fortune options chose by Migrants who travel from every part of the country just to move into the city every day in search of a better life, which gave it the name ‘City of Dreams’. Despite its many slums and alarming extremes in wealth distribution, it is seen as a city that will reward anyone who is willing to work hard. Such was the dream of Ramdhani who came into Mumbai at the age of 38 in the hope of making it something decent for survival and be a constant support to his family.

Just like any dream, he woke up to the news of the pandemic in the month of March wherein little did he know of how devastating that could turn out to be even to the level of such small livelihood earners. It was a during the Lockdown 4.0 when his factory was completely closed indefinitely and even before he could reach to his senses of how the pandemic had affected and caused all the misery in his life, he had to return back to his native village in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh.

Just like the millions of migrants, he along with his Rahagiri “2 fellow travellers” friends embarked on a journey on the Nagpur highway walking. Post 72 hours in the scorching sun when he had covered 200 kms with no access to food and water settled down to rest by the roadside. He tried waving his hands to the limited transport which was passing on the highway so that he may get some solace by traveling to a certain distance in a vehicle. With blisters on his feet, the shining sun above his head and the friends that he made, it was when sharing stories about his village that he saw at a distant a UP-78 registration truck coming. With some knowledge and interest into vehicles, he knew that the truck was on its way to Kanpur, as it was a Kanpur registration number plate.

He waved the truck stopped and to his accurate knowledge the truck was going back from Mumbai to Kanpur and was enough for him to be dropped at the district of Allahabad from where he had to cover a distance of another 45 kms, which didn’t seem a big task at that moment to him. Collectively he had to pay all the money that he had received as the closure of account from his job which amounted to 15000 INR for this service that the truck driver agreed to provide. Not hesitant a second he agreed and paid it because the only thought of reaching his home was racing in his mind after all the things, he had lost due to pandemic which changed dream to an alternate reality which was unpleasant.

After 3 days he reached Prayagraj and walked to his village the final quarter-mile of 45 kms. With the amount of happiness with which he reached the village during dawn he had no idea that he would have to be quarantined for 21 days in the common grounds of the village. The villages didn’t let him, or his family meet him until the test was done and they could see the results. As this village was one of the areas of DDWS, field staff in a short interaction received all the sharing and the team assisted in helping him get the required medical test done, and the COVID-19 results were negative on his medical certificate which Ramdhani showed the village leaders and finally has been able to re-integrate with his family. After this basic support, he was also assisted in some basic essentials by our team and all he had to say is, “I went in search of a dream, but my journey back home was not less than a dream; as I never thought I would struggle so much that I at an instance, I doubted if I would even reach my village and see my family again. He has been thankful to DDWS for the intervention and hopes that his ‘Rahagiri’ friends also would have made it to their respective villages.