The continuation of lockdown as daily Covid cases rise and little relief coming their way, the daily wage workers are finding it difficult to feed themselves. With public transport coming to a halt in the ongoing lockdown, many workers, seeing that they could find no work and go hungry for weeks, left for their native places either on foot or on their ramshackle bicycles. But there were too many and knew that there was no way they could have reached all the way to their respective homes. Many of those who tried returning were sent back from various points, sometimes even getting beaten up by the police.

Government is extending the lockdown. We will just die of hunger says one of them. Even if they open the rail and bus, how will we go? We do not have even a paisa left, her neighbour says.

Once a day, packets of cooked meals come for distribution in the nearby school. “Some get it, but it is not enough for everyone. And it is just once a day in any case.