Crossing three States, mostly plodding in the furious heat 13 days on, Vikramjeet Verma believes the longest journey of his life, to get back home, is more about never returning to Ahmedabad, some 1,300km away.
With every step on the highway, hauling feet heavy with crushed dreams, his resolve only fortifies: “Ab kabhi vaapis nahi jana hai udhar [I don’t have to go there ever again].”
On Saturday, he reached the Madhya Pradesh-Uttar Pradesh border along with two friends. “This whole period feels like Gadar is playing out,” quipped Mr. Verma, 21, a carpenter who made ₹400 a day, referring to the film set in the 1947 Partition. “Borders are created within the country; people are moving like cattle; there are checkpoints everywhere. And all is uncertain now, like at the time of Independence.”
Lockdown displaces lakhs of migrants
For eight days at least, they reached the Ahmedabad railway station every morning. “We stood in the queue to board a train,” said his friend Ajay Verma. As the lockdown kicked in — and has continued since — hunger and draining cash has felt like a curse for leaving home. And the government’s tardy response to their plea for returning home sapped all security. Now, only home, its warm embrace, could lend them succour. So they set out towards Gonda district of Uttar Pradesh. “We will work as agricultural laboure