Iran press/Asia: Jobless in lockdown, the 54-year-old is one f the tens of thousands of hapless migrant workers who had set out to walk hundreds of miles home after the lockdown was announced in Delhi.
Berjom Bamda Pahadiya started the journey from Delhi last August.
He arrived home at Amarbitha in Sahebganj district of Jharkhand on March 13 after a seven-month trudge from Delhi, 1,200km away, showing remarkable resilience for a 54-year-old in surviving odds that had felled many a younger man.
His labor contractor in Delhi had not only withheld his entire pay, but he had also snatched all his money, Pahadiya says.
He walked along the railway tracks in his torn rubber slippers, asking his way home — not too successfully perhaps, for he speaks no Hindi and only Santhali, which may partly explain why it took him so long.
He had to beg for food and water at villages on the way, again the language barrier coming in the way. He had not eaten for a fortnight, he says, when an NGO worker spotted him at a railway crossing in Dhanbad district on March 11, about 240km from his home.
A member of the NGO accompanied Pahadiya from Mahuda en route to Amarbitha in Sahebganj district of Jharkhand.
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