Covid-19 revives humane nature among people in Rajasthan

A crisis, often times, makes people show their best. And it's proving true in the time of lockdown due to the Covid-19 epidemic.

In Rajasthan, people can be seen extending a helping hand to those stranded due to the 21-day lockdown by providing food and even money. The people are also seen trying to contribute to the local administration.

In Dausa, a group of 10 youths who are entrepreneurs, are providing meals to 500-700 workers stranded there. The contractors who had hired them have ran away without giving them their due salaries.

Left with no choice they decided to walk to their homes, hundreds of kilometres away. Now, they are being taken care of by this group.

"The stranded workers with their wives and children had no money, no food. While women hid their tears behind their veils, the children were screaming their heart out for want of food on roads.

"When we asked them, they shared their plight with us. We decided to feed them and asked our families to cook poori and sabzi for them. We are serving that food to these workers," said Kuldeep, who runs an automobile garage in Jaipur.

"People are pouring in from adjoining state of Gujarat and districts, like Sirohi, in Rajasthan. We fed around 500 people on Wednesday and 700 people on Thursday," he said.

In Rajsamand, many students and those working in distant places, like Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai, have got stranded.

Taking the initiative, Kiran Maheshwari, local BJP legislator, gathered her friends to help these people with food, money and shelter. "The people are helping these students with boarding, lodging, food and monetary needs," Maheshwari told IANS.

In Jaipur, when a local storm on Wednesday night uprooted three power poles in the Patel Nagar locality disrupting the electric supply, the people instead of making hue and cry decided to wait till the Thursday morning.

They complained to the department but as the most contractual workers were not available, the residents helped the two workers to lift up the poles and calmaly followed the instructions of the department and awaited restoration of power supply.

"The team work of residents sorted out the problem, which normally remain unresolved even after many phone calls to the department," said Vimal Katiyar, a resident.

"Testing times come to teach us something and this time is no exception," he said.
-IANS