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swedna · 4 years

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Even as the government has sought to revive economic activity in a phased manner, stranded migrant workers are sceptical about staying on. With uncertainty looming large over the trajectory of the deadly coronavirus in the coming days, they are eager to return home. “I want to see my wife and kids. I want to return home. Work can wait,” says 45-year-old construction worker Parshuram Thakur, who works in Bengaluru. Thakur, whose native place is in Bihar, has a wife, two daughters, and a son — all dependents. After staying in Bihar for two months with his family, Thakur had returned to city life for work in January where he earns Rs 9,600 a month. Thakur says though he received his share of daily wages for the pre-lockdown work and is getting food, his family is on top of his mind. “In Bihar, the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases are fewer. It’s spreading quickly in cities. I will return later. Right now, I want to be with my family,” he said. Anyhow, Thakur will have to wait longer to resume his job as most construction cites where he was employed were within city limits, which will remain out of bounds for work. Over the past few days, the restlessness of migrant workers spilled on to the streets in major cities, including Mumbai, New Delhi, and Surat. While in Mumbai, thousands of workers reached the Bandra railway station after becoming a victim of misinformation that train services had resumed on Tuesday, in Surat and Delhi, there were visuals of social unrest due to complaints of lack of basic facilities, like food and proper space, to the migrants in the past few days. Hundreds of migrants were living on the banks of the Yamuna in the national Capital after two shelter camps were set ablaze allegedly by inmates due to food shortage.

ALSO READ: Vinay Dubey: The man behind the migrant chaos in Mumbai's Bandra

Julfikar Molla, who migrated from West Bengal to work in Tiruppur in Tamil Nadu, an export hub of garments, has been left high and dry due to the government’s mixed signals related to the lockdown measures. On March 21, when his employer informed him that he should immediately think of returning home, Molla booked a train ticket for March 24. But on March 22, the Indian Railways announced cancelling all train bookings, for the period between March 23 and March 31. He then booked a ticket for April 7, but on March 25, the Railways extended the cancellation of all trains till April 14. Molla booked another ticket, this time for April 17, but he received a text message on Tuesday that the train would no longer depart as the lockdown has been extended.

Police stops migrant workers gathered in large number demanding to go back to their native places after the announcement of nationwide lockdown got extended. Photo: PTIPolice stops migrant workers gathered in large number demanding to go back to their native places after the announcement of nationwide lockdown got extended. Photo: PTIMolla lives in a locality near Tirupur with 300 other migrant workers — most of them either from West Bengal or Bihar. “Dil me ghabrahat ho rahi hai, parivar waale ro rahein hain (my heart is pounding out of anxiety. My family is crying out of worry),” said Molla. ALSO READ: Centre allows industry, road work and MGNREGA to start in rural India

Though he received his past salary dues (Rs 300 per day), the garment factory where he works hasn’t paid the salary for the duration of the lockdown, despite the Centre’s orders (dated March 29) to not deduct wages during this period. Molla, who lives with four other workers in a single room, says he has so far received ration only twice: The first one came four-five days after the nationwide lockdown and the second one, a few days ago. Each worker got 2 kilos of rice, 100 grams of oil, and 100 grams of pulses. He said the employer checked on him only once since the lockdown. “I had dialled up the West Bengal government helpline narrating our state of affairs after the lockdown. I received a call from them a couple of days back enquiring after my native place and taking down other details, saying they are trying to make logistical arrangements for migrants,” he added. This has confused Molla further.

ALSO READ: Construction to resume, focus now on labour, raw materials and funds

He said even if the garment factory resumes operations, he would want to go back to his hometown and make a living there. “It’s hard to live in such uncertain times,” says Molla. Research on stranded migrant workers shows they are running out of resources, including ration and cash, and the state governments might not be able to sustain their needs for a longer period of time, given the lockdown has already been extended until May 3. Most migrant workers say their ration will last less than a day; a whopping 70 per cent didn’t receive cooked food from the state governments, 80 per cent of workers had exhausted all but Rs 300 cash, and close to 90 per cent of the workers didn’t get paid by their employers during the lockdown. This study was conducted by a group of researchers who call themselves Stranded Workers Action Network (SWAN) surveying 11,159 workers since March 27. Most of the migrants (79 per cent) were either daily wage or construction workers. “What the lockdown has revealed is the absence of administrative oversight on the contract labour and lack of accountability of both the employers and governments,” said the research by SWAN, titled ‘21 Days and Counting’.

ALSO READ: A peek into the inner functioning of the Indian govt during Covid-19 crisis

Sujata Mody, secretary at New Trade Union Initiative, said there was complete lack of empathy from employers and many of the workers were not fully aware of the government’s initiatives in their states, which has left the workers disgruntled. “The contractors have fled, leaving the hapless workers behind. Some of the employers even told workers the money would be deducted for the ration supplied to them when they return to work. There is total lack of awareness, as there is no channel of proper communication within the relief camps. For instance, in Tamil Nadu, language is a barrier for Hindi-speaking workers, so the government of their native states should ideally be communicating with them,” says Mody. Days after the lockdown when hundreds of thousands of migrants began their journey from cities to their villages on foot, state governments and non-governmental organisations set up shelter homes to accommodate them to ensure they do not leave. There are around 1.04 million workers residing in 26,476 relief camps (40 people housed in a single camp on average).

ALSO READ: Coronavirus LIVE: Kerala flattens the curve; only one new case reported

As the government has said that some economic activities would resume from April 20, especially in special economic zones and villages, in a safe manner, bringing back workers who have already left the cities could prove to be a Sisyphean task. For instance, 1.2 million workers were in quarantine centres in Uttar Pradesh after they returned from other places immediately after the lockdown was announced. After 14 days, they will finally be returning home.

Even the homeless workers, who have been living in shelter homes for many years, are fast running out of patience.

“I have been getting rice for three meals. I do not feel like eating any more. I want to return to Bihar to be with my family. At least, I will be able to do some farm-related work, eat, and live peacefully,” 45-year-old Kishan Dev Mukhiya, who lives in a shelter home in Sarai Kale Khan in Delhi, said, tears rolling down his face.

#Thakur

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mytravelaffair · 6 years

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Svalbard! Yes, is Svalbard. I have never heard of this place before.

This was going to be my third marathon. If not because of this marathon, I totally have no idea where Svalbard is. OMG — my geography is so bad!

Svalbard is a Norwegian archipelago between mainland Norway and the North Pole. Yes, it’s about 1,600km from the North Pole. One of the world’s northernmost inhabited areas, it’s known for its rugged, remote terrain of glaciers and frozen tundra sheltering polar bears, Svalbard reindeer and Arctic foxes. The Northern Lights are visible during winter. For most of the year, it’s cloaked in in darkness but during summer from June to August, it’s the total opposite and it’s sunlight 24 hours a day — the so-called “midnight sun” phenomenon.

Honestly, it did not come to my mind to research what kind of marathon it was going to be. I was like, “Ok, it’s another marathon in summer, so it’s going to be warm and there will be many runners. I just have to complete the race before the 6-hour cutoff time.” OK, onz! Let’s go.

The race fell on Saturday, 2 June 2018. Training schedule is drafted out, and we decide to start our training pretty early this time in January – 5 months instead of the usual 3 month ramp-up. Spitsbergen Marathon But this time it’s different, we are not aiming for any PB. The idea is to run “together” for the first 21km (so we can take photos together). I will be the one to lead.

Starting from January, my daily weekend routine is always a carbo dinner on Friday night with lots of pasta, after our run is lor mee and more lor mee.

Saturday will be a long run, Sunday I will go for a 2-hour yoga session of stretching and core training. This continued for 4 months and by the time May came around, I was getting physically and mentally exhausted. And with the weather getting hotter, it was making it even more harder to complete my long runs.

Even my DIY self treatment is also become more creative… wahahaha.

It came to a point where I felt so sick of training and I just don’t feel like running. Luckily my husband, sister and brother-in-law who run and train with me, encouraged and supported me. At least, I am not alone.

As race day inched closer, I checked what Svalbard weather was like as well as the running route. PDF for Spitsbergen Marathon Program. Program_spitsbergen_marathon_2018_9 Oh man, it’s less than 10 degrees in Svalbard even during summer time. Damn, I have never run in such cold weather before. Questions like “What is the right attire to wear?”, “How many layers do we need?”, “Do we run with gloves and beanie” started to surface at the back of my mind.

Adding to the pressure, there are only 140 runners and there are the only 6 Asians which include the four of us and 2 from Hong Kong. Ohhh, what a “big event” this is going to be.

Many of my friends asked me, “Why go to such a place to run, is there no other place to run anymore?” and “You must be mad?”. LOL. For many years, our overseas trips always revolved around running. So to me, this trip is just another running event.

After all the training and preparation, finally the day has come. We decide to reach Svalbard a few days earlier to allow us to acclimatise. We are well prepared and equipped — we completed our training schedule and look at the number of bags we carried!

Our first stop is Oslo, Norway and from there, it’s a domestic 1-hour flight to Svalbard and the town of Longyearbyen. The view during the descent is so spectacular — the whole archipelago as far as the eye could see is covered in white.

When we arrived the airport, we are greeted by a big polar bear. Wow! I am excited.

When I step out the airport, I immediately feel the cold, biting wind sting my face. Oh man, it’s c-o-l-d here.

From the airport, it was a short 10-minute bus ride to our Airbnb apartment, and when we entered, I was greeted by a majestic view of the ocean framed by the gorgeous backdrop of snow-capped mountains — all from the warmth and cosiness of our living room. It was so serene, so peaceful, so beautiful — I was blown away. The view of the mountains, the calmness of the sea and the quietness of the surrounding, it was so amazing. And the bonus — an outdoor porch with our own private area of beach and outdoor jacuzzi! We are going to stay for one week. Yippppppeee!

Before the race, we kept busy by visiting the abandoned Russian mining settlement of Pyramiden and we also decided to do a 6km warm-up run to make sure we had the right running attire for the coming race. Somehow, I enjoyed the cold air while running.

On the eve of the race, we walked 15-minutes from our apartment to collect our race pack at one and only sports centre in Longyearbyen (population of just 2,000) in the evening. It’s the first time we don’t need to queue to collect our race pack! And there is only one booth selling event merchandise, that’s it. Indeed a small scale event, but enough to the get the small town buzzing.

We head back to our apartment for our final carbo loading meal — pasta mixed with vegetables and a tray of baked potatoes and breadcrumbed chicken fillets.

Before I head to bed for an early rest, I laid out my running gear for the big race.

Next day, I wake up to a dark and gloomy morning, with not much sun. Luckily, the race starts at 1030am. Why at this hour? Because it will be warmer — mornings in Svalbard can be as low as zero degrees in the morning. (see the photo below)

Indeed, this marathon is a small scale event. We walk to the start point, where a small crowd of runners and their supporters had gathered. As the weather is too cold to stand outside and with only 140 participants, we wait indoors at a nearby sports hall — no need to fight to be in the first line after all. Wahahaha, thats happens if we running in Singapore? We need to be wiggle our way to the front to be as close to the start line as possible.

I can see all the runners are well prepared, most of them from European countries where they experience cold weather but for us, I predict it will be a big challenge.

I never experience running in such freezing conditions. I have to keep in my mind that i have to run slow and try not to stop (if possible) because it will be too cold to walk.

The race starts at 1030am sharp, and straight away, we come against a steep slope but all the “ang moh” runners didn’t even slow their pace, instead they start running faster. After just 500m, we find ourselves last and bringing up the rear. I do feel pressure as we are really far away from the rest even though the race just started. However, our plan is to stick together for the first 21km (to take photos). I make sure I maintain a constant and comfortable pace of 6:30 min/km.

Well, as usual my sister, Jennifer finds a good female “ang moh” pacer big enough to block the cold, biting wind (she is to replace me, so I can conserve my energy). Our group of four fall into a line behind the female pacer and we follow her for a good 5km or more.

Along the way, we take many nice photos. This is the most beautiful race I have ever run. We soon lose our pacer as we are too busy taking photos.

and we drop even further behind the main pack of runners. I thought as long as we are maintaining a good pace we will definitely able to catch up with the rest. I was wrong. They are so good. Maybe, what we all say “ang moh” are really good in running. Hahahaha….

This race is indeed a strange, lonely experience. There are no crowds to cheer me on (not like the previous year in Kagoshima, Japan where town folk line the streets of the entire 42-km course). Around 18km, we come back to the town of Longyearbyen and there are still no crowds to cheer me… hahahaha, indeed a quiet race from the beginning.

The route then leads us outside the main town area and soon, snow mountains appear right in front of me. WOW! what a view. The snow-capped mountains are so close and so beautiful.

This is the most scenic view ever. Running along such view is so therapeutic, so peaceful but however the 2km is quite a challenge too. I was running against the cold winds. It was strong. And there are less than 3 runners keeping me company during this lonely stretch of the race.

The marathon route consists of 2 21-km loops. At 21km, there is a drinking station so I decide to eat more banana and chocolate (the only food they provide during the race). I wanted to increase my pace to catch up with some runners at the U-turn bend but honestly, I can’t catch up with any of them. No one walk in this race! My GOD! They are really good.

I maintain a good pace for the next 10km. I make sure my breathing and my heart beat is constant. I don’t feel exhausted at this point but I start to notice a tightness in my upper right thigh. Near the 25km mark, I manage to overtake my brother-in-law after we took some photos together.

. Another 5km passed without incident but at the 30km mark, during the start of a few uphill slope as we re-enter the town area, I felt myself slowing down. The upward climb made my right hamstring burn unbearably and it was becoming worse and worse. I tell myself not to stop till the end of the slope, with the reward to allow myself to rest my legs before the final 8km. Yes, I stopped to rest, and immediately regretted it. My right upper thigh started to cramp and when I tried to run again, my legs just wouldn’t listen. I start limping as I tried to run. “Oh shit, not this time!”, I tell myself. At this time, Gee Sin (my brother-in-law) overtakes me. Damn, but he motivate me to increase my pace even through I am in pain. Unbelievably, the more I ran, the pain and cramp started to fade. But, in my mind, I was thinking how long can I sustain this? I try to focus on my breathing and try not to think of the pain, so I manage another good 5km along the coastline without stopping. I saw the final drinking station and stopped to hydrate. Regretted, that’s it! There goes the final 4km. I couldn’t get started again as my legs just totally wouldn’t listen. I walked/run the final 4km

. and from my vantage point, I saw the last five runners including Jeff. As I had stopped running, I started getting cold and started shivering. I was struggling. I kept double-checking my watch to make sure I would make the 6-hour cut-off time.

Finally, I reached the final kilometre and I forced myself to run for a good finish. Still there are no crowds to cheer me up except for a few runners who had completed the race and were heading back home or to their hotels. Finally, I see the familiar sight of the finishing line (it’s the same as the start point) and I cross the finishing line. I am so happy, I feel like crying. My sister, who had finished earlier, came to greet me with a hug and we take some photos together.

I am not the last and I take a look at my watch: 4.15pm, 15 minutes before the cutoff time. Jeff still nowhere in sight. We all waited. Most runners had already left and the organisers were starting to dismantle poles, banners and flags. I prayed to myself, “Jeff, please make it”. Finally, we heard his name over the PA system and we are so excited, we rush out to greet him.

We all make it! YIPPPPPPEEE …

This race will stay long in my memory. Compared to the previous 2 overseas marathons in Japan, this was a stark contrast. This race had many up slopes and even some trail terrain. It was cold but luckily there was no rain. And the most strangest part is there was no one along the street to cheer you on. It was you battling against the elements.

As we slowly walked back to our apartment, I could barely walk, similar to what I had faced after the Kagoshima marathon. Both legs were cramping up, I was shivering due to the biting cold and somehow, we eventually made it back to the warmth and cosiness of our apartment. At the end of the day, it made us stronger mentally and physically. After a hot shower and a quick noodle soup for dinner, we all turned in for an early night, exhausted and grateful for a warm, cosy bed.

Am done. But will never forget you.

Spitsbergen Marathon 2018: My best and coolest ever race Svalbard! Yes, is Svalbard. I have never heard of this place before. This was going to be my third marathon.

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rueur · 7 years

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Morning Pages #30 (09.02.2017)

Thursday 9th February - 10:05 a.m.

I am actually writing in the a.m. now, I know! It has been a while, I know. Yesterday was a very taxing day though, so I fell asleep almost immediately. The only issue was that I got home to Anthony’s parents having dinner with my parents, and whenever they get together, the meal always takes place at a quarter to midnight (give or take a half hour), so I ate a few of their appetizers before the main meal despite the fact that between the hours of 11 a.m. and 10 p.m. yesterday, I had literally nothing to eat at all. I survived off of some warm garlic bread until my parents were ready to serve the dhosa and the eggplant and potato curry, which was just the most warm and sustaining meal I’ve had since Gong De Lin, considering how long I had to wait for it. That and the eggplant curry is always just magical going down your throat. It’s generous tomato texture, and the warm flavour of the spices, and the delicately lingering chilli to top it all off, all carried by the smooth, milky dhosa - simply put, it was the right thing to be eating at that given time.

But enough about my meal! My day was astounding. The meeting with Marcus went very well, with cameo appearances from Mark and Hector. Hector arrived at around 3 p.m., I should say, and immediately went upstairs to have a shower because it was excruciatingly hot yesterday. Then he hung out whilst Marcus and I caught up (after the business of the day was done). I told them both about Ikaros and I, and confided in them that not only had Ikaros called me and asked me to come and see him later that day, but that I was going to use the opportunity to come and see him, to tell him once and for all what I really needed from him right now. Which was plenty of space. I told Marcus and Hector that neither of us were getting what we needed from the relationship and that we had both begun to realise this over the past four months in particular, but that I still wasn’t sure how to make the break-up seem official to either of us, considering that counting yesterday, Ikaros and I have broken up four times over the span of four months. Three of those times were in January-February alone. It’s chaotic. But now it’s over. It was incredibly emotional, and I’m not entirely sure why because I feel like the drama has passed for me. I already went through my heartbreak, and now I’m on the other side. It’s his turn now. He was in denial for this long, otherwise he would’ve gone through this with me. Then again, he has been infamously emotionally immature. I shouldn’t talk about him like this, but these pages are for honesty.

Ikaros also admitted yesterday evening that he knew he’d been treating me badly. Even though he swore he would protect me from my family abuse, because he said he didn’t want anybody shitting on me, he admitted to shitting on me himself. Then he asked me again, if I didn’t want to keep trying with him. I simply said that he had just admitted he had been treating me badly, so what would it say about my self-respect if I were to allow him to be with me after all of this. Thankfully, he understood this. He also began to (for the first time in a LONG TIME) regret the way he had treated me. He was the one who would say no to plans, who would end phone calls and skype calls and days spent together. He was the one who didn’t buy presents and didn’t offer emotional support when it was most needed. He was the one who was keen for an open relationship before it was even appropriate, like three months into our dating! He was the one who made comments about other people, and made deprecating comments about me, and thus, made me end up being very unhappy in my own skin (an insecurity only often softened by him subsequently fucking me and then me being glad that somebody could possibly be attracted to me at all enough to fuck me). He was the one who didn’t say ‘I love you’ back! WHEN HE DID. And even though he failed to do all of these things, it was at least nice to hear that he was aware of this. Even so, I felt really bad for him when he was sitting with his hands on his knees in the Rosanna Parklands, saying ‘I fucked up’ over and over again to himself or to me.

This shouldn’t be important anymore, though. I should start thinking about other things. And I have. For instance, Marcus really loved my script, and so did Mark and Hector. Marcus said it was very ‘non-white-male’ which made me quite happy, and he also said that with a little fine-tuning, he doesn’t doubt that we can get funding from SBS. He just believes that Kali should be given a more concrete goal, to juxtapose her life with her mother’s. Vini’s dream was taken from her, so Kali should be shown making full claims to her passion and achieving everything her mother was forced to let go. I totally agreed with this, and my current task is to rework the script a little to place more emphasis on Kali achieving her dreams. The beach trip scenes between Kali and Adam are growing less and less prevalent with every draft, and I love it. The whole idea of the ‘rock pool’ is supposed to be more symbolic than literal anyway. My only qualm with this is purely that I feel like the beach scenes would be so beautiful to shoot. But after seeing Assassin’s Creed, I guess I am now more than aware of the dangers of prioritising cinematography over the actual plotline when one is tasked with making a storyboard.

I will say this though. I have never felt more of a writer than I have over these last two months, and this is making me increasingly excited for the rest of 2017. I also feel like these pages have had a lot to do with that too, and of course my time in Northcote too. I’ve been thinking about my time in Northcote, and have realised that it has drastically improved my life for the better. Not only did I come across ‘The Artist’s Way’ and begin on my creative rehabilitation, but I was also given time away from everyone and everything and was just allowed to be a human existing alone. Taking care of the cats also kept me anchored, kept me waking up at a sensible hour every morning and returning home at a sensible hour too (except on weekends). Furthermore, living in Northcote and being that close to everything, allowed me to go out on weekends in a way that I’ve never gone before. It allowed me to meet Evan too. Evan asked me, I think on Monday, whether or not I would’ve gone to Laundry if I hadn’t been living in Northcote. I answered very honestly, saying that I actually might not have gone out at all if I had never taken the housesitting job. Because I had gone out alone that night, and the only reason I felt safe enough going out alone that night was because I knew it would be easy enough for me to get back home to the apartment (one tram for like fifteen minutes, it was too easy). I feel like maybe I should tell Emily exactly how much minding the boys has positively impacted me. But she might stop paying me to do the job if she knows how fantastic it’s been for me! No, she wouldn’t, that was a joke.

I really miss Evan right now. My phone plan just ended and I’m switching to something a little cheaper ($5 cheaper a month, yet still way out of my budget), hopefully today. I don’t know what to do if he texts me though! I don’t know if it’ll send. I was tempted (I still am, actually) to send him the photo that was taken of us at Laundry the night that we met. Actually, fuck it. I’m going to do that right now. It’s only 10:36 a.m. and I am probably more than a quarter of the way through this final page. I am making excellent time. I am, however, a little nervous about getting started on the next draft of my script. It’s just been endless, and even Marcus said that it’s SO SO tight as it is right now, like it’s going to take a lot of frustration and editing to get it to where it needs to be. That, and screenwriting is so weird! It’s a very new medium, naturally, and nobody really knows how to do it as Marcus said (but regardless, my uni course was very focused on teaching us the layout and formatting of film scripts over actually writing them), but I feel that it’s infinitely harder for people who are actually traditional writers, or come from a writing background. It’s odd, but I think it’s safe to say that I feel like it’s easier for actors to write screenplays than it would be for writers. Marcus also noted that I had a tendency to indulge in description when I was writing action in my script. He said that sometimes my inclinations to write prose seeped through, and made my script naturally a lot more lovely to read, but a lot less easy to be interpreted by directors and actors, and everyone else who must work off of your script. It is a deceptively simple medium, I’ll just leave it at that. I can’t wait to be finished with this project! And it really hasn’t even started yet!

Okay, I sent the photo. He’s at work right now. Sometimes I worry about him being at work, honestly. Like whenever the weather’s bad. Yesterday, for example, was ridiculously hot, and I was only really only outside in the high sun for about an hour or two. But for him, it would’ve been all day! Even today, it’s supposed to be quite hot and ALSO quite windy too. And I know he finished up early on Monday because some equipment wasn’t available or something, so I can assume that the rest of this week or at least the next few days after Monday, would’ve been a lot longer and a lot more productive. If he’s been working hard both yesterday and today, I can’t help but imagine he’d be feeling rather physically exhausted by the end of today. I know that he really can’t wait till school starts again for him, but honestly neither can I. I’ll be glad to see him taking it easy for a while and studying something he’s passionate about rather than spending all of his time landscaping, waking up at ungodly hours and working in extreme conditions for so long. Goodness, I think I really like this boy.

#morning pages #30 #09.02.2017 #rock pool

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