advertisement
Video Editor: Vivek Gupta
“If nothing else, all three of us will just drink water and starve to death,” laments Archana Haldar, as she looks out from her one-room residence in Noida’s Nithari village. Working as a domestic help across several societies, Haldar had arrived in the city from West Bengal’s Malda district just a month before the lockdown was imposed in March.
Haldar and her husband had left their native village with their 17-year-old son, hoping to earn enough money to get him medical treatmen. In the process, the couple had to leave their 12-year-old daughter behind, under the care of her grandmother in Malda.
But Haldar cannot go back to her native place and will have to borrow money to pay her rent. For now, the family relies on food provided by others.
“I don't even have Rs 100 with me now. I eat whatever people give us. We ate some puri that we got from the temple. Now, they've stopped giving food at the temple. We are just sitting at home. At 8 pm, a man distributes food on the road. I will go and get it,” she says.
Haldar isn’t alone. Sharing the misery with her are many other domestic helps in Nithari, who, too, have not been paid by their employers. With no word or pay from their employers, how will the women of Nithari survive this pandemic?
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)