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Video Editor: Mohd Ibrahim
Amid the nationwide lockdown, 13-year-old Jyoti Kumari was left with no choice but to travel on a bicycle for 1,200 kilometers with her ailing father to reach home from Gurugram in Haryana.
But, reaching home was not the end of her troubles. There are two loans that have to be repaid, and her father has lost his job. Her family has no money, not even for food.
Resident of Bihar’s Darbhanga and a student in the eighth standard, 13-year-old Jyoti’s father was a driver in Haryana’s Gurugram. He had met with an accident in January following which Jyoti, along with her mother and four siblings, had come to Gurugram to stay with her father.
Jyoti’s mother is an Anganwadi worker in Bihar. She had taken a leave from work to visit her husband. But soon, she had to return with her four children while Jyoti stayed back to take care of her father. After the nationwide lockdown was announced, his treatment stopped and he lost his job as well.
To add to their trouble, their landlord in Gurugram gave them two options – pay the rent or vacate the apartment. That’s when Jyoti started insisting that they must go back home. It took Jyoti and her father seven days to reach home.
Speaking to The Quint, Jyoti’s mother Fulo Devi said that she didn’t even have money for the cycle but somehow managed to buy it.
Jyoti’s mother told The Quint how she had to take two loans from two banks for her husband’s treatment. Jyoti’s parents were making ends meet and feeding the children with the money they got as loan. But, after her husband lost his job amid the lockdown, she is worried as to how she would repay the loans.
Jyoti’s father now doesn’t want to go back to Gurugram. He wants to somehow find a source of income in his own village and stay back with his family. He doesn’t want to take the risk of staying away from his wife and children.
Impressed with her extraordinary feat, the Cycling Federation of India sent jyoti an invitation to go for trials as a trainee at the National Cycling Academy in New Delhi.
But jyoti told The Quint that she is tired and physically weak after the long journey and has asked for a month’s time from the federation.
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