It took Mukesh Maurya many hours of walking, several more hours of waiting and three gruelling, very crowded bus rides to reach Amethi from Delhi New Delhi: There was panic in the air with talk of a pandemic, his job was probably gone as was the roof over his head, but Mukesh Maurya did not let his spirits flag as he set off from Delhi for his village, more than 600 kilometres away, determined to be home to see his baby being born.
There were no trains and few buses to get to Musafirkhana in Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi district all the way from Rajouri Garden where he worked as a daily wage labourer, but get there he did.