Coimbatore: A three-member family, one of them a two-year-old boy, was left with no other option but to trudge all the way to Kangayam in Tirupur from Muthugoundan Pudur on the outskirts of the city in their pursuit to reach home after they were rendered penniless with their employer refusing to loan them any amount to survive the remaining days of lockdown.
A native of Namakkal, 26-year-old K Dhanasekar has been working in the district for almost past five years. While he was with a mill in the city for four years, he had shifted to another mill in Muthugoundan Pudur as a loom worker seven months ago.
During the first phase of lockdown, life wasn’t that hard for Dhanasekar, his wife D Sukanya and son D Aswin, who were staying on the mill premises, as he was getting money from his employer as “loan” to meet the expenses.
However, things changed as the government extended the lockdown. His employer was not ready to fend him anymore. Dhanasekar said, “When my wife went to ask for money on Thursday, the employer’s mother treated her badly. Later, the employer too spoke to me in an unpleasant manner. So, we thought it was not good to stay there any longer and decided to leave for my wife’s hometown of Kottur in Mannargudi.”
Dhanasekar said he had informed the agent, who had roped in to work in the mill, that he would repay the “loan” soon before they started the journey to Mannargudi. “There were no vehicles on roads even for hitchhiking. So, we decided to walk all way,” he said. The distance from Coimbatore to Mannargudi in Tiruvarur district is around 310km.
On Friday, they reached Kangayam in Tirupur by walk, covering a distance of at least 60km. There were tired and unable to carry on. As luck would have it, they were spotted by local journalists and others, who provided them with food and brought the issue to the notice of Tirupur collector K Vijayakarthikeyan. The collector subsequently directed revenue officials to arrange a vehicle for them and issue them a travel pass.
The couple, along with their kid, were taken to their hometown in the vehicle. “We reached our place on Friday night. My in-laws are labourers at brick kiln here. We are planning to join them,” Dhanasekar said.
A native of Namakkal, 26-year-old K Dhanasekar has been working in the district for almost past five years. While he was with a mill in the city for four years, he had shifted to another mill in Muthugoundan Pudur as a loom worker seven months ago.
During the first phase of lockdown, life wasn’t that hard for Dhanasekar, his wife D Sukanya and son D Aswin, who were staying on the mill premises, as he was getting money from his employer as “loan” to meet the expenses.
However, things changed as the government extended the lockdown. His employer was not ready to fend him anymore. Dhanasekar said, “When my wife went to ask for money on Thursday, the employer’s mother treated her badly. Later, the employer too spoke to me in an unpleasant manner. So, we thought it was not good to stay there any longer and decided to leave for my wife’s hometown of Kottur in Mannargudi.”
Dhanasekar said he had informed the agent, who had roped in to work in the mill, that he would repay the “loan” soon before they started the journey to Mannargudi. “There were no vehicles on roads even for hitchhiking. So, we decided to walk all way,” he said. The distance from Coimbatore to Mannargudi in Tiruvarur district is around 310km.
On Friday, they reached Kangayam in Tirupur by walk, covering a distance of at least 60km. There were tired and unable to carry on. As luck would have it, they were spotted by local journalists and others, who provided them with food and brought the issue to the notice of Tirupur collector K Vijayakarthikeyan. The collector subsequently directed revenue officials to arrange a vehicle for them and issue them a travel pass.
The couple, along with their kid, were taken to their hometown in the vehicle. “We reached our place on Friday night. My in-laws are labourers at brick kiln here. We are planning to join them,” Dhanasekar said.
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