Nagpur’s Anirudhh helps Md Gayur get back home, takes a 700 Kms long detour

“Goodbye friend. If we both survive, we will meet again some day,” said an emotional Md Gayur at the end of the mandatory 14 days of their quarantine in Jodhpur. It was time to part.

But he was not prepared for the reply.

“I am coming with you. You will not make it on your own. I will find my way after I see you reach your family,” replied Aniruddh.

They had met at the quarantine centre barely three weeks ago. Gayur, a master carpenter from Muzaffarnagar, and Aniruddh, who did odd jobs, from Nagpur got talking. And before they knew it, they bared their soul to each other.

“Gayur Bhai is a good human being and is physically challenged. He moves on a tri-cycle but I knew that covering 700 kilometres between Jodhpur and Muzaffarnagar alone would be tough for him,” explains Aniruddh.

No, no, mumbled Md Gayur after he had recovered from the shock. Nagpur in Maharashtra and Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh are in two different directions. The distance between Muzaffarnagar and Nagpur was a daunting 1,100 Kilometres. How would Aniruddh make the journey alone?

But the younger man, also a good human being, had made up his mind.

He wouldn’t abandon his friend of 14 days.

Miraculously, they made it to Muzaffarnagar, covering the 780 Kms in five days—with the younger man often pushing the tricycle because of uneven terrain and kutcha roads that ran through villages.

“People of Rajasthan were good to us. They showed us short cuts and avoid highways,” they recalled. They would rest wherever they could when it became too hot in the day. They would make up at night.

A public bus was ferrying passengers between Jodhpur and Bharatpur. But the handicapped older man could not have boarded the bus. The tricycle however would often run fast on highways and it would be difficult to control it on inclines. The younger man would pull it back, slow it down and help the older man steer it.

At Bharatpur, police turned them back. They were not allowed to proceed. But villagers came to their rescue. They directed them to forests and villages through which they could move closer to the Rajasthan-UP border.

At Muzaffarnagar, both of them have been placed in home quarantine at Md Gayur’s own house. The older man’s wife is also handicapped and the couple have two children. Aniruddh, the older man says, is God’s gift to him on Eid and it was now his responsibility to ensure Aniruddh returns home to Nagpur.

The overwhelmed younger man shyly admits that he did not expect that he would be received so warmly and given such affection and respect.

His return to Nagpur, he says, will be planned only after Eid. Md Umar, a Muzaffarnagar lawyer, and his councillor wife Sadia have taken the responsibility of making arrangements for his return.

However, neither Md Gayur nor Anirudhh are keen to return to Jodhpur.