A Covid Diary Hope amid Chaos Dhiraj Talukdar
March 2020 . All of a sudden , when the lockdown was enforced all over India , like millions of other Indians , many from North East India , who had been working in Bangalore as low wage workers , security guards were affected miserably . Others include the employees of restaurants and the hospitality industry . Though Bangalore is one of the cities where thousands of people from Assam travel daily , Bangalore still lacks an official Assam Bhavan . The people who were shocked and panicked desperately looking for someone they could ask for help . All they found on Google was Assam Society of Bangalore . In the beginning , we started getting calls from people who wanted to go home . The chefs , waiters , beauticians , salon workers , security guards and drivers – almost everyone started calling us as they didn ’ t have anyone to call for help . Interestingly , at this hour of crisis no government official , nor a single journalist was to be found , they were unreachable .
We were helpless too , as we were stuck inside our houses . Then , we had a meeting with the North East Nodal Officer from Bangalore City Police DCP ( South East ) Shrinath Joshi Sir who issued us some passes . With the help of those we were able to go out during lockdown . We started collecting funds from our executive members and on April 3 rd . We had collected funds for rations which could serve around 200 stranded people . We travelled with our 6-7 cars all over Bangalore to provide the rations . That was the beginning . With the help of Bangalore City Police and DCP Srinath Joshi Sir , Col . Christopher Rego from Sunbird Trust and many well-wishers , we were able to collect a lot of rations which we have distributed among more than four thousand stranded people all over
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