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For this act, the girl received praise from around the world.
“I had no choice. We would not have survived if we had not both taken our bikes to our hometown,” the girl said Sunday.
Kumari said that she and her father would have starved to death if they had stayed in Gurugram, a suburb of New Delhi. They lost their source of income due to severe operating restrictions imposed by the coronavirus in India.
The girl’s father, who can no longer walk after the accident, used to work as a racing driver. But by banning all unnecessary travel in India, he has become one of the millions of new unemployed. The owner of the father’s rented house with his daughter demanded money they could no longer afford and threatened to evict them, Kumari said.
So the girl decided to buy a bicycle and go home, like thousands of other Indian migrant workers who have moved to their previous homes since March.
Kumari rode a bicycle for ten days, with his father sitting behind him on his bright pink bicycle, even as it warms up. People gave them food and water, but Kumari was only able to rest her feet once during this trip when she and her father were transported by a nearby trucker.
Just over a week ago, the daughter returned with her father to Darbanga, her hometown of Bihar, where Kumari’s mother and brother-in-law live, and left the capital region when COVID-19 restrictions were imposed on 25 March. At the time, eight-year-old Kumari, who moved from his village to Gurugram in January to help his father, remained in the capital.
On Sunday, she said she was still tired from traveling.
AFP / Scanpix Photo / Jyoti Kumari with father
“It was a very difficult journey,” he said. – It was too hot, but we had no choice. I only had one goal in my mind: to go home. “
As soon as they returned home, village officials transferred Kumari’s father to a special quarantine center. Many Indian state and local authorities have required that migrants from other regions be isolated in dedicated quarantine centers to control the spread of the coronavirus. Currently, the entire Kumari family is quarantined at home.
Quarantine measures in India for two months now appear to have helped prevent a sudden outbreak of COVID-19 in the country, which has given time to accumulate more medical supplies and expand the capacity of intensive care units. In India, 144,741 cases were reported, with 4,162 deaths reported.
However, severe restrictions in the country have led to a humanitarian crisis: thousands of people living in poverty have tried to return to remote cities and towns. Some walked, carried older relatives on their shoulders, or carried young children in wheeled suitcases. Dozens of people died on the road, crashing trains or trucks, starving or committing suicide.
In India, a particularly important and widely developed Indian train network has been closed to passengers due to strict quarantine restrictions. Buses, planes, and taxis were also banned. However, earlier this month, the country’s government has partially resumed train travel for migrant workers to return home.
Strict quarantine restrictions have dealt a devastating blow to the Indian economy, largely made up of informal sector work. The country’s government has begun to ease stringent quarantine restrictions in recent weeks and has allowed more and more people to return to work.
Kumari knew of the special trains, but her father, who could not walk with her, would not have been able to reach the train platform. So the girl decided they were going to ride a bike.
Kumari’s trip received the attention of the Indian Cycling Federation. The race organizing team, which gathers teams for the Olympics, offered the girl a train ride back to New Delhi to test her strength during next month’s selection.
This story has not escaped Washington, either: Ivanka Trump, the daughter of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, called the Kumari act “a wonderful feat of resistance and love” on Twitter.
Kumari says that while the compliments are rewarding, she has decided to ride her father home on a bicycle, not for fame.
“It was a decision I made in complete despair,” he said.
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