Dhan Bahadur, 60, is from Nepal who came to Pune about three months ago on some personal work and landed a job in our housing complex to water the trees and do other errands, all because of another Nepali friend of his who is also working here. He is ever-smiling as he goes about his daily chores.
But Dhan is looking forward to his return home soon. “I will go by train from Pune to Lucknow, then go by bus to the Nepal border,” he tells me. “From there it will take me another two days to travel to my home in a remote village.”
And the total cost of the long and arduous journey; at least Rs5,000. For a man earning about Rs8,000 a month its substantial. But he wants to return home to the fields where the family grows rice and other crops and where he has buffaloes whose milk they sell. “Hopefully my son may come to India looking for work,” says the soft-spoken Dhan.
