The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)

‘ Lucky to survive’: After landslides, Bihar tea estate worker says he wants to go back

AFTER ONLY a month of coming to Kerala, Ravikumar Paswan, 27, is desperate to return home to Rampur Chakla village in Bihar’s Purnia district. A tea plantation worker in Wayanad’s Mundakkai, the twin landslides in the district have shaken him. “It’s too risky here,” he says.

But before he leaves, he has a difficult task at hand — to find the body of his cousin Ranjit, one of the several people missing since July 30.

Ravikumar and his cousin Ranjit were among the 14 men who arrived in Wayanad to work at Mundakkai’s Harrisons Malayalam tea plantation last month. A history graduate, Ravikumar took to life in Kerala.

“I have worked as a hotel waiter and daily- wage labourer in several places, such as Delhi and West Bengal, but Kerala has been the best. Here, I got paid better than anywhere else. I get Rs 18,000 per month. I settled in quickly here, and it was very smooth,” he says now.

That changed on the morning of July 30, when the landslides struck and his cousin went missing. After two days of relentless searching, the Kerala government declared that “all those who are alive” at the landslide- hit villages have been rescued and that all that remained was to retrieve bodies of those who had died. The confirmed death toll currently stands at 210, with 218 still reported missing.

Mundakkai, where Ravikumar and his companions were, had been completely cut off since the landslide occurred, with rescuers finally able to reach the place only Thursday evening.

Ravikumar himself was in Karnataka when it happened. For the last three days, he has been coming to Meppadi’s family health centre in the hopes of finding Ranjit.

Besides Ranjit, two others are missing — Sadhu Paswan and Bijnesh Paswan. Like Ravikumar, Bijnesh’s cousin Manoj has been spending all his time at the Meppadi health centre.

“His ( Ranjit’s) parents want to see his body one final time. He was about to get married in November. My only wish now is that I would be able to take his body along with me back home,” says Ravikumar, who is married and has a six- year- old son.

Ranjit wasn’t the only one who went missing. “As soon as I knew about it, I returned and discovered that six of us were missing, including the contractor who brought us here, Upendra Paswan, and his wife, Phool Kumari. Her body was found the day after the landslides,” he says.

He eventually found that two of the missing men—including Up end ra— were alive and undergoing treatment at a local medical college hospital. That made Ravikumar optimistic about finding Ranjit.

“I thought if these men had survived, my cousin might be safe too. But, with each passing day, my hopes diminished,” he says.

Ravikumar knew about Kerala’s heavy rain. What he never expected was a situation like this.

Now, he can’t wait to get back home to his wife and son. And although he’s sceptical about finding any jobs in Bihar, he knows he must do something to survive.

“I was lucky to survive this time but I can’t take any more risks,” he says. “I will have to return to Bi ha rand find a job somehow.”