Mumbai: Looking at the videos of people crowding outside D’mart mall at Mulund in the wee hours of the morning, or the police in Vile Parle giving lecture to early morning walkers on staying at home, one thing is increasingly becoming quite clear that Mumbaikar’s care a damn about their own personal safety and heed to the advice being given out by the government to stay home and stay safe.
As compared to that village people in rural Maharashtra, in the hinterlands have seriously taken the instructions and advice of the government. Residents of village Pohoner in Parli taluka of Beed district have locked themselves up ever since the lockdown was announced on March 24. It is a small sleepy village of about 500 odd inhabitants nestled along the banks of the river Godavari in Beed district of Marathwada region in Maharashtra.
Sharing his experiences of the lockdown with TheNews21.com, Radheshyam Pohonerkar (name changed) says “no one from the village has ventured out of the village boundaries ever since the lockdown was announced. We were almost on the verge of coming clean before the lockdown was extended yet again”.
For the likes of Radheshyam the lockdown has posed a tricky situation for the villagers. Although they have the food grain and the flour to go with it, it is the lack of essential items like salt, edible oil, chili powder, sugar that hurts them the most. Besides this the region is notorious for acute water scarcity that it faces during the summer months.
“The local grocer is selling these essential items at a premium. Cannot really find fault with him though as the stocks are depleting fast and neither are the supplies coming from the city due to the lockdown. What can you do with just the flour and rice at hand. We are just hoping and praying that this crisis blows away”, says Radheshyam who has a family of three and cattle of his own to take care of.
