Divided by thousands of kilometres between Nepal and Kerala, the place they chose for earning the bread for them and their families, all that the Nepalese men working in the State are capable of doing is to worry about their dear and near ones living among the miseries of their quake-ravaged Himalayan country. They — probably all of them — want to be with their families and relatives at the earliest but it does not seem to be easy for them.
“I was trying to get in touch with my relatives over the phone since the news of the quake first came but I could speak to them only on Sunday morning. And now I am getting only a coo-coo sound on that phone. May be the gadget has run out of power,” said Vir Bahadur Sharma, who said he had been working in a Thrissur suburb as a “Gorkha” (street security-men in Kerala are generally referred to as Gorkhas) for the past 17 years.
Bahadur says that he shudders at each report on aftershocks in Nepal. He laments the fact that the low wages he is earning as a residential colony security man does not allow him to fly to Kathmandu or the nearest Indian airport so that he can join his family. “It will take a minimum of six days for me to reach my village if I take a train from here,” he says.
The State Government has no idea even about the approximate number of the Nepalese working in Kerala. Most of those working in Kerala are either in security jobs or in cheap restaurants and they do not have a proper organisation. A Nepalese youth working in a Thrissur restaurant said he was determined to leave for home at the earliest. “My parents would need me now,” he said.
Several Nepalese working in Kerala seemed confused as to what they should do in this situation. A Nepalese restaurant employee in Kochi said he was not sure whether he would be able to reach his village some 120 kilometres away from Kathmandu because roads could have been destroyed in the quake. “All we can do is to heave sighs seeing pictures in Facebook and on TV,” he said.
A Nepalese security guard at a polytechnic school near Alappuzha said that his house in Janakpur had been destroyed in the quake but luckily his wife and two kids were outside when the earth shook.
They are thankful to those mobile companies, which have announced tariff concessions. Many of the mobile switching systems and the phones in Nepal seem to have gone out of function, probably due to power shortage.
At the same time, relief began to replace anxiety in several Kerala homes as reports trickled in on Monday that evacuation of Malayalees stranded in Nepal had picked up speed. Close to 200 Keralite tourists had been stranded in the quake-hit Himalayan country as per rough estimates and more than half of them were reportedly on their way back home on Monday.
According to Kerala Culture Minister KC Joseph, the Government’s information is that more than 100 Keralites were stranded in several places of Nepal. No exact accounts on the number of Malayalee tourists in Nepal are available because almost all of them had gone there through tour operators or in individual capacities.
Relief came to the homes of the three doctors - Abin Surya of Vadakara, Kozhikode, Deepak Thomas of Kelakam, Kannur and Irshad of Kasaragod - who had gone missing in Nepal after the Kerala Government confirmed that all the three were safe. Joseph said that all arrangements had been done to fly seriously injured Dr Surya home.
The State Government has assured that it would do everything possible to ensure that all Malayalee tourists returned safe from Nepal. According to Minister Joseph, 78 Keralites had already reached India from Nepal and 71 more would reach the capital by train on Monday itself.
