Movie star hero offers tailor-made solution

MUMBAI: It was past midnight on Sunday when tailor Faruk Mansoori, his last savings exhausted by the coronavirus lockdown, made up his mind to cycle from Mumbai to his village 1 500km away.

In a last-ditch cry for help, his friend tweeted actor Sonu Sood after seeing pictures on Facebook of the Bollywood star with migrant workers boarding a bus. Minutes later, Sood replied, promising that Mansoori would be going home by bus, not bike.

“I was desperate to leave as I had no money to pay my rent. I can’t praise Sonu ‘bhai’ (brother) enough,” Mansoori said by phone, still a six-hour drive away from his village in Uttar Pradesh state on Tuesday evening.

Sood, who often plays the villain in films and is known for his six-pack abs, has emerged as an unlikely hero among India’s stranded migrants during the coronavirus lockdown, helping thousands reach home on buses, trains and planes.

Millions of migrant workers, stuck without work or money in the cities, have walked hundreds of kilometres to get to their home villages. Many have died on the way in a string of accidents or from exhaustion.

Following outrage over their plight, authorities laid on hundreds of trains to ferry them home, but migrants have been struggling to get seats on the over-stretched services.

But among countless charitable

“The trigger was the images of migrants on these endless journeys Sonu Sood ACTOR

initiatives to feed the workers and get them home, Sood and well-known Michelin-starred chef Vikas Khanna, who is running a massive food aid programme, have become go-to helplines for migrants in need.

“The trigger for me was the images of migrants walking with their children on these endless journeys. I imagined a father telling his child home was not far when they had to walk hundreds of miles,” Sood said.

About 20 000 migrants have already left on buses, but “there are many more on the list”, he said.

The actor’s project, Ghar Bhejo (send them home), which he started with restaurateur friend Niti Goel, quickly turned his Twitter timeline into a stream of desperate appeals.

A friend, KK Mookhey, helped them set up a helpline and the online registration of migrants. Within four days, 40 000 people were signed up, Mookhey said.

Sood, who initially raised funds among family and friends before drawing support from further afield, said it had been “the most important time in my life.”

“I thought I would help a few hundreds, then I thought a few thousands and then I thought I would help everyone… this is my duty now.”

On the other side of the world, holed up under lockdown in his New York home, Indian chef Khanna has turned his talents to helping ensure food supplies reached Indian orphanages, old-age homes and stranded migrants.

Working in partnership with India’s National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), he has since helped deliver more than 8 million meals in two months.

For India’s NDRF, help from famous names such as Sood and Khanna is welcome. “It is a marriage of distress-management brands,” said Satya Narayan Pradhan, NDRF’S director-general.

“Covid-19 has taught us that the only approach that works is having all hands on deck.”