Highways are now paths for buffaloes, migrants cycling back home as lockdown continues

More than 40 days into the lockdown, ThePrint's journalists capture snapshots from across UP as migrants still make their way home.

Neither the May heat nor the fact that they have been on their cycles for five days, these young labourers are determined to make it back to their village in UP | Jyoti Yadav | ThePrint

Rampur (UP): State governments have been working to help migrants return to their homes from cities, but it isn’t uncommon to see the workers still trudging along highways, some walking, some cycling.

Even farmers have been on the move since the harvest season is due to begin soon.

Teams of journalists from ThePrint have been tracking some of these movements, traveling across different states to see how the reverse migration has been panning out.

Reporters Jyoti Yadav and Bismee Taskin, who are in Uttar Pradesh, captured these picture stories.

UP’s highways, which were usually always busy with a trucks bustling along, has been empty for weeks. Instead, a farmer guides his herd of buffaloes towards the Kosi river for a bath | Jyoti Yadav | ThePrint

Nanhi, a milk seller of Mansurpur village located near the Rampur-Bareilly Highway, has been hit by the lockdown, which was extended twice since it was first imposed in March. Mansurpur village runs on animal husbandry | Jyoti Yadav | ThePrint

For the farming community, life has not been about staying indoors and waiting for coronavirus to pass. In the hinterland, they’ve been keeping busy taking care of cattle and farms | Jyoti Yadav | ThePrint

For workers returning to these villages, the journey has been long and fraught with uncertainty. Many of them can be seen carrying a bundle, like the one seen here | Photo: Jyoti Yadav | ThePrint

At a bus depot near Amroha on National Highway 24 that connects Delhi-Lucknow, tired migrants have been waiting for their turn to board state buses that will carry them home. The primary dilemma at this point is ⁠— to abandon or not to abandon their cycles | Jyoti Yadav | ThePrint