Passengers' smile biggest reward: Bihar villagers who helped Mizos on train

The hospitality extended by residents of nondescript villages to passengers when the special trains make a stopover in Bihar's Begusarai district during the coronavirus lockdown is winning many hearts. District Magistrate Abhishek Kumar Singh was pleasantly surprised when he found the mention of Begusarai in a news item published in Mizoram, more than a thousand kilometres away.

The report was occasioned by a tweet from Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga, hailing the Samaritans in Bihar who had reached out to the people of his state with food and water when their train made a brief and unscheduled halt in the district recently. "Few days after stranded Mizos offers their food to Flood-affected victims on their way back, a brief halt of their #ShramikSpecialTrain at #Begusarai Bihar witnessed good #Samaritans offering them food in return!" Zoramthanga had said on Saturday. "Goodness for goodness. #India is beautiful when flooded with #Love." The chief minister's post has been retweeted over 5,800 times and garnered over 21,000 likes so far.

Zoramthanga had also shared a short video clip, barely 30 seconds long, wherein villagers can be seen sprinting up a sloping landscape and carrying baskets full of water bottles and packets of food. The footage, apparently shot from inside a compartment of the train while it was stationary, is a heart-warming picture of compassion transcending boundaries of region, language, and ethnicities.

Read: Shramik Special trains ferried around 42 lakh migrants since May 1

It is a far cry from some unfortunate episodes of xenophobia reported in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic when people from the Northeast were called "Chinese", an allusion to their facial features, and accused of spreading the deadly infection. The villagers, though, are hardly conscious of their newly-acquired fame.

The district magistrate said all that is known about these Samaritans was they belong to villages falling under the Ballia sub-division and had been carrying on this practice ever since the special trains began ferrying people during the lockdown to their native places from across the country. "We are not part of any organization nor do we seek any publicity," Saleh Chak panchayat head Faizur Rehman said. "We are simple people who believe in goodness and love to share whatever we have, holding that all our possessions is a benediction bestowed upon us by God," Rehman said.

The panchayat head added that they could understand the sufferings the people had endured in their bid to return to their homes during the lockdown. "Many sons of our own soil have undertaken arduous journeys to reach home," he said. "By helping those undergoing similar ordeals, we can at least hope to accumulate some virtue."

Read: 3,060 Shramik Special trains operationalised from various states so far, says Railways

Rehman said residents of many other neighbouring villages like Kasba, Husaina, Barbighi, and Husainichak were similarly involved in the acts of charity. "We keep water bottles, packets of 'puri and sabzi', chura (flattened rice) murhi (puffed rice), biscuits, fruits and milk ready," local Mohd Rashid said. "We make a dash with these items whenever a train halts because of signal-related issues," he said. "The smiles that we see on the faces of the passengers is our biggest reward."

Nalin Kumar, a journalist hailing from the district who has been away from Begusarai for over two decades, living and working in places like London, Delhi, and Jaipur, is a proud man. "A big round of applause for friends from Begusarai and Bihar as a whole. This is how the north-east will be truly integrated," Kumar exults.

Read: 1,436 stranded people return to Mizoram from Delhi & other north Indian cities

Read: Video: Mizoram residents give food to Assam flood victims, netizens laud their kindness