Rough sleepers harried by mounting debt, not COVID-19

A former autorickshaw driver from Kottayam who now lives under the Ernakulam north overbridge says he is more worried about paying off a mountain of debt than contracting COVID. Nevertheless, he was a

A former autorickshaw driver from Kottayam who now lives under the Ernakulam north overbridge says he is more worried about paying off a mountain of debt than contracting COVID. Nevertheless, he was at the Ernakulam Town Hall on Wednesday during a vaccination camp organised by the Kochi Corporation for homeless persons. “Looks like COVID is prone to attack people in air-conditioned rooms and homes with walls. We don’t have any of that,” he said while he waited out the half-hour observation period post-vaccination. “At least 50 of us live under the bridge, and as far as we know, we haven’t fallen sick yet,” said the man in his 50s who has studied till class 12. He has counted 110 days since he hitch-hiked from Kottayam, arrived in Kochi and began to spend all his nights and some of his days beneath the bridge. Estranged from his family, he is struggling to pay off the debt he has accumulated over the years and is on the lookout for a steady job. Strangers provide packets of food sometimes, and now since the lockdown set in, the police have been distributing meals, he said, adding, “If somebody finds a day’s work and can buy some food, they share.”