Narrative series

The Leaving

Migration and diaspora — dadan labour, Surat, brain drain, remittances, empty villages.

8 chapters · 57,331 words

Read the series introduction →

Chapters

  1. 01 Chapter 1: The Numbers and the Names On May 1, 2020, the first Shramik Special train pulled out of a Gujarat railway station carrying migrant workers back to their home states. Within days, the Odisha government had set up a portal for stranded migrants to register for return. By June, the trains were running round 5,726 words
  2. 02 Chapter 2: The Dadan Road In May 2020, as India's COVID-19 lockdown entered its third month, a nineteen-year-old woman named Manasi Bariha made a phone call that would trigger one of the largest bonded labor rescues in modern Indian history. Bariha was from Balangir district in western Odisha, one of hund 7,101 words
  3. 03 Chapter 3: The Other Odisha in Surat On May 1, 2020, a video circulated on Odia news channels that condensed an entire migration story into thirty seconds. Thousands of workers -- mostly young men, some carrying children, all carrying bags on their heads -- crowded the platform at Udhna Junction in Surat, pushing to 7,153 words
  4. 04 Chapter 4: The Skilled Departure On a winter morning in December 2024, the placement office at NIT Rourkela posted a number that the institute's public relations team would repeat for months: Rs 62.44 lakh per annum. The highest package in the 2024-25 placement season. A Computer Science student, identity undisc 7,130 words
  5. 05 Chapter 5: What the Money Sends Back Drive through Jagannathprasad block in southern Ganjam on any weekday afternoon and the landscape tells a story that does not quite add up. The houses are new — concrete, painted, two stories, satellite dishes on the roof. Motorcycles are parked outside. A few have tiled courtyar 7,039 words
  6. 06 Chapter 6: The Empty Village In November 2024, the government of Odisha tracked 94,106 migrant workers departing from the state's western districts -- a 34% increase over the 70,142 recorded the previous year. The tracking was itself a recent innovation. For decades, the departures happened without anyone co 7,163 words
  7. 07 Chapter 7: The Diaspora Mind On the evening of July 7, 2024, in a two-bedroom apartment in Whitefield, Bangalore, a software engineer named Subrat — surname withheld, because this is composited from several accounts, though each detail is real — opened WhatsApp at 6:47 p.m. He had forty-three unread messages 8,764 words
  8. 08 Chapter 8: The Return Ticket On May 1, 2020, the first Shramik Special train from Surat pulled into Odisha carrying migrant workers home. By July 7, 358,401 people had returned by train alone. Another 185,504 had come by bus, private vehicle, or on foot. The state government had prepared 2.27 lakh quarantine 7,255 words

Source Research

The raw research that informs this series.