Beggars, urban poor scour once-pulsating Vaishali market for food, alms in reflection of lockdown fallout

Once pulsating with the shrill cries of fruit sellers, pleas of beggars and unending footfalls of shoppers, the Vaishali market is today a ghost town. Its multitude of stores selling almost everything from daily essentials to high-end electronics are shuttered and silent.

The biggest market in the working-class Vaishali suburb, barely 2 kilometers from the Delhi border, is now silent and desolate, emblematic of the catastrophic halt of commerce across the country because of the lockdown necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The lockdown has also exposed the plight of the society's underbelly -- the countless beggars who survive on the charity of people at the market to buy food, and the daily wage earners such as rickshaw pullers who have no jobs, no savings, no social safety net and are too proud to beg.

While the initial days of the world's biggest lockdown didn't seem to have altered much, as days progressed it has begun to tell a chilling tale. Visitors going to market to pick up daily essentials such as fruits and vegetables are mobbed by beggars, many of them children.

Some children begging at intersections and sidewalks are from families that worked through the day in odd jobs to earn a hand-to-mouth income.A few, begged on the streets earlier too, but now go without meals more often. Downed shutters and near-empty market also means fewer people, who used to dole out spare change.

"Maa, baap kaam par nahi jate (mother father no longer go to work)," said 9-year old Raju who begged for a few rupees to buy a meal.

The beggar kids include ragpickers and children of factory workers and daily wage earners who have exhausted all of their little savings.

That roadside tailor on a makeshift bench, who would stitch and mend for captive customers living in housing societies and flats in the area, the chaiwala whose humble tea stall was a place to unwind for those working in this once-bustling market, and the hawker who would sell knick-knacks, jewellery and other trinkets are all struggling to feed their families.

A rickshaw puller, on seeing a good samaritan, jumps out of his rickshaw to ask for money. He hasn't eaten for some time and wants to buy a banana, he says with all the dignity he can muster. Having earned an honest living, ferrying passengers in his cycle rickshaw for years, pleading for money from occasional passerby is an act driven by desperation, he says.

Another rickshaw puller says he hardly gets any passengers, and police, once in a while, drives them away. It's difficult to make ends meet, he says.

Once every a few days, someone pulls his car over, bringing foodgrains and pulses for free distribution but the seekers far outnumber the supplies.

"My family has seven people. How long will 1 kilo