or the past 80 days, 16 members of three families running a travelling funfair are stranded in Adoor in Delampady panchayat of Kasaragod. But they feel cared for in Adoor and feel it is risky to go home in Solapur in Maharashtra.
or the past 80 days, 16 members of three families running a travelling funfair are stranded in Adoor in Delampady panchayat of Kasaragod. But they feel cared for in Adoor and feel it is risky to go home in Solapur in Maharashtra.

How a village holds stranded nomads together

Travelling funfair from Solapur gets held up in Adoor for past 80 days, but the village ensures the lives of the nomadic families do not turn topsy-turvy

ADOOR (KASARAGOD): The giant white cabins of a tilt-a-whirl lie heaped in the middle of a private playground near the Mahalingeshwara temple in Adoor. A blue tarpaulin barely covers another heap of small cars and tubs. They are parts of a merry-go-round and small Ferris wheel. Next to the two heaps, 14-year-old Maya Shinde is basking in the May sun. Inside a tent closeby, her parents Shraddha and Bharat Shinde are taking an afternoon nap. They are part of a travelling amusement fair that came from Solapur in Maharashtra for the festival at the Mahalingeshwara temple. They pitched the tent on March 10, a day after Holi, and was getting ready for the festival in March end.

But like the unpredictable motion of the tilt-a-whirl, the Covid lockdown threw their lives out of gear.
For the past 80 days, they are stuck in the ground with no money. But they say they are lucky to be in Adoor. “We’re coming to Kerala for the first time. But we’re lucky we got stranded here,” said Bharat, 35.
They are 16 members belonging to three families --- six men, three women and seven children.

Throughout the lockdown, the Delampady panchayat and the youth clubs around the temple supplied food provision to them. “Whoever comes to the ground brings us food supplies and sweets for our children. They take care of us a lot,” said Shraddha. Delampady panchayat president Musthafa A said the panchayat decided to supply food provision instead of food from the community kitchen because “they are not used to Kerala food”. 

Temple gives families access to washrooms

Shraddha said the temple — which is closed because of the lockdown — gave the families access to their washrooms and toilets. The panchayat gave the keys to a couple of the classrooms in Government Higher Secondary School nearby, just in case it rains and they need shelter. It also provided power supply to their three tents. “When my child fell sick, they took him to the hospital too,” she said.Adoor — surrounded by Karnataka on three sides — in Kasaragod is as remote as one can get in the district. It takes more than one hour’s drive to reach the village.

Shivaji Shinde, one of the team members, said they usually tour places such as Saligrama in Udupi, Daramasthala, Subramanya in Dakshina Kannada and a few places on the border of Telangana. “This time our agent Farook asked us to go to Adoor,” he said. The families said they used to make around `20,000 in three days of the temple festival. The agent will take half of it to cover the travel and transport cost and his fees. Asked if the agent helped them during the lockdown, Bharat said: “He’s living off us. How can he help us?”

As the lockdown rules are being eased, the local population is giving them jobs to tide over the crisis. “All these days, the men had no job. Now they are finding jobs to cut logs and loading of stones. We are also hired to cut grass,” said Shraddha. The families want to return to Solapur, a district on the border of Karnataka and Maharashtra, but the high number of Covid cases there is scaring them. “Our papa asked us to stay in Kerala as he feels our children are safer here,” said Bharat. But they say they have to go before the rain. “We can’t afford to take our goods. So we will leave them here. People here are good. Nothing will happen,” he said.

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