TURQUOISE

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While covering the Janta curfew, I received a message from my boss about a restaurant in Panaji that continued to operate despite the lockdown. After I interviewed the management, I stepped out to find a homeless man who begged for food. I placed an order for the guy at the same restaurant and started speaking to him while the food was being prepared. He was unaware of the gravity of Covid-19 and had no knowledge about the Janta curfew. I told him that other countries are on lockdown and India may follow suit. He was worried about not being able to beg for food if everyone remained indoors.

I returned home to file my story but couldn't forget the plight of the man. The next day, Goa had extended its lockdown to three more days, so I went out to do a story on the situation. I went looking for the homeless man and encountered him at another spot. I spoke to him again. He hadn't eaten that morning either. The restaurant which was open the previous day was forced shut by the cops owing to the curfew. He had some money but couldn't purchase anything since no food outlet was open that day.

I drove around the city looking for more homeless people and spoke to them about the curfew and coronavirus. They had no access to food or medicine.

Based on those interactions, I wrote an article which was published on the front page of TOI.

The very same day of the publication, the CM announced that the state will set up shelters in North and South Goa where the homeless will be kept.

Days later when the nationwide lockdown was imposed, government machinery identified many homeless people across the state, and daily wage labourers who were suddenly out of jobs were picked up in Kadamba buses and taken to these shelters.

The heroes are the good Samaritans who went around feeding these homeless people during the initial days of the lockdown

Since we're in the media we anticipated that there would be a lockdown. But we didn't think Goa would face a serious shortage of essential goods. We had stocked up on small amounts of dry foods like poha, milk powder, pulses and grams but that wasn't enough. We were still struggling to find other basic items like salt, sugar, tomatoes and onions.

People's dependence on neighbouring states for food. Goa gets its vegetables from Kolhapur and Belagavi, chicken from parts of Maharashtra and Karnataka, beef from Belagavi and pulses from Maharashtra. We barely grow our own food. In the wake of the lockdown, some Goans are experimenting with kitchen gardening. The hope is that the lockdown will revive the agricultural sector or at least encourage people to go on a path of self-sustainability by growing simple things like sweet potatoes, lady finger, leafy greens, beans, herbs etc

Turquoise, the colourI associate to hope, to tomorrow. since it is a colour that balances blue, green and yellow, but it also can be linked to emotional balance, societal balance and financial balance. In these tough times, balance is what we need - Nida Sayed (Senior correspondent, Times of India)

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