Hindustani's daughter: Leaning her weak father on a bicycle, she covered a distance of 1200 km!

(PTI) Darbhanga (Bihar), dated 20 May 2020, Wednesday

Jyoti Kumari, a 19-year-old Bihari daughter of Kanya, but with high steel, brought her disabled father Mohan Paswan on a bicycle from Gurugram in Haryana to Darbhanga in Bihar. In doing so, he covered a distance of 1200 km on a bicycle.

Now, both the father and daughter have been kept at the quarantine center near their village Sirhulli under Sindhwara block of Darbhanga district.

Mohan Paswan, the father of an e-rickshaw driver in Gurugram, Haryana, stopped driving his rickshaw a few months ago after an accident. The result was a loss of income. Daughter Jyoti Kumari was determined not to let her poor father go to Gurugram again. In Gurugram, Mohan Paswan's landlord asked him to pay the arrears or vacate the house.

Mohanbhai requested the landlord that once the lockdown opens, I will do whatever job I can and pay your arrears. He stopped taking medicine because he had no money so that he could eat one tank a day.

However the lockdown was prolonged. The landlord's collection for rent was getting tougher. Mohan Paswan's daughter Jyoti was living with her father Mohanbhai in Gurugram at the time, while his wife was raising four other children while working as an anganwadi worker in her village. Jyoti instructed her father to go to his village in a difficult situation.

"We will not get any bus or train in the lockdown," he said. My physical condition is not so weak that I can walk. Jyoti told her father to take a bicycle.

The father explained to his daughter that the road you ride a double-wheeled bicycle is not 10, 20 or 100-200 kilometers. While pulling a double ride for a heavy man like me is by no means appropriate.

However, the father had to bow to his daughter's insistence. From the remaining savings, he bought a second hand bicycle and put his weak father on it. Jyoti, who was pedaling the bicycle, left the streets of Gurugram and started running towards Darbhanga. Father and daughter cover a distance of 20-30 km daily. Sometimes truck drivers give them a lift.

"It simply came to our notice then. Along the way, we stopped by a philanthropist's almshouse and ate some food. Thus, instead of cycling, we reached our village in Darbhanga, Bihar in eight days. Says Jyoti recalling the journey. Father Mohan Paswan has called his daughter Shravankumar for him.