Sanjoy Basumatary.
Special arrangement.
Guwahati: "Now it's sure that he would come home as I finally talked to him,'' 16-year-old Bidang Narzary, the daughter of Ramprasad Narzary, one of the 41 workers heaved a sigh of relief at Ramfalbil village in Assam's Kokrajhar district.
Bidang, Ramprasad's only daughter, talked to her father at around 8.30pm on Tuesday, minutes after the rescuers brought him out of the tunnel after 16 days of sleepless nights.
"We could not sleep and eat. My mother fainted several times since we got the news of the mishap," she told DH over phone from the village, about 300km west of Assam capital Guwahati.
Ramprasad and Sanjoy Basumatary, both belonging to Bodo community in Assam's Bodoland region, had gone to Uttarakhand in search of better jobs.
Ramprasad used to work in a pickle factory near Chennai in Tamil Nadu and came back home in March this year.
He went to Uttarakhand on May 21 this year after coming to know about the job from his neighbour Sanjoy Basumatary and his elder brother Jyotish, who were already working there.
"He went there for better income," Bidang said.
Narzary, aged about 40, earns about Rs. 18,000 per month in Uttarakhand, she said. Jyotish also worked in the same project but he was out of the tunnel when the mishap took place.
Both Ramprsad and Sanjoy studied till class IX, Bidang said. Like them, many migrant workers go out for work due to the dearth of jobs locally.
Sanjoy's sister, Pinky told DH over phone that the rescue came as a respite to the family and her 75-year-old mother, Jayanti, who too fainted several times since the mishap took place.
"When I spoke to him today, he said he is fine and asked us not to worry. We are really relieved now," she said. Sanjoy, who got separated from his wife earlier, looks after her mother.
Villagers gathered at the house of Ramprasad and Sanjoy as the news of the rescue spread.
"Members of both the families were in deep agony," Raju Kumar Narzary, a senior leader of United People's Party Liberal (UPPL), a regional party, an ally of the BJP-led Assam government, told DH.
Narzary had visited the two families after the mishap took place and provided financial and mental support.
The village headman of Ramfalbil said most residents could not sleep and eat properly as uncertainty loomed over the fate of the two workers.
"The villagers had even prayed together at the Bathou temple (where Bodo community prays) for their rescue," he said.