Thousands Gathered On Three Borders
- 06-Dec-2020
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From 60 Kg Tea To 125 Kg Rice
Five hundred litres water, 200 litres milk, 50 kg sugar and 60 kg tea leaves — through the day at Tikri border, tea simmers in a 100-litre vessel for thousands of farmers protesting there since November 26. Potato fritters and tea for breakfast, some jalebi in the afternoon, and chole-rice, aloo-gobhi and kheer for lunch and dinner.
Several langars have been set up across the three main protest sites in Delhi-NCR — Ghazipur border, Singhu border and Tikri, with pavements lined with sacks of rice and vegetables and chulhas for cooking, drums of milk reaching at the crack of dawn, and cooking duties drawn out.
At 4 am, when everyone's still fast asleep at the Tikri border, six middle-aged men from Haryana wake up daily to prepare the first meal of the day for 6,000-plus protesters — tea and potato fritters. By the time, the first cup of tea is ready, it's 5 am. Ram Kesh Singh (52), a paddy farmer from Rohtak, said: "Every day, we prepare potato fritters, kheer, aloo-gobhi, chole and rice, all cooked in desi ghee. We got these massive utensils from Bahadurgarh, hired three cooks. This is our sewa for all the other protesting farmers." The group buys fresh vegetables daily from mandis nearby, and also accepts produce donated by well-wishers. Over 100 kg of potato and cauliflower is peeled and kept aside for dinner.
A farmer from Jhajjar who is a part of another kitchen, said, ‘People are donating groceries; we are blessed. Today morning, a man gave us 100 cans of drinking water. We have 17 trucks, some given by transporters, and they ferry milk and vegetables.’ A small-scale kitchen operates in another corner, where eight elderly farmers peeled onion and potatoes for a meal for 100. Sardoor (60) from Punjab said, "We go back home every three days and return with ghee, milk and daal. This is our mini pind... In the last six days, we have used three tonnes of ghee. We are here to stay, that truck is our bedroom."
