When all else failed, a seven-year-old motorcycle gave a family of four the only lifeline.

A migrant family from Rajgir, Bihar, living in Chennai for the past few years, found themselves destitute during the lockdown. Faced with hunger, construction worker Satish Choudhary, 30, decided to dust his old motorcycle and try and reach their village.

“Luckily, my wife and younger brother agreed. My wife was prepared to carry our three-year-old daughter on her lap. It’s some 1,850km from Chennai to Rajgir, no joke,” said Satish on reaching Hazaribagh on Sunday afternoon. “We have travelled 1,700km, we have to ride 150km more. We hope to reach Rajgir by Monday morning,” he added.

The lockdown in Chennai will remain etched in their memories, Satish said. “I and my brother used to work with a construction company and life was pretty smooth till the lockdown was clamped. Soon, we lost our jobs, and money ran out.”

But Satish said the long motorcycle ride was “better than starving in Chennai”. “We started 10 days ago, and we’ve been sleeping on the roadside. Policemen stopped us at a number of checkpoints between Chennai and Hazaribagh, but seeing our plight let us go on. Many people helped us with food. We are alive because of the kindness of strangers.”

AIDSO activists led by Rajesh Ranjan and Ashish Kumar stopped the family near Konar bridge on NH-33, and gave the exhausted quartet water, sattu and fruits.