Located some 25 km from Jaunpur district headquarters, Adhanpur in Rampur block (Mandiyahu tehsil) can hardly be called a village. Fleet of cars and mobikes with Maharashtra registration numbers greet visitors here. And in the plush houses dotting the village, reside families financed by kin working in the country’s commercial capital, Mumbai. Adhanpur’s Thakurs and Brahmins left for Mumbai 75 years ago and started tabelas (cowsheds) in Goregaon and Santa Cruz. Their sons now work in Mumbai as security guards, teachers, taxi drivers, builders and businessmen.

Besides Adhanpur, people from the neighbouring Javanshipur, Patti, Kasiyav, Jaldipur, Kuttupur and Changapur villages are earning livelihood in Mumbai, where MNS has launched an anti-north Indian campaign. Moongrabadshahpur, Barsathi and Khetasarai areas also house a large number of families whose members are currently based in Mumbai.

“At least 75 per cent families in these villages earn their living in Mumbai. The entire economy in these villages is driven by money sent by our sons working in the tinsel town,” said village head of Adhanpur, Hirawati Devi, whose son Dharmendra returned from Mumbai last year to help his illiterate mother.

“A few years ago, monthly money orders, totalling between Rs 3 and Rs 5 lakh, were sent from Mumbai to Changapur, Kuttupur, Kadipur and Gaddipur villages. With ATMs, money is now directly credited into bank accounts of the villagers. Still, money orders totalling Rs 2 lakh are sent by Jaunpuri Mumbaikars to their families here,” said Changapur post office in charge, Randall Tiwari.

“The natives of Adhanpur have their own colony in Akolha near the Santa Cruz Airport in Mumbai. And like other Mumbaikars, they too celebrate Ganesh Utsav,” said Prasidh Narayan Singh (60), who left Mumbai in 1997, following the closure of Modi Tyre Unit where he worked for 35 years. His four sons — Ram Ujagar (builder), Vinod (PCO owner), Ajay (Congress leader) and Vijay (journalist) — have ensured the family stays back in Mumbai even as their father cools his heels at their palatial house in the village.

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