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It is not yet dawn, but Yeroor village in Kerala is long awake, the hum of productivity floating over "Gulf Street", a lush green boulevard named after the thousands of workers who leave the state every year for jobs in the Middle East.
But now most of them are back, from machine operator Sudheesh Kumar, who has been forced into manual labour in Yeroor to make ends meet, to former bank employee Binoj Kuttappan, who has taken up dog breeding in the state capital Thiruvananthapuram.
In the single biggest reverse migration in more than 50 years, workers from the Gulf have streamed back to coastal Kerala in the past year, propelled by a pandemic that deflated dreams of overseas riches and changing family fortunes.
Once they came home wealthy and revered, bearing gold, sunglasses, clothes and funds to buy homes. Now they return sheepish and penniless.
"Before Covid-19, they were celebrated as heroes. Now they have nothing," said Professor Irudaya Rajan, who studies migration patterns at the Centre for Development Studies in Thiruvananthapuram.
"This is the first time they have returned empty-handed and will end up borrowing and selling assets."
Kerala is one of the Indian states that sends the most workers to the Gulf, accounting for about 2.5 million of the 6 million Indians there. The state received about 19 per cent of US$78.6 billion transferred to India by overseas workers in 2018, the highest state tally in the country which is the world's top recipient of remittances.
But more than 1.1 million people have returned in the last 10 months, 70 per cent having lost their jobs as domestic workers, builders, waiters, chefs and more.
This has affected the workers and their families' lives and destroyed businesses dependent on the India-Gulf migration.
Mr Kumar, 50, spent 22 years in the Middle East, with his final job in Saudi Arabia operating machines at Jeddah airport's waste water treatment plant where he earned triple the average Kerala wage.
In March last year, he flew home - briefly, he thought - but flights were grounded in a bid to contain Covid-19.
He could not return soon enough and lost his job. Now the father of two splits his time between farm labour and working in a stone quarry in Yeroor, a village of 13,000 people.
"I had planned my life when I left 22 years ago. I had any ordinary man's dreams - a house, good education for my children," a deflated Mr Kumar said outside his house. He has been forced to sell his car and farmland to pay off a loan for his four-bedroom house in Gulf Street.
Now he is earning Rs 400 ($7.50) a day, compared to the monthly Rs20,000 he got in Jeddah with overtime on top. "I have no shame in doing hard labour, but how did I land here? Where did I go wrong?" he asked.
During the Gulf War 30 years ago and the 2008 financial crisis, many workers were forced back to Kerala. But this time the numbers are far higher and the job market is tighter.
A nationwide initiative linking returnees with jobs has notched up more than 30,000 registrants, about 80 per cent of them from Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Oman.
Ms Shamna Khan, 30, whose right leg is badly swollen by lymphoedema, never had to work before because her husband Sharif sent enough money home from his job in a glitzy Qatar mall. The couple turned their mud and clay house to concrete, laid tiles, built an indoor bathroom and got help for Ms Shamna's leg.
But, after Mr Sharif returned jobless in March last year, Ms Shamna registered for India's rural job scheme which guarantees about Rs300 a day for a minimum 100 days of work in their village such as building roads and digging wells and trenches at farms.
"I am happy to work as I can support my family, but my leg is prone to infections," said Ms Shamna.
Mr Sharif, who works at the quarry, worries about the looming uncertainty - his unpaid loans and wife's health. "There is no other work here," he said.
Mr Kuttappan, 40, also forged a new path after returning from Abu Dhabi last year following layoffs at his financial service company and decided to turn his passion for dogs into a breeding business.
"I would have never done this if not for the pandemic," said Mr Kuttappan, showing off seven dogs he bought for Rs150,000. With a pet accessories shop, a garden for dogs and air-conditioned kennels in the pipeline, he has no plans to return to the Gulf.
But others are counting the days until they can go back. Mr Kumar has started calling agencies seeking work in the Gulf. "My savings for our future are gone and now our future looks bleak," he said. "I no longer think of making a profit. I only think of surviving the day."
Thomson Reuters Foundation
"Before Covid-19, they were celebrated as heroes. Now they have nothing." - Professor Irudaya Rajan, who studies migration patterns at the Centre for Development Studies in Thiruvananthapuram
