Photos: Jew Town; Sajid Husain Khatai; Junaid Sulaiman; Sajid Saj with foreign guests
By Shevlin Sebastian
On most mornings, Sajid Hussain Khatai goes to his
shop in Jew Town, on the road leading to the Jewish Synagogue. He switches on
the fans and lights. He is aware no customers are going to come. But Sajid is
doing this, to prevent fungus attacking his carpets, shawls and cotton
textiles. He keeps it open till 2 p.m. Then he returns home.
But now, with rising rates of coronavirus victims, Fort Kochi is in lockdown.
Sajid stays three kilometres from his shop. And he has
been unable to open the shop. But the situation in the shop is not alarming.
However, Sajid is wondering about the state of the
goods in his friends’ shops. These have been closed for three months. “Most of
the carpets will be spoiled,” he says.
Sajid is from Srinagar. He came to Jew Town in 1998.
He is one of the first Kashmiris to settle in Fort Kochi. Like most Kashmiris,
he runs a handicrafts shop. He has another shop, near the Mattancherry boat
jetty.
Kashmiris have about 110 shops in the area. A total of
450 Kashmiris stay in Jew Town and Fort Kochi. But about 440 people have gone back.
Sajid has stayed back because his wife works in the MG Road branch of The Jammu
& Kashmir Bank. His two daughters study in Choice School. Now they are
attending online classes.
“The economic damage is huge,” he says. “Our business
depends on tourists. Now, there is nobody. We have been suffering for the past
few months. The reason many Kashmiris left was to avoid paying the home rent.”
Interestingly, many of those who have gone back to
Srinagar have started other businesses. One person has started a wholesale
business in garments; another has become a transporter; a third one has become
a distributor. “If they succeed, they might not return,” he says.
Sajid feels that nothing will happen in the upcoming
tourist season which starts from October and ends in March next year. “The only
way foreigners will come is if a vaccine is found,” he says. “Otherwise, nobody
will take the risk of travelling. I believe this will be the case with domestic
tourists, too.”
He has spoken to travel agents and they expect that
things will return to normal only by August 2021. The problem is that since
economies have gone into a tailspin all over the world very few people will
have the money to travel. “They will be more interested in clearing their
debts,” says Sajid. “Bread and butter issues will be paramount. So, the last
thing on their minds will be travel.”
It is a cloudy morning. Junaid Sulaiman is standing in
front of a building which he owns, just next to the Synagogue. “It looks like a
full-fledged hartal,” he says, as he points at the empty street and the
shuttered shops. “In the months of November to February, because of the
presence of so many foreign tourists, I would feel I am in a European country.
But now all that is gone.”
As for the Synagogue it has been closed for the first
time in 452 years.
Junaid runs the Mocha Art Cafe. His patrons have
included the famed Hollywood director Steven Spielberg and the Vietnamese
photographer Nick Ut who shot the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of children
fleeing a bombed-out village in Vietnam.
He closed the cafe on March 14, when he heard that
some foreigners in Munnar had been afflicted with coronavirus. He felt he could
open on April 1.
But his plans went haywire. “We never imagined it
would last for so long,” says Junaid.
Out of ten staffers, three have gone back home. At the
cafe, there is a manager, an executive chef, two baristas (coffee experts), one
sous chef, and a sweeper. Junaid continues to pay their salaries.
One day, Junaid got a call from Aneesh Sharafudeen,
the Kerala state head of garment company FabIndia asking for a cut in the rent.
The company has a showroom in Junaid’s building.
He replied he would think about it. Junaid, who owns
the most number of buildings in Jew Town, consulted with the other owners. In
the end, they waived off the rent from March 15 to May 31. From June 1 to
September 30, 50 per cent have been waived.
Junaid has his heart in the right place. One day the
Kashmiris approached him for help to get a train from Kochi to Kashmir. So,
Junaid met the Collector S Suhas and Agriculture Minister Sunil Kumar. Sunil, a
member of the Communist Party of India, is in charge of Ernakulam.
Five days later, the Nodal Officer for Kashmir RS
Shibu called Junaid from Thiruvananthapuram. A train was arranged on May 20.
About 400 Kashmiris got in at Ernakulam and another 400 from
Thiruvananthapuram. Around 16 students from Mangalore also boarded the train.
The last stop was Udaipur. Thereafter, they took buses to reach Srinagar, 1400
km away.
Junaid has another business of distribution of Fast
Moving Consumer Goods. These include butter, ghee, flour, wheat, biscuits,
jams, edible oils, and cornflakes. However, he has not been able to deliver
outside the containment zones. Other distributors are in a similar predicament.
“People will suffer,” says Junaid.
Apart from the people the economy is suffering. Says
Sunny L Malayil, the president of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry:
“There is a severe economic impact in Fort Kochi. We had a flourishing
tourism-related industry. But now, there is a huge dip in income. At this
moment, there are no foreigners or domestic travellers.”
The Chamber estimates there has been a loss of income
to the tune of Rs 100 crore in the past few months. He says that around 20
percent of the businesses will close down permanently. Those who were handling
the Holy Land trips to Israel and Palestine have also suffered a blow to their
business.
However, he says that if the Kochi Muziris Biennale
takes place in December, there might be a revival, of sorts. Sunny says that
last year the Chamber had conducted a seminar to analyse the economic impact of
the art festival on homestays, hotels, restaurants, and the transportation
sector.
In the previous Biennale, there were six lakh
visitors. Out of that, around 60,000 were outsiders. Many of them stayed in
premium rooms, of which there are 700 in Fort Kochi and Willingdon Island. The
general sales tax for each premium room is Rs 2000 per day. “For the last
Biennale, the state government invested Rs 7 crore, but the returns, through
tax, was about Rs 200 crore,” says Sunny.
Everybody gained, including the handicrafts shops,
homestays, restaurants, auto-rickshaw and taxi drivers. “But now, the opposite
is happening,” he says. “It is a loss all around. Those who have taken loans
and are paying interest, their debt is growing day by day. They will find it
very difficult to manage.”
The 2020 season is gone. “We are hoping by next year,
there will be a semblance of normality,” he says.
Eldose Baby, who is a staffer of the Kochi branch of
International Trade Links Tours and Travels Pvt. Ltd., confirms that no
domestic tourists have gone anywhere for the past few months. Earlier, they
would send people to Europe, the USA, China and Russia. “There are no group
departures,” he says. “But since I work for a multinational company, we were
offering support to passengers who were returning from other countries in evacuation
flights from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The situation remains
grim.”
It’s the same for Sajhome Homestay owner Sadiq Saj.
His last guest was Darren and his wife, from the UK, who left on March 18, just
before the lockdown. And Darren left a sweet review on Trip Advisor: ‘We
couldn't thank Saj and his family enough for looking after us during our stay,
organising our trips for us and recommending places to eat and enjoy the
sunset. Fantastic breakfast, clean rooms and great service.’
Sajhome has won the Trip Advisor Traveller’s Choice
Award for seven consecutive years.
When Sadiq closed down his homestay, he had 30
bookings. But once international travel was banned, the guests had no option
but to cancel.
Sadiq has been running his homestay for the past 12
years. There are five rooms on the first and second floor, while he stays on
the ground floor with his wife and two daughters. It is located opposite the
office of the Biennale.
“I have zero customers,” says Sadiq, who had worked in
the Hyatt Regency in Dubai for 13 years. His guests usually come from Britain,
USA, Australia, Canada and many countries in Europe.
He believes that things will change only when
international flights are restarted all over the world. Thereafter, the World
Health Organisation has to give the green signal. Then only will he think of
opening his homestay.
And so the town, which is heading for a curfew,
because of a rise in coronavirus cases, is lying comatose. But the residents
are hopeful that after the dark times, the dawn will come.
(Published in Mathrubhumi (English edition)
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