In a departure from other years, the puja week wasn’t a happy time across the board. Most people stayed away from pandals and so the ancillary industries around them were left high and dry.
Then again restaurants and food delivery outlets recorded way better sales than they had expected from an ill-fated year like this.
The Telegraph Salt Lake spoke to various stakeholders to spot the winners and losers of October fest 2020.
People wait in queue under a canopy erected for waiting customers at 6 Ballygunge Place near City Centre.
Hours in queue for dinner
CD Block’s biryani outlet Oudh 1590 would open doors for dinner at 6.30pm but on Navami evening the first customers would be a college-going couple waiting outside from 4.30!
“On other years I visit pandals every day of the pujas but this time I only visited my neighbourhood one,” said the girl who had come from Baguiati. Instead the friends had been coming over to Salt Lake every day to dine. “We ate at Darjeeling, Momo I Am and today at Oudh. Restaurants are safer than pandals as I’m sure they’re careful about sanitisation,” said the student of mass communication.
Oudh had a seating capacity of 68 but manager Swarup Dutta said they had laid out 90 chairs in a make-shift waiting area under a shamiana outside. “Two to three hours was the standard waiting time but no one complained. It was as if they had shifted the adda from pandals to the waiting lounge,” he said.
Hatari, that opened its sit-and-eat space in CF Block in mid-October, said footfall exceeded their expectations. “Ashtami and Navami were jam-packed and we got lots home delivery orders too,” said manager Purnendu Patra.
6 Ballygunge Place near City Centre had to go in for one-hour slots for diners and though footfall was less than previous years, it matched what they estimated this time.
“I was shocked to see people drive in in Jaguars and BMWs, perch their six-month babies on the boot and eat dinner,” said Goutam Karmakar, owner of the Goutam’s outlet on EM Bypass. “They said they were fed up of staying locked up at home and so were going on long drives instead of pandals. On the way, they wanted to grab a bite. I thought I would have to shut shop at 1.30am during the Pujas but I was forced to stay open till dawn.”
But caterers who serve meals at community pujas had to be disappointed. “We got just one puja contract this year in New Town and that too for a measly headcount of 50 or 60 people. This is not a patch on the contracts of over 1,000 diners we usually get during the Pujas,” said Nilanjan Brahma of Dui Burir Hesel in FC Block.
At BJ Block, the ice cream stall was selling hand sanitisers. “And the santisers are selling more than ice creams!” said the vendor, in disbelief
Few takers for street food
Megha Kapoor, who had gone pandal-hopping to AE (Part 1) on Navami, looked longingly at the phuchka, roll and chaat stalls near the exit but then turned away.
“We’re not taking a chance this year. In fact, not just me, even the kids traveling with us are not pestering us for a bite of anything on the street. We only want hygienic food this year,” said the lady who had come from Dunlop.
In other years, the phuchka seller outside the swimming pool has to hire at least two helping hands to manage the Puja rush. This year, he sat fidgeting with his phone as The Telegraph Salt Lake approached him on Navami. “Few are stepping out of home this year and even fewer are eating street food. Sales are down to half,” said Umesh Prasad. “I’ve been here 30 years here and every puja has been great for business. Every puja except this.”
Moirul Islam sells candy floss outside the BJ Block puja every year, “but on other years I run out of stock and have to call home asking for more. This year I am taking home unsold packets every night,” he said, sitting morosely on the footpath.
Amulya Mondal, who runs a stall selling cigarettes, soft drinks and paan near Karunamoyee bus stand with his father Radheshyam Mondal, had stocked up on bottles of soft drinks, packets of chips and biscuits for the Pujas.
According to Mondal, they did not even manage to sell 30 per cent of the stock that he had picked up. “There were hardly people outside. Even those who were out seemed reluctant to make purchases,” said Mondal.
Customers await their turn in front of Oudh 1590 on Ashtami. Pictures: Saradindu Chaudhury
Sad toy story
Hawkers selling toys, hair clips, accessories had dwindled in number and so had their sales. “Many customers are scared to touch the products but I have a sanitiser bottle ready for them. Still, so few are coming,” said Archana Mondal, selling hair clips on the footpath of BJ Block.
Raja Molla at FD Block had brought toys, “but there are so few children coming this year,” he complained.
Some hawkers had to relocate. “I usually put up my stall outside the AJ Block puja but this year the block went for a simple pandal. I knew crowds would be thin so I switched over to BJ Block,” said Kanai Chauram, who sold toys and accessories of idols. “I used to make money selling at fairs but that’s a distant memory. And now the Puja season has also let me down. We’re all but ruined.”
Stalls in the swimming pool area doing bumper business on Navami.
Nowhere to ride
Shedding copious tears are auto and rickshaw drivers who would make a fortune ferrying pandal-hoppers across the township.
“Most Salt Lake residents either dislike crowds or travel by cars and bikes. Eighty per cent of the Puja footfall comes from outside,” said Dipankar Mondal, an auto driver cooling his heels on Navami at the Tank 4 stand. “The visitors get off at Bidhannagar railway station, head to Sreebhumi and cross over to Salt Lake. This year, none of that was possible without trains.”
It used to be common for passengers to reserve autos by the hour and be shown around the best pujas of the township.
“Only one among the 22 vehicles at our stand got reserved for such a tour this year. In other years, each of us makes up to Rs 1,500 a day during the pujas and this time we are struggling to earn 200,” said another driver, Ajoy Mondal. “In other years we don’t get time to eat during the pujas; now we have time but have nothing to eat. We could have jolly well stayed home during this week but are unable to face our children who keeping asking for new clothes.”
Rickshaw-pullers have the same grouse. “Often people come and ask us which pandals are worth visiting and we take them around. Those trips would take hours. This year I can count on one hand the number of beautiful pandals erected. They can be covered in no time,” says Ashok Mondal, a rickshaw-puller at the City Centre stand who got only one such passenger.
Panchanna Das, who has been ferrying passengers around Salt Lake for the past 15 years, said that he could not remember a time when there were no takers for his rickshaw to go pandal-hopping like this year.
Many residents as well as visitors to the township often hire rickshaws and autorickshaws to go around the township and visit pandals to avoid the hassle of finding parking spots near top-draw pandals.
“This puja was a complete dampener,” said Das, while adding that his daily earnings during Durga Puja dipped to less than Rs 300.
Visitors click away in the BJ Block pandal on Navami. Saradindu Chaudhury
Wheels on rent
Time was when customers would book cars to go pandal-hopping as early as Mahalaya. “We would get 50 to 60 bookings every night,” says Ripon Das of New First Driver Service and Travels in AA Block. “This year bookings are down to 40 per cent. Some people hired cars and headed to their ancestral homes or to Digha and Mandarmani instead.”
Dreams Driver Service in Kestopur didn’t get a single pandal-hopping booking this year. “The handful of bookings we had got cancelled after the high court order banned visitors from entering pandals,” said Kanu Raul, who runs the service. “Also missing were airport pick-up and drops for NRI visitors coming to see the pujas or of residents leaving for vacations.”
A lone visitor at the barricaded GD Block pandal on Panchami. Saradindu Chaudhury
Safety kit
Many have hopped on to the Covid-safety items bandwagon this season.
At BJ Block, an ice cream stall was selling hand sanitisers. “And the santisers are selling more than ice creams!” said the vendor, himself in disbelief. “My company has sent these pocket-sized bottles and I’ve given them prominent display.”
But while the pujas required repeated sanitsation, the market wasn’t kind to all.
“The sanitation market is huge but competition is even greater,” says Sayak Ghosh, whose IA Block travel agency switched gears some months ago to Unimax, a Covid-specialty store. “Everyone whose anyone has entered this market and many are using inferior products so as to offer cheaper rates,” says Ghosh. Their company won the contract to sanitise a Behala puja.
No takers: Panchanna Das
Youth Merchant is another sanitising company that won a contract in Purbachal 2R and another one opposite Apollo Hospitals. “Both were thanks to personal contacts. We lost a third contract as a rival company offered to sanitise the place at Rs 20,000 less than us. I don’t know how that’s possible keeping in mind the price of genuine chemicals,” said one of the founders Sagnik Das.
Additional reporting by Snehal Sengupta