Couple leaves decade-old DJ business to sell food on roadside

Ludhiana: The struggle of earning livelihood amid the crisis triggered by Covid-19 pandemic has forced another city-based family to give up their a decade-old profession of organising DJ shows at religious functions as well as parties and go in for the business of selling home cooked food to people in their Swift Dzire car to sustain their livelihood.
After the government bodies decided to place restrictions on organising mass gatherings events like marriage or religious function in view of the outbreak of Covid-19 in the past four months, the business of both Amritpal and his wife Rajwinder Kaur of organising DJ shows had to be shut down, which left the family with no option but to step out on the city roads in their car for selling home cooked food items to local customers for managing household expenses.
Amritpal said, “I can’t tell you about my experiences of life which I have faced while managing the basic household expenses of my two small children in the past four months as I have to sold my several household things to bear electricity bills, home and car loans because I didn’t earn a single penny from my years old profession of organising DJ functions at religious as well marriage functions.”
“Last year, we had received several orders of organising marriage ceremonies in India and across the country but this year after the outbreak of Covid-19 we had to wind up our business as we were not receiving a single order of organising DJ shows in the past five months. Due to poor financial conditions of the family, I had to take up the profession of selling homemade food items to people in my car as I found this was the only way I could survive easily in these circumstances of lockdown.”
Moreover, it’s not an easy task of selling food items while standing on city roads in hot and humid weather conditions. Even after all this the government authorities are not supporting us by giving some sort of relaxation in opening street food stalls on city roads. We are struggling with local municipal corporation officials for opening our stalls as they are not allowing us to operate such business on city road which is annoying. They should understand the ground reality of the present times and allow us to conduct such activities on road for some time until the situation returns to normalcy.”
“Following the government directions of remaining inside our homes, we have lost all our savings in the past five months in managing the basic essentials things. But now we have started some sort of business to pay house and car loans and electricity bills. They should support us as we are clueless what to do due to lack of resources and employment oportunities,” Amritpal further said.
“In view of Covid-19, we are adopting all mandatory safety measures to ensure better service to all our customers. Moreover, we are getting good response from the general public of the city as they are supporting our home-made food items initiative by visiting our stalls in a good numbers. On an average, we are earning Rs 500 to Rs 800 by selling sufficient amount of home-made food items,” he added.
On the other hand, while hailing the their efforts, a customer, Kuldeep Singh, said, “The government should support such hard working people and don’t disturb them from earning livelihood until the situation returns to normalcy because several businesses have been hit hard after the imposition of lockdown in view of the outbreak of Covid-19.”