Sreekanth has had a flourishing career as a sound engineer with an audio-visual company for the past two decades. But, for the past two months, he has been selling home-made biryani and parotta from the boot of his Alto car, parked near a quiet corner of the road near Raj Bhavan.
“All my work got blocked after the pandemic struck. My wife used to run a women’s hostel in a rented building in Vazhayila. Now, all the residents have gone home. We still have to pay rent and repay the car loan. After the first lockdown, we thought we could try selling home-made food to make some money. I usually bring 20-30 biryanis and 10 parotta-chicken combo packs and sell most of them between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.,” says Sreekanth.
Dates seller
COVID-19 has forced a large number of people to look for alternative revenue sources for survival. Desperate to stay afloat, quite a few have taken to hawking everything from masks to fruits and cooked food on the streets.
Rafeeq from Balaramapuram has been teaching Arabic at a school in Ernakulam for the past many years. With schools remaining closed, he and a young relative are selling cashew nuts and dates, with his car as the makeshift shop.
Peddling pineapples
Sivankutty from Nedumangad has worked all his life in tea shops and restaurants, making and supplying tea. When the restaurant at Thozhuvancode he was working in closed down for a second time during the pandemic, he began selling pineapple in the city streets.
“I buy pineapples from a farm in Nedumangad. I have hired an autorickshaw for ₹250 a day and a driver for ₹300, since I cannot drive due to my disabilities. I hardly make any profit, but this pittance is better than nothing,” says Sivankutty.
Slump in Sabarimala
Radhakrishnan has been running a shop selling steel plates and lamps in Sabarimala for the past two decades. The business took a turn for the worse following the floods of 2018 and the violence that followed the Supreme Court verdict. With the pandemic making business impossible, he came back to his home town to sell the seasonal tropical fruit Rambutan.
“I had spent several lakhs to get the annual contract for the shop. After getting deep in debts, I had to sell my three-storey house in Poojappura to repay it. Now this meagre profit allows the family to survive, but nothing more than that,” says Radhakrishnan.
Succour in apples
Nabin, an autorickshaw driver based in Chala, has now turned an apple seller, working on daily wages under a wholesaler. “Even though autorickshaws have now been allowed to ply, hardly anyone hails a ride due to the fear of the virus. This apple business gives me similar profits. So, I thought I will stick with this for some time,” says Nabin.