Sipping from the cup of misfortune

Strap: The pandemic has taken away all the taste from Prem Nath's life

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, December 15

Prem Nath Mahajan, a tea-seller at Machhi Mandi corner of Hall bazaar, is brooding over the surreal cascade of circumstances his eyes has witnessed after unleashing of Covid-19. “I have lost 80 per cent customers,” his lips tremble in the nipping weather as he speaks of the misfortune. Selling tea for last 26 years, he has never before been in this darkened corner. The lockdown ate into his business like termites. His shop was closed for three months and Prem spent all his savings in between, only to reopen in August hoping to revive business. “I am surprised that we sit idle even in the shivering cold. Otherwise, people used to beeline in winters at tea shops,” he remembers. Since people are suspicious about the roadside eateries, he has stopped using glasses. Instead, disposable paper glasses are now the best bet, which still doesn’t satisfy his customers. Prem works 12 hours a day after opening his shop at 6 in the morning providing tea to the nearby shopkeepers and has a good clientele in workshops and godowns, where workers beckon him many a time during the working hours. “The morning walkers sit together at my shop after their daily exercise and sip tea. They discuss politics and local issues. I have good relations with these elderly people and enjoy their company. Apart from this, sweepers, milkmen, guards, newspaper hawkers are early morning customers. Sometimes, the devotees returning from Darbar Sahib and commuters also taste my tea and mathis,” Prem elaborates. However, he is rueful of government’s initiative to support the marginal shopkeepers. “The government should support the small traders amid the outbreak. We lost our business but even then paid power bills of closed shops. The government has to waive off the bills and taxes until the business finds its footing.”