One of the traffic bottlenecks near the High Court building is the jalebi seller. But on Monday evening, the shop wore a deserted look with few buyers parking their vehicles to pick up the stuff. “My business is down. I might have done 50 per cent of the business that I usually do. For the last few days it is like this only,” says Kishen, pointing to the sparse crowd in front of the other shops selling similar stuff.
In the inner lanes near Mahbub Chowk, Sohail from Kala Patthar, who sells women’s hair clips and combs, among others from a pushcart has a similar story to narrate: “I have done business of Rs. 3,500 today. Usually by this time, I would have done business of about Rs. 8,000 or Rs. 10,000. People are not even stopping to have a look at what I am selling.” “But people are very keen to know how much change I have and whether I am willing to exchange it for Rs. 500 notes,” he adds.
The busy business streets where driving is usually a problem in the evening hours wasn’t the case on Monday evening. “There are about 4 crore hawkers in the country including urban, rural and railway hawkers. All of them are reporting 50 to 60 per cent drop in earnings threatening their livelihoods. Though some hawkers make good money, many of them lead a hand-to-mouth existence and they are having a tough time as people have stopped buying from them,” says Sakitman Ghosh, general secretary of National Hawkers Federation.
Though the pigeons whirring inside the Mecca Masjid number the same, the number of bird feeders has declined. “Balance kam hai (people don’t have money). People are not buying the grain to feed the birds. And I don’t know whether I should get more seed or wait for a few days till people have enough money,” says Sami, the bird feed vendor.
The only person who reported soaring business is photocopy shop owner Abdul Qadir. “Over the last five days, I would have photocopied about 5000 documents and I have the printed form that is required at banks where money has to be deposited. But every other business has taken a big hit,” says Mr. Qadir summing up the mood on the street.