Shoeshiners finding it hard to cobble a living COVID CRISIS
CHANDIGARH: ₹30, ₹20, zero. This is how much Vakil Ravidas, a 50-year-old cobbler with a family of six to feed, has managed to earn in the past three days.
Putting up in one-room rented accommodation in Faidan Nizampur village in Chandigarh, Ravidas was eagerly waiting for the relaxation in the lockdown, but all his hopes of making a decent income dashed as hardly anyone from the residential societies near his working area in Sector 48 visited him in the past three days amid fear of coronavirus spread.
Having spent all his savings during the past couple of months, Ravidas, a native of Katihar in Bihar, said, “My roadside counter has been closed for 40 days. My last earning was of ₹400 on March 21 and after that everything was shut. Whatever the savings I had, I spent it on the food and last month’s rent. For almost two days, my elder son and I slept on an empty stomach. Then I got some ration from the administration and Bihar government deposited ₹1,000 in my account, which helped me pull through the curfew period.”
Ravidas is among the 200 cobblers in city, who were not relocated when vendor-free zones were established across Chandigarh, and were allowed to operate from their old workplaces as the profession was one of the essential services. But the present situation has spelled a hard time for them to get their business back on track.
“It was only on Tuesday that a plumber got his shoe polished and a sanitation worker got his footwear stitched that I earned ₹30. Earlier I used to earn anything between ₹200 to ₹600 a day and the monthly earning touched ₹12,000,” adds Ravidas, a third generation cobbler, who doesn’t want any of his three sons and a daughter to pick the craft. With his eldest son studying in BA, the other two in school, and the daughter a student of Class 2, Ravidas can only “hopes things improve in the coming days, otherwise the family will have to stand in long queues to get food.” I don’t want to beg, he says.
‘THINGS ARE GETTING WORSE’
“Those sitting in the market area are still able to earn ₹100 daily, but the ones in the residential areas are even not able to earn enough to have two meals for a single person,” says Hari Lal, 58, who operates from the inner market of Sector 18.
“For saving maximum money, I left the quarters two years ago and started sleeping in the malaria office. But now things are getting worse. What will I earn? What will I save? I am planning to go back to my native place Gajpati Khera in Rai Bareli (Uttar Pradesh) for a couple of months and will return when things get normal,” adds Hari.
“Generations of our family have been into mending shoes. This is the only craft we know. Hope things get better soon and we will able to live with dignity. Nobody likes to live on the mercy of others,” says Alopi Prasad, a cobbler who operates from the inner market of Sector 19.