Mumbai locals back on the lockdown train
The financial capital of India has switched on its silent mode. A year since the country began its tryst with lockdowns and a coronavirus-infected world, Mumbai is caught in a ‘been-here, done-that’ moment and its people are engulfed in a sense of déjà vu.
Small business owners are rueing the lack of livelihood, while essential workers are cursing their daily grind and imminent interactions with the authorities as they make their way to work over the next fortnight. Long queues have popped up outside grocery chains and several stores are running low on stocks as households gear up for ‘Covid-19 Season 2’.
As despair grips the city, there is a familiarity with which its citizens are beating the lockdown drum. “We know what to do and also, we had a day to get organised,” says a small businessman.
Small enterprises were impacted worse than most after the outbreak of the pandemic last year. In large companies, those who had renewed their 9 to 5 schedules, the workfrom-home routine is being oiled back into motion. Whatsapp groups that had emerged as lifelines for neighbourhood supplies are kicking back to life, and housing societies are revisiting the protocols that were put in place in March last year. Once again, the conversation on social media platforms is veering towards hospital beds, plasma donors, and immunity boosters.
Kaustav Ganguli, managing director at Alvarez & Marsal, a leading global management consulting firm, says his company could easily move back into the lockdown mode as they knew the drill from last year. When everything shut down in March 2020, it took the firm a few weeks to get the cadence right, and now it could be done in no time. Travel curbs are back in place and virtual meetings are the norm again. The clocks have been set on lockdown standard time too.
However, Ganguli is anxious about the personal liberties that the virus has so easily laid claim to. A regular marathoner, he was also hit by the first wave of Covid-19 infections last year. When the government imposed lockdown and he found himself unable to run in the open, he ran 22 kilometres inside his apartment. He found himself running inside his house again this weekend as the number of cases zoomed and there seemed to be no stopping the second wave. On a personal level, it brought back memories he would rather wipe clean, he says.
It was the hope of a new beginning after a bruising 2020 that was keeping people going and has now been dashed.
Mohit Gupta, an entrepreneur who runs a franchise for a large beauty salon brand out of the western suburbs of Mumbai, says he has had a difficult time getting his business back on track. Even when it could finally open up, footfalls were less than a quarter of the usual numbers and now, with the lockdown mode on, he says he is looking to go back to the landlord to renegotiate the rentals.
Another entrepreneur, Kanupriya Agarwal, who runs a platform for women entrepreneurs and homemakers on Facebook that has 27,500 members, says there is less fear this time around even though many are unhappy.
Businesses have learnt to adapt over the past year. For instance, she cites examples of entrepreneurs running interior design services pivoting to the food business or apparel makers making masks. However, she adds, they were hoping to see light at the end of the tunnel in 2021 and in that sense, this lockdown is disappointing but there is less anxiety.
There is also greater understanding among the authorities about how to handle the second wave, say many. Ganguli says the medical preparedness of the state this time around can be broken down into three things: Infrastructural response, clinical response, and availability of doctors, nurses and paramedics. The past year has seen significant ramping up of all three but it is impossible to be fully prepared against a virus that is constantly changing its form and potency.
However, there is greater clarity among the medical fraternity about the mode of treatment and better coordination between government agencies and medical authorities in mapping out the processes to be followed. Ganguli says it is heartening that the government has recognised the need for quarantine facilities as a way of dealing with the disease. A large number of hotels in the city are now offering quarantine service packages, for single, double and family occupancy. A room in a five-star hotel under the quarantine package could cost ~3,5004,000 for a single person.
Just as the lockdown has changed the way people manage their daily routines and do business, and recalibrated the relationship between the state and its people, it has also reshaped the archetype that Mumbai has been trapped in — that this is a city that never sleeps and only lets its money do the talking. As 2020 has shown, the city does know how to slow down and there is more to it than its financial wizardry.