Ajeet Das who placed his litti stall in the premises of Bakri Bazar explaining his ordeal said, “I gave my 11-year old little son Ravi my word that he will also join his friends to Johna as their school picnic on October 19. I promised to pay his picnic fees Rs 500 along with few pairs of new attire by the end of Dugra Puja, but this untimely heavy rain shattered my business completely. Now irony is this that with my earnings I could only pay my stall rent.”
He burst out into tears and with a low voice said; “Pata nhi kaise pura karunga apna vada” (Didn’t know how I will manage to fulfill my promise). like Das, there are many other street vendors who share similar story.
Cyclone Phailin hitting the State capital during festive season not only proved disenchanted for puja revellers, but also to street vendors. This
festive season brought heavy loss for the vendors who displaced their stalls within and outside the pandals premises because of abated crowd.
Festival two days (Ashtami and Navmi) when crowd use to remain at its peak in pandals observed the opposite , as due to heavy to very heavy rain majority of residents preferred to remain in their den then to explore the city.
Raghu Kumar who placed a small toy shop near RR Sporting Pandal said, “This year profit was comparatively less than previous years. During Shashti and saptami I had a profit of Rs200 but in later two days could hardly earn a profit of Rs100. Due to rain puja revelers were in a hurry. Earlier I use to sell my entire stuff but this year almost half of my stock remained unsold.”
According to Kishan Poddar Secretary of Satya Amar lok Puja Samiti this year stall business showed a deceasing graph, this year the number of food stalls was increased with the view of adding new flavours to the taste bud of the visitors but the mockery is that many visitors were found cancelling their food token even on the arrival of drizzling scenario. People congregated on the coupen counter and argued to return their money as they have changed their mind. “Despite persuasion they use to return it,” added Poddar.