Kolkata cafes witness rise in footfall post January 15

Suchandra Bose tested positive soon after flying down to Kolkata from Kraków, Poland, earlier this month. She immediately isolated herself and stayed away from her child and other family members for 10 days. Now, after testing negative, she’s stepping out to catch up with friends and relatives. “My initial days in the city were wasted in isolation at home. I was also a little scared for my baby.Now I feel I should be safe for some time and hence, am meeting friends and trying out the cafes my niece keeps recommending,” said Suchandra, who we met at a south Kolkata café.
In fact, like Suchandra, many of the diners we met at city cafés are stepping out after recovering from the Covid wave that ravaged the city after the Christmas and New Year’s Eve revelry.

According to owners or employees of city cafes, footfall has been seeing an upward curve since around January 15. “Between January 1 and 15, our Golpark cafe remained practically empty. Many of our regular customers and friends were down with Covid around that time. Though the government had not asked us to shut down, business was slow. Things started changing from around January 15. I feel those who contracted Covid around New Year, have recovered and are stepping out to socialise again,” said Shilpa Chakraborty, who runs a chain of cafes in Golpark, Salt Lake and Behala.
Nikhil Chawla, the co-owner of a cafe chain at Elgin Road and Hindustan Park, said the footfall at their cafes dropped by around 70% post the year-end revelry. “The dip in the footfall after Christmas was significant in all our cafes. In fact, the entire Hindustan Park area had become almost a ghost town. But now, the footfall has increased by around 40%,” he said.
Dr Souradip Gupta, who was hanging out at a Golpark café with his friends when we met him, told us that he, too, had just recovered from Covid. “This time, the rise in cases was so steep that within a week, 10 to 12 out of our 20 colleagues tested positive, including me. Now that we all have recovered, we feel the possibility of re-infection is low, at least for the next three months,” he said.
Some are also stepping out with friends who have recovered recently. “Most of my friends had Covid but have recovered. So I feel it’s safer to hang out with them,” Tanishka Khandelwal, a lawyer, who has been free of Covid till now.

As people are being asked to avoid enclosed areas, al fresco cafes are reaping the benefits. Nazia Aslam, who we met at an open-air cafe in south Kolkata, told us, “After the initial panic, we are socialising again now. And I find it more convenient and safe to go to open-air cafes. I had stayed in when the number of cases increased. But I can’t stay indoors forever, so I’m now visiting this open-air cafe in my locality.”
Cafe owners too are ensuring that seating arrangements shouldn’t make customers uncomfortable. “We have increased the number of outdoor seats and reduced it indoors. We still had to leave gaps between tables to ensure 50% occupancy. Though the number of seats is less, there has been a significant rise in footfall since mid January,” said Nishant Sinha, owner of a cafe at Hindustan Park.

The third wave pushed organisations to ask employees to work from home again. And in this situation, many employees are meeting at cafes to discuss work. Birojit Paul, who runs a cafe in Salt Lake, said footfall is picking up at lunchtime as office colleagues are meeting at cafes to discuss work. “Most of the IT companies have reverted to the WFH model. So due to a lack of a common workplace, many professionals are gathering at our cafes to catch up for quick meetings,” he said.

Almost everyone around us has contracted the virus in recent times. The only saving grace this time is that the variant is not lethal. There are four coronaviruses in our systems and we’ve welcomed the fifth one! Time and again it will cause an outbreak of flu-like symptoms. No matter how hard we try, we can’t go back to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. So let’s normalise with the caution of avoiding crowds and keeping masks on. We can live with rain, but not with a cyclone. We will have to train ourselves to adapt to the situation in our neighborhood. If we suspect a small outbreak then that calls for caution. We need to avoid crowds, especially in enclosed spaces. Perhaps the next measured step to take is sending the children to schools. The sooner the better
*Dr Sarkar is a city-based cardiologist and health activist

Keep your guard up: Wear masks and sanitise your hands and belongings often
Avoid crowds
Maintain social distance
Get jabbed if you still haven’t