One sure way to get fish delivered at your door step is to use the service of men who go from house to house in a motor bike or bicycle. The number of such sales people have declined since the flood in August in 2018.
Although the cost of fish has dropped as there is less demand, these salesmen find it difficult to sell fish. I watched this lady bargain for a while till she decided to buy.
Later in the day, I met another salesman on his motorbike returning home after selling only part of fish he collected from the market. His sale a day used to cross two thousand rupees a day, in which case he would get about 300-400 rupees as profit. Now his profit is less than hundred. He is now planning to use his old bicycle as the petrol price is now Rs 90 per litre. He needs two litres of petrol a day to cover about forty kilometres each day to sell fish.
The whole sale cost of fish has dropped considerably. But to get full advantage of that he ought to buy a minimum amount. But he is unable to sell as people are severely financially constrained after the flood.
A parent who came to visit for consultation with is son talked about this situation in anguish. He runs a tea shop in the evening hours to help the migrant labourers with their supper. His sale was about three thousand rupees a day, which has dropped to about thousand a day. The migrant labourers are fewer as they have left to their homes because of lack of work and those who come eat less to save money. The consequence of this that this family who depended on this income to look after their three children, all of whom have special needs ,struggle to make both ends meet.
Th silver lining in this situation is the efforts of some voluntary organisations to identify people who face the demands of living and find some respite for them. The local YMCA decided to be a support for fifty families for special allowances to meet their regular needs.
At the department where I work, we offer free consultation after the flood to those families who are disadvantaged. We hope we can offer this for one year, all being well!
How do we share in the pain of others! I heard something that impacted me. A painter, who also runs a tea shop decided to sell tea at no profit basis for three months to those who come to his shop regularly! So the price of tea in his shop is Rs 7 from Rs 8 earlier.
Every small act of kindness is valuable in difficult times!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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