Kashmiri winter traders get cold shoulder

Kashmiri garment sellers who come down to Bengaluru for the winter have been disappointed with poor sales. The traders migrate to warmer and bigger cities down south for the season because business nearly shuts down in the frozen valley during the season.

Moreover, the merchants hadn’t been able to come down to the city for the past few years due to Covid-19. They had hoped that a post-pandemic recovery would help sales, but this hasn’t been the case.

Covid-induced lockdowns and frequent curfew-like conditions in the valley also haven’t helped Kashmiri businesses. They said that they travel to Bengaluru with their wares in trains, which is a long journey, which has to be undertaken from either Jammu or New Delhi.

Currently, some of them have been put in Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath (KCP) on Kumara Krupa Road for the Bengaluru Utsav exhibition, which is slated to last for 10 days from January 5 to 15. Traders said that they paid an “exorbitant” Rs 30,000 to rent a stall for 10 days at the exhibition, reports Maqsood Maniyar.

Sameer ( name changed) from Anantnag city, said that he has been coming to Bengaluru to make a living for well over a decade and has been setting up a garment shop in the city for a few years. He added that it was possible that consumption had been down since the pandemic.

“Business has been down. However, it picks up a bit during the weekends,” he said. “Since Covid, there hasn’t been much opportunity for business to flourish. There have been losses,” he added. The trader said that he usually stayed in Bengaluru for six months and would depart just before Ramadan, the month of fasting in Islam.

Maqbool, who is from Srinagar city, said that he expected his goods to move faster but this wasn’t the case. “Right now, sales are nothing special. I would guess it’s because of Covid,” he said. “I usually come here in September or October and stay till March,” he added.

Maqbool said that his was a family business and that they owned their own looms back in their home town. Qayyum, who is not a Kashmiri but mans a stall for a Kashmiri businessman, said that he too hadn’t received many customers. “I have been here for a month and in my estimation business is down,” he said.

However, Srinagar native Showkat Zargar, who owns a larger business with his own looms and stores in his home town and Hyderabad besides the winter stall in Bengaluru, said that his sales had been decent. “Due to Covid, we could not come down here for two years. However, business has been good now. It’s because people in Bengaluru are good customers. They’re educated and polite,” he said.