From under the corner table of the Tibetan Kitchen, a golden retriever raised its head. Its human companion, with blond hair and beachwear, sat unmindful of the dog’s movements as it twirled around and chased its tail. Every afternoon the dog and the human had climbed the stairs of the beachside café in Varkala cliff and claimed their corner table, chatting with the waiters and enjoying the calmness in the air.
The picture above – film-like as it is – is now a memory. The kind of picture a filmmaker would show as fading away into black and white to the tunes of a violin solo. The real picture is sadder to look at. Tibetan Kitchen is now closed. The corner table has been replaced by furniture stacked one on top of the other, disorderly. Most of the neighbouring shops wear this look – closed, deserted, turned into lonely ghosts of their busy pasts. The only sound now heard at the cliff, where once bustling tourists filled resorts and restaurants and walked the narrow cemented path outside, comes from the waves below.
“COVID-19 ruined everything,” bemoans Binod, a restaurant owner. Darjeeling Café, run by him, is one of the few that’s now open on the cliff. They had closed for earlier lockdowns but recently, hoping to somehow revive the business at Onam time (mid August), Binod opened shop again. “If you notice, more than half the restaurants are closed. People who ran the businesses couldn’t afford the rent for the landowners, so they closed up and went back to their native land – some as far as Nepal, others in villages of north and west India. We can’t afford the rent or the electricity charges of running the place. Most of the shops are on rented spaces,” Binod says.
Tibetan Kitchen, closed and with chairs stacked up on top
Onam, the biggest annual harvest festival of Kerala, had brought new hope. Weekend lockdowns in the state were temporarily relaxed for the festivities. People, tired of being shut in homes for months, rushed to Varkala and its serene shores. “Unlike pre-COVID times, it was mostly people within Kerala who came this time. Many of them were even from Varkala,” says Aravind K Shaji, president of the Varkala Tourism Development Association (VTDA).
Soon after Onam though, the rush depleted and lockdowns were reinforced. Kerala, criticised by several quarters for loosening restrictions at a time when the state recorded dangerously high numbers of COVID-19 cases, went back to its earlier measures of Sunday lockdowns and added night curfews too.
“So once again, we have lost customers because many of the domestic tourists – within Kerala and from other states in India – usually come for the weekends. With the Sunday lockdowns, that’s not practical anymore,” Aravind says.
He reckons at least 50% of the businesses have shut shop in Varkala, including restaurants, cafes, resorts, rest houses, handicraft shops and others. Displays behind glass doors of closed shops still show bead necklaces and beach wear but with no takers.
“Initially in March-April 2020, many foreign tourists were stranded here when India went into a sudden lockdown and they couldn’t fly back to their countries. We were allowed to have them stay and provide them food, but not run business for anyone else,” Aravind says.
Closed shops along the cliff
That, however, didn't work in the long run. When foreign citizens were unable to travel back for long, they moved out of the resorts and homestays and began to rent out houses for lower costs, says Deepak, owner of Cliff Stories, a resort in Varkala. “We did reduce the rates for them, but eventually some of them who had to stay on for months moved to houses they rented, and began cooking for themselves. You can’t blame them either,” Deepak says.
After those initial months, tourists just stopped coming because of continuous lockdowns all over the world. However, even as other places began to slowly open up, the situation in Kerala was not desirable for a holiday. “When they look at our daily caseload of COVID-19, they are afraid to visit Kerala. This has deeply affected the small and big businesses in Varkala, especially since the earlier trends of seasonal visits of tourists had long changed. In the past, people used to visit in big numbers only during certain seasons. We had fewer customers in the off season. But all of that had changed in the past few years (before the pandemic struck) and all the shops and resorts were always packed with people. Now there are no people but the expenses are just as bad!” Deepak says.
There are about 15 to 20 staff in most restaurants and many of them are from outside Kerala. Their salaries have to be paid, or in the worse case, they have to be let off. This expense is in addition to rent and electricity charges. “Despite several requests, the electricity charges have not been waived off even for the months we were closed. Taxes too had not been waived off. Last month, Tourism Minister Mohammed Riyas visited Varkala and made some promises. We hope something will come out of it,” says Aravind.