The one thing that moved fast in a city that usually doesn’t

The maths used to be dispiriting. Suraj Kesarvani had emptied his savings to buy an e-rickshaw four years ago. He used to be a vegetable seller but the losses during the Covid-19 pandemic ended that. The e-rickshaw, he thought, would be his way out. But in a city like Prayagraj, on a regular day, Kesarvani could make no more than Rs 900.Kesarvani, 34, is a graduate. But he wanted his two daughters — one of whom studies in Class I and the other in Class II — to do so much more. But to get them there, he had to be able to put them through school. And that would worry him.His daughters study at a public school in the city. For now, the education of his older daughter is free — the Right to Education Act exempts families with incomes of Rs 1.8 lakh or less from paying school fees up to Class VIII. But he will have to start paying when she’s in Class IX. For his younger daughter, he has to pay Rs 500 a month because only 25% of the class is admitted under the Act, and she did not make that cut. That’s Rs 6,000 a year. “And then, Maha Kumbh came as a blessing,” he told TOI. “I made almost Rs 10,000 a day.” And so, he says, he doesn’t have to worry about his daughters’ education anymore. But it wasn’t just a windfall. During the 45 days of the world’s largest religious congregation, Kesarvani did three things he wouldn’t usually do. Until January, he, like most e-rickshaw drivers, would not travel beyond a 3-km radius from his home. He also didn’t offer rides for about two hours in the afternoon every day — a long-ish lunch break. And because the bustle in the city would pick up by 6am and die down by 9.30pm, Kesarvani, like most e-rickshaw drivers, would be home by 8pm. When the Maha Kumbh began, he realised that just wouldn’t do. He drove his e-rickshaw through the lanes of Prayagraj for 18 hours every day — rarely denying a passenger a ride, at any time in the day. Fares went up meanwhile, and each ride earned him Rs 2,000-2,700. With pickup and dropoff and wait times, he managed at least five rounds a day, and made a minimum of Rs 10,000 a day. He has saved all that money for just one thing — the education of his daughters.It has been a month since the Maha Kumbh ended, and Prayagraj has settled back into its languid pace. But in pockets of the centuries-old city, the grand festival for spiritual purification has changed the trajectories on which people and families used to find themselves. Yes, there was the iPhone that young boat operators like Sujal, Udai, Suraj and Vansh Nishad always wanted but couldn’t afford before — president of the All India Mobile Dealers’ Association, Vipin Gupta, told TOI that the sales of iPhones went up in Prayagraj during the Maha Kumbh, and that many buyers among them were boat operators and bikers who ferried people.But there was also the long out-of-reach plan that suddenly got a lot closer. Like boat operator Balwant Nishad, who can now build the pucca house he always wanted and buy the new boat he thought could help him scale his earnings. Or Sanjeet Kumar Nishad, also a boat operator, who is prepared for the expenses of his daughters’ weddings. medium119799236 medium119799270 medium119799290 medium119799319 medium119799339 medium119799361 medium119799383Some had a ‘periphery’ windfallAditya Kharbanda’s vehicle spare parts shop has been in the family for two generations and has been a major supplier for shops in and around Prayagraj for over five decades. When the Maha Kumbh began, business hit a slump. Many roads were closed, trucks carrying stocks were not able to enter the city on time, and no-vehicle zones made it difficult to transport them within the city. Besides, most of his customers are from the hinterlands and they chose to wait the high-tourist season out. So, stocks were disrupted and the usually steady flow of customers slowed to a trickle.But, suddenly, business picked up. “There was an unexpected leap in the demand for spare parts. Clutch plates, pressure pumps,” Kharbanda told TOI. “We realised that parts which could develop snags if an engine ran for longer-than-usual hours or if the clutch was used too much — maybe because of traffic jams — were propping up demand.” Because there were so many people going to so many places within the city, all day, every day over the 45-day religious congregation. He and his family, who run the shop, decided to focus on just these parts — sometimes, driving themselves down to fetch the supplies. The demand for these parts went up 4-5 times the usual volume, and so did their revenue.It’s the spillover effect.When we think of religious festivals like the Maha Kumbh in a religion-driven city like Prayagraj, there is the usual list of things we expect will do well — hotels, transportation, food. But there are many peripheral things — which might seem obvious in hindsight — that pick up as well.The business in basics, for instance. “All wholesalers of groceries and consumables like sugar, pulses, flour, etc had stocked up well and there was no shortage — even though demand went up by 20%,” Satish Sershervani, president of the Prayagraj Dal Tilhan Vyapar Mandal (pulses and oilseeds traders’ association), told TOI. What was not foreseen was the scale of demand for packaged water. “Till the first week of February, I was worried that my stocks were piling up. We had 4 lakh boxes of mineral water, each with 12 one-litre bottles,” Sunil Jaiswal, owner of a plant that bottles mineral water for a pan-India brand, told TOI. “But what we saw February 8 onwards was unimaginable.” medium119799140 medium119799164The number of visitors grew, so did traffic jams, and supplies from outside the city were practically blocked. “Our plant was right here in Naini (an industrial township of Prayagraj). I started bottling mineral water in two shifts. And even that was not enough to keep up with demand.”In a similar, slightly circuitous way, two-wheeler sales went up too. In the crammed rush through the lanes of Prayagraj, the bike became the quickest way to move around. “There were many young buyers who bought bikes and scooters because they knew moving in the city would be easier,” Anuj Agarwal, 48, a Yamaha sub-dealer, said. “All bike showrooms registered a 50-60% increase in sales compared to February last year,” he added, citing data from the regional transport office that’s shared with vehicle dealers every month. “It was Dhanteras for us.” medium119799458 medium119799499 medium119799519And others did spectacularly well with a smart pivotShiv Babu Nishad, who owns a fleet of boats that carry people across the Ganga between Naukayan Ghat and Sangam, had anticipated the rush but decided to streamline his plan. In 2019, Shiv Babu had introduced a double-decker boat because he thought there would be a demand for those who wanted to book it for birthday parties, for instance, or small events. But it didn’t take off. During the Maha Kumbh, he chose a simpler path. “I had a few motorised and a few manually operated boats. I simply expanded my fleet and operated about a dozen boats,” he said. “Initially, business was subdued. But after Basant Panchami, there was a sudden surge in the number of devotees. We made great profits, running at least 10 rounds each day.”Figuring out the travel-centred economy made so much sense that Abhishek Pandey gave up his job during the last Kumbh. From a family whose ancestors used to work as pandas at the Sangam, Pandey was a banker in the city for about nine years. “I left my job in 2019 to follow my family’s legacy, and became a panda,” he said. His ancestral home is in Daraganj, an old part of the city by the Ganga. The sort of place that comes to mind when you think of a temple town — with its narrow lanes, ancient structures and a deeply rooted sense of history. Pandey converted that ancestral home into a homestay in November last year. “Eight well-furnished rooms with double beds and free Wi-Fi. I ensured my homestay appeared on Google search results and trained my staff to attend to visitors well.” During the Maha Kumbh, it paid off. Each room went for an average Rs 5,000 a day. That’s Rs 40,000 every day, over 45 days. Rs 18 lakh. medium119799532 medium119799544 119799562 medium119799606 medium119799624 medium119799648It’s about spotting the opportunity. Which the thousands of trolley rickshaw drivers in Prayagraj also did. Usually, they carry vegetables, fruits and construction material across the city every day. When the Maha Kumbh began on January 13, they realised they could quickly carry people through the roads that had been blocked for larger vehicles.“We reached Prayagraj in our car (an Audi) but were told that we couldn’t drive it beyond Civil Lines (the central business district). Then, we spotted a trolley rickshaw driver who offered us a ride for Rs 500,” said Amit Bansal, 49, an entrepreneur from Gurgaon. “It was not very comfortable. But for a pilgrimage, worldly comforts must be left behind. Each of the 2,000 trolley rickshaw drivers of the city used to make, at the most, Rs 600-700 a day carrying things. During the Kumbh, they made Rs 6,000 a day carrying people. The crowds also led to a somewhat dubious solution. Students, unemployed people, low-wage workers came on to the streets with their bikes — offering quick rides to devotees from the outskirts of the city to the Sangam. Charging Rs 500-1,000 for each ride. By the end of the Maha Kumbh, more than 2,500 such bikers are estimated to have eased transport quandaries for thousands of visitors. But because any commercial offering requires some form of paperwork, the police seized about 400-500 bikes towards the end of the Kumbh. There was, of course, the expected jump in some lines of workPrayagraj, with a gross value added (the value of goods and services produced) of almost Rs 38,000 crore, is the third most productive district in Uttar Pradesh — after Lucknow and Agra. But unlike other religion-centred economies — such as Ayodhya, which runs on agriculture, or Varanasi, which runs on transport and communication — Prayagraj has been driven by its construction sector, data from the state directorate of economics and statistics show.So, while hotels and restaurants do well — they contribute to 7% of the gross value added — they are not usually showstoppers.This is where the economies of scale came into play. The government says 66 crore people attended the Maha Kumbh. The same as the entire population of the United States, twice over. One indicator of the impact of this scale is the GST deposited by hotel and restaurant owners of Prayagraj in February, over Rs 65 lakh. More than in any month since the introduction of GST in 2017, a government official said. (It could partly be attributed to higher prices — upscale hotels charged Rs 20,000-Rs 40,000 a day, while relatively modest places raised prices to Rs 10,000-Rs 15,000 a day — but that, too, was because of the rush.)Meanwhile, restaurant owners TOI spoke to said that revenue soared during the Kumbh. “Our business went up 3-4 times the usual volume during the Maha Kumbh,” says Mukesh Agarwal, who runs the 170-year-old eatery Netram. “There was an unprecedented number of devotees … Most customers were from other cities.”Then there were the buzzworthy tent cities. More than one lakh tents to host the crores of people arriving at Prayagraj. Including the super-luxury ones that have made headlines. Like the Rishikul Tent City in the city’s Arail area that Sonam Agarwal, 34, ran with her husband. They run an event management and advertising agency. The Maha Kumbh seemed like a good opportunity to test other possibilities. “But it was also an opportunity to turn things around for 80 women whom we employed full-time for two months,” said Agarwal. “This Maha Kumbh was not just about making profits for ourselves.”Lead video: ANI