Agra: The usually bustling Taj Mahal with tourists crowding the complex has been quiet for the last three months with the Covid-19 pandemic shutting everything down.
For Agra residents who rely on the monument’s iconic status for their daily earnings, the shutdown has been devastating. Guides, photographers, hotel owners, drivers and many others see a bleak future ahead of them since tourism is unlikely to recover very quickly even when the the monument is reopened to the public.
The Narendra Modi government had, in fact, shut all monuments and museums run by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) across the country on 17 March, a week before the nationwide lockdown was announced to contain the spread of the infection.
Local guides, for whom the profession has become a family business, are especially facing the brunt of the shutdown. Many come from a long line of guides but are now adamant that their children don’t enter the dying profession.
On an average, over 65 lakh tourists visit the Taj Mahal every year from around the world. According to Hari Sukumar, president of the Tourism Guild of Agra, tourism in the city accounted for about Rs 800 crore annually in revenue. With the coronavirus pandemic, he estimates, Agra is staring at a loss of at least Rs 250 crore.
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Local guides a dying breed
The South Gate of the Taj Mahal is close to many budget hotels, restaurants and money exchange shops where tourists would normally be walking around. Now, it stands empty and deserted.
“Never thought that this monument of love would cause so many difficulties in our lives. We used to think we were like Shah Jahan earlier, showing people around the Taj … today we have been reduced to nothing,” says 45-year-old Rafiq Khan.
Like the other local guides, Khan has been rendered jobless due to the lockdown. A third generation guide, he follows in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps. He joined the profession when he was 25 years old.
With the monument shut for more than 100 days now, Khan was surviving on his savings but that has also dried up. He said he used to be able to earn Rs 15,000-Rs 20,000 every month before the lockdown.
Lamenting his choice of profession, he said if he knew any other work, he would have been able to provide for his wife and three sons now.
“I don’t have enough money to pay (the) children’s school fees. We are considering making them drop a year. There are fights everyday in the family regarding money,” he said, adding that he had to sell his wife’s jewellery to survive.
At one point, Khan was sure that his sons would join the family business and become guides, but not any more.
Khan is not alone in this struggle. Most of the guides who work at the Taj Mahal live in the Katra Umar Khan area near the South Gate, including 37-year-old Yusuf Ali.
Ali, like Khan, had followed his father and grandfather into the profession. He had also planned to teach his 16-year-old son a foreign language to help him when he became a tour guide.
The changing times, however, have forced Ali to reconsider the decision. He notes that even if the Taj Mahal reopens, the rise of tourism companies have left little work for them.
“We have gotten no support from the government or anybody else. It’s a fact that no tourist will come even if the Taj reopens. Don’t even know if work will come when it reopens as we are local guides. Guides from outside, connected with companies will get first preference and take all our work,” he said.
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A life spent around the Taj
For people who aren’t guides, their lives have still revolved around the Taj Mahal.
Like 65-year-old Izhar Ahmed. He became a tour guide only in 2010, but has been working odd jobs in shops around the monument for most of his life.
“I have spent 50 years of my life around the Taj Mahal, I don’t know what to do now. The lockdown took all my savings and now we are barely surviving,” he said.
Having studied only till Class 8, Ahmed became a guide by following other guides and learning from them. “When there was no work in the South Gate, I would go to the West Gate or the East Gate and find some work. Now there is nothing,” he said.
Ahmed has seven sisters and he is the sole breadwinner of the family. Frustrated by the lack of money and almost nothing to eat, his younger sister Rahila often yells at him: “I wish you were not a guide, at least we would have some money. We want nothing to do with the Taj Mahal.”
For Asif, going to Hotel Sanya Palace, the budget hotel he owns and which is known for its rooftop view, has become a painful exercise.
“My father built this hotel 15 years back. We would get at least 50 people a day and now there is nothing. I don’t enter the hotel anymore or go to the rooftop because it is too heartbreaking and I break down,” he said.
Two lanes away from Asif’s hotel lives 30-year-old Rahil-ud-din, who has been working as an ASI-certified photographer at the Taj Mahal for the past 11 years. Like everyone else, his life has also taken a turn for the worse.
“I took so much pride in being an ASI certified photographer. I would work from sunrise to sunset. Now, I don’t know what to do with my time. I can’t even go somewhere else to look for a job. If this continues, I will soon be on the streets,” the photographer said.
According to Asif, the apathy of the local administration and the government has been most disappointing. No one has reached out and provided any relief, he said, despite several attempts made by them to contact the authorities.
The Hotel and Restaurant Association in the region, of which Asif is a member, sent two letters to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, asking them to relieve hotels of the fixed electricity charge that they have to pay every month, during the lockdown.
The letters were sent over a month back but they are yet to receive a reply, Asif said.
“In such a situation one can only hope that business will resume soon. I heard there was a possibility that the Taj Mahal would open on 2 July,” he said hopefully.
However, ThePrint spoke to a senior official at the ASI who said that they had received no intimation by the central government on reopening the Taj Mahal anytime soon.
Sukumar notes that the Tourism Guild of Agra had recommended that parts of the monument, which do not come under the ASI such as the viewing points, be opened to the general public so that some business or tourism activity kickstarts. But no decision has been made by the government yet.
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