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Amarnath Deva interview

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Welcome, everyone.
My name's Athena.
I'm with Outreach and Continuing Education and Western C.A.R.E.S.
here at Western Washington University.
I'm going to be acting as your host
today for this session of Stories to Tell.
Just a quick note, this interview is being recorded
and will be archived by the Center
for Pacific Northwest Studies and the South Asian-American
Digital Archives, and they will be made available to the public
for research, teaching, and education.
A bit about Western C.A.R.E.S. before we start.
We started this as a resource for us
to connect and share and maintain
our sense of community and engagement during these days
where we're trying to stay home and stay healthy and take
care of each other.
These are online interactive sessions
put on by your colleagues and peers who
are volunteering their time and experience
and interests with you.
As your host, I'm going to introduce your session,
and then I'm here to provide any tech support that you may need.
Do know that you entered the call today
with your sound muted and your video off,
because we are recording and that
helps us to keep the video focused on our speakers.
There will be time at the end where
we'll turn your sound back on, if you'd
like, to ask questions.
If you're not comfortable with that,
there is a chat option on the side in Zoom as well.
And you can type them in there, and we'll monitor that as well.
So thank you so much for joining us,
and now I'm going to hand it over for the interview.
Dharitri, thanks.
Welcome everyone.
This is Stories to Tell, and I'm Dharitri Bhattacharjee.
I teach in the history department
at Western Washington University.
In this oral history series our goal
is to explore a diversity of South Asian perspectives
on COVID-19.
The region of South Asia comprises India, Bangladesh,
Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Maldives
and Afghanistan.
This week and next week will be our last week
on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
We are bringing in new South Asian voices for you.
I will ask questions for thirty minutes,
and after that you are encourages to ask questions
to our guest.
And today our guest Amarnath Deva.
Minorities and immigrants are routinely
absent and underrepresented in archival collection.
I could not be more proud to be convening this series.
I will be conducting the interview,
but there are several people who have made this possible.
I want to especially acknowledge the contribution of Western
C.A.R.E.S' Program Specialist Athena Roth,
and the Center for Pacific and Northwest Studies Archivist
Ruth Steele.
So thank you for joining us, Amarnath.
And Amarnath is the owner of Seattle's largest South Asian
grocery store, Mayuri.
Among other topics of conversation
Amarnath will talk to us about small business economy
and immigrant consumer culture.
So Amarnath, lets start with you telling us
a little bit about your background,
and why did you come, or why did you want to come to the US.
OK.
As you mentioned, my name is Amarnath Deva.
I'm from Visakhapatnam, India.
Grew up there and came in 1980, July 31st, almost 40 years.
I did my undergraduate in India, majoring in commerce.
And I started doing my articles in chartered accounting, which
they call the CPA here.
And then I got the opportunity, via my uncle
[? slash ?] my mom who migrated to United States as an immigrant.
And my mom applied for us, and so we took the opportunity,
because back then also the United States
was the first choice for opportunities and better
lifestyle, and better opportunities
to work and educate yourself and make a living.
So, with that opportunity we came over here,
migrated to the United States.
So what was it like [AUDIO CUTS OUT] in India?
Did everyone you know-- was the aspiration
to get out of the country?
Move to a country like the US?
Or there were only some-- you know,
some among the youth who wanted to.
I mean, back then also--
I mean, it start as--
I mean, people are not as motivated as today to come
to United States as back then.
Simply because there is a lot of unknown factors.
Because we didn't have--
now with TVs and all this media and everything,
the culture and everything is quite visible to people living
abroad, what lifestyle and what standard
of living in the United States.
As opposed to back then, we'd still--
we know we are having relatives and people--
some magazines that would come that we would get it
in the library, places like that,
to educate ourselves about the United States.
And back then, Russia is also relatively prominent place.
So it's all the 1980s, which means
this is pre-liberalization.
So aspirations for a better lifestyle [AUDIO CUTS OUT]
to the US.
So if it's 1980, that means you have been
in the US for 40 years now.
So if you can tell us briefly--
to summarize 40 years of your life.
Like how has the journey been?
What was it that brought you [AUDIO CUTS OUT]
as opposed to ... in India [? you had a dream ?] as a chartered accountant?
That's not your [AUDIO DISTORTION HERE]?
Yes.
Well, I went through several ups and downs in the last 40 years.
Like when I came in, in the '80s,
the Iranian crisis was number one back then.
And because all the hostages began
in Iran and so a lot of people, general public,
they couldn't distinguish between the Iranians
and other nation members, so a lot of people
used to think that I'm from Iran.
And especially when I was in fast food,
shich is a customer service oriented line,
I interacted with a lot of the public.
And they would get upset or whatever,
they'll start cursing me thinking that I'm
from Iran and so on, so forth.
So I went through that period for some time.
I mean that, I have to say that it's not, I mean
the majority of the people are very, very well behaved.
Very few people, I would say, is in that kind of phase,
abusive phase.
But otherwise, most of the people,
they're very helpful and sympathetic
to foreigners who are coming in and trying
to establish themselves in the country and so on and so forth.
That's normal.
So after the Iranian crisis, then we
went through this economic crisis in the sense
that the gas prices and so on and so forth,
the economy was in really bad shape.
That's when Reagan took over from Carter.
And it worked--
I mean, I would say, to briefly summarize the thing,
I mean, there is a lot of ups and downs in the last 40 years.
And yeah, so overall, it was pretty good.
So you came over here.
First, you were in California, right?
And what business did you have there?
And then when did you move to Washington?
I came in 1980.
So after 2000, which is 20 years,
I was in California doing quick service restaurants of my own.
Then from there, we moved to Washington--
Seattle, Washington.
And probably I did that because we purchased the Days Inn
hotel.
And right after we bought it, 9/11 hit,
and the hotel business took a big dive.
And again, once again, almost bankrupt.
Then when I was looking for another business opportunity,
then that's how I stumbled across there's so many
Indians, especially the East Side, Bellevue, Redmond.
Redmond being the Microsoft headquarters and Amazon.
A lot of Indians are coming in to work.
And they needed grocery items, and everybody's
catering towards--
back then, Punjabis are the dominating people.
And so they would cater to them, Punjabis and Punjabis.
And nobody know what the food habits for the South Indians
is like.
So that also gave me a good niche market.
So I jumped in and we started bringing in South Indian
speciality items.
And that's how I started.
Well, you have-- therefore, after you came to the US,
you have been a serial entrepreneur.
You started with the food court business.
Then you said you moved to the hotel business.
You went almost bankrupt.
And then you started your grocery store.
And that's Mayuri, Is that right?
That's correct.
Yes.
So Mayuri has been running since what time,
and how has your store changed?
If you can talk about that.
How did the idea--
like you mentioned that--
you talked about why the idea came to you
of starting the grocery store.
Because it was in Redmond, and there's
a huge South Asian population there.
But since then, how has the grocery store transformed?
Yes, yeah.
We started with a 4,000 square feet footprint and then,
slowly, we started looking at various ways
to expand our business.
In terms of we wanted to like--
I mean, I studied the mainstream stores more or less.
Like one stop shopping is the key
for most of the Safeway and those places.
So we added a few things, like ready-to-eat food, bakery
items, snacks, sweets and specialty meats
that are primarily purchased by Indians, which
is like our diet is chicken and mutton, which is goat and lamb
and so on and so forth.
Very little pork and beef is consumed in India.
So we tried to--
at our place, we just specialized only
with chicken and mutton, which is goat and lamb.
And vegetables.
That's the big thing.
Indian vegetables are different from mainstream vegetables.
And nowadays, California also has a lot of immigrants,
so they started growing our Indian vegetables in California
and Texas and Florida.
And so they bring in by air, by truck.
And even from Hawaii, we get curry
leaves and so on and so forth.
So all these things, we could only operate fully
if we had good volumes.
And that's what-- so that's why we
had to grow from 4,000 to 13,000 square feet recently
in Redmond.
And then we added another one in Bothell
for another 14,000 square feet.
OK.
In 20 years, you've moved from 4,000 to 13,000.
That's quite a feat.
Having achieved that feat, will you tell us like,
how did the pandemic--
how did the pandemic hit you as a small business owner?
Because since March, that's what you've been dealing.
Both in your Redmond and Bothell locations.
Yes.
Yeah.
Basically, we're facing a lot of challenges
because of the COVID.
Definitely, in terms of our daily operations,
we had to make a lot of changes in terms
of dealing with the customers and in terms of bringing in--
maintaining the social distancing
and maintaining the hygiene in terms of keeping our shopping
carts clean and keeping our customers
from employees-- direct contact by putting
plexiglass dividers in between, and so on so forth.
We had to do all those things.
And then not-- supply chain, also, we
had to make several changes.
Because we had to discontinue some of the offerings
that we'd been doing, which is like self-serve, bulk bins,
and hot food.
This sort of steam table by way of by portion size.
And small packaging that customer could
make and purchase it by weight and so on and so forth.
So all those things, we had to discontinue
because of the COVID and stick with only prepackaged products.
So that the hygiene levels are high and contamination
is low.
So there were some [AUDIO DISTORTION] .. little bit of background.
If I hear you correctly, your, some sections
of the store had to be shut down because
of the pandemic And the bakery and the hot food section
not been going on.
So how did the grocery section do?
The grocery side actually did very well.
I mean, whatever the sales we lost
from the bulk bins and the hot food and things like that,
we gained more on the grocery side.
Meaning a few people started--
because of the pandemic, a lot of people started going to work
and working from home and staying home.
And they're not going out to a lot of meetings and outings.
So they started cooking at home.
And therefore, they started purchasing more grocery items,
taking it home and cooking it themselves.
So our grocery business has picked up
30% more than what we used to do in the past.
That's great.
Can you talk a little bit about how
you responded to the social distancing
advice that came out, right?
Because it's an enclosed space, and there's
all this information coming out about being in closed spaces,
and then you have to maintain social distance.
So what are some of the changes that you
had to make in your store, in your business,
in order to respond to the pandemic
and to continue with your business?
Yes.
We did several changes.
Number one is number of people allowed into the store
at any given point, to keep--
maintaining the social distancing.
Based on our square footage, the aisle space and so on and so
forth, we figured only--
without our employees.
It's about 12 customers that we could handle at the time.
So we kept a couple of guys outside
and they would monitor the number of people
that entered into the store.
That would never cross 12 people.
And number two, even once you cross into the store,
then we started putting stickers six feet apart in each aisle.
And also, we designated aisles, one side is enter
and the other side is exit.
So it's like a one way traffic kind of thing.
And even in the produce aisle, it's about--
our produce aisle is about 28 feet long.
And so every six feet, we put a sticker.
And then we would keep one or two people
in the aisle monitoring the customers.
And if we have too many people coming into the produce
section, we would request them, can you please wait?
I mean, all these things we had to do back in the beginning.
But within two weeks, even the customers
learned how to behave, these kind of things.
And they started doing it on their own kind of thing.
So now we have only one or two people
in the store kind of going around and monitoring the floor
traffic, to make sure everybody is maintaining social distance
and the customers are happy.
So today, as we are doing this interview, of course the headlines have been that the economy has plunged 13 per cent.
And I think all of us who are living through this,
we are also witnessing shops closing, restaurants closing,
almost like an everyday story.
So for one, of course, I'm very, very glad
to know that the business did well.
What about your employees?
Did you have to--
were you able to retain your workforce?
Did you let them go?
How did you manage your employees?
How did you take care of them?
We were very fortunate to have multiple offerings
under our label, Mayuri label.
We have restaurants, bakery, and chaat, and grocery.
So the restaurant and the bakery part
kind of suffered because of COVID.
So what we did is we put those employees who all wanted
to continue to work brought them into the grocery side
and we had to take extra precautions in the grocery
side, as opposed to cleaning the carts and cleaning the shopping
bags, and so on and so forth.
So we had these people do those kind of work.
And anybody who has underlying factors like if they
are sugar patients or heart patients and things
like that they requested time off.
So we gave them the time off and picked up the other people
who wanted to work in our bakery or restaurant
into the grocery side.
And quickly trained them for smaller jobs
not special jobs but other jobs like bagging,
stocking, facing the shelves, so on and so forth.
And that's how we have been able to keep
most of our people employed.
So it looks like you didn't have to let go people,
which is great.
Also during the pandemic we've seen
even if you're a big company there are problems supporting
a lot of employees and that's been difficult.
But also one of the things that big grocery chains are
able to do is quickly resort to technology,
they work on curbside pickup, make all these arrangements
and be more able to adapt to the needs of the pandemic
far better than smaller grocery chains were
able to do, in terms of curb-side pickup,
in terms of taking online orders, filling online orders
and doing everything.
So how much was Mayuri able to adapt to all?
Pretty much I would say 50% to 60%.
We could have done more.
But we want to pay for this and one best part
for us is the majority of our customer base is IT-based,
and they quickly figured out that most
of these Indian stores don't have
online ordering and online pickup, and so on and so forth.
Now there's a few reasons why we didn't have that,
because our customers mostly like
to buy fresh vegetables and also spices.
Some of them are not branded so they
want to see the quality of the spice, of the lentils,
of the rice before they pick it up.
So therefore they want in person that hands on experience.
That's the reason why we never really
focused on the online business.
But with this COVID we had no choice
but we had to embrace that.
And so the customers also felt that's the right thing.
And so they kind of helped us out.
A couple of smart girls from Bay Area
came up with this [? vc.com ?] app, and people like us
who don't have that app, shopping cart, and all
those things.
They kind of help us out to set up a quick thing like fax,
email.
So as a customer you can just hand-write your order,
and then--
the funny part is in any language.
I mean it would come in in English
but the names would have, for example, Chinese okra, in Urdu,
you would call it bendekai.
So they would write bendekai,
and things like that.
And luckily we have people from all over the states working
at our store so they would go and ask them,
"What does this mean?"
And then we'd go pick all those vegetables and everything
put together.
And then when you come to the store
you would call us, and then at that point we ring up
your order.
Because majority of the time we did not have everything
that you asked for, or sometimes we
had to substitute some items.
And so we take your permission to do that.
And then finally, we cleared the bill,
and then bring the cart to you, and you
swipe your card and pay, and then we'd load it up,
and there you go.
So maybe you were not able to do exactly what bigger chains did,
but also as you were answering--
you know how South Asians like to look
at what they are buying.
Like to touch it, feel it.
I was also thinking that to most immigrants
your store must be sort of the most important place that
reminds them of home.
So even if there are some places where you're not
able to match up produce you are still
offering very, very [AUDIO DISTORTION] food from home, right?
So that makes a difference.
So I had one more question just about your observation
of what's going on in the store.
Which is, did you notice anything
about consumer behavior, or how the social behavior
within the space of your store changed during the pandemic?
Yes definitely.
I mean it's easing up now, but back in March and April,
we really, really could see that the worry in their face.
They were really, really concerned.
And we could see only one person in the family
would come out and shop all the time, either mother
or a father, and the rest of them they just stay in the car.
And then bring the products in the bag,
they would put it in their trunk.
They're very cautious because we didn't know how this COVID
disease is transmitted.
And so therefore everybody is really, really worried.
And we were getting different information
from the CDC and all other sources.
Every time it's something different.
So everybody was concerned.
So you could see that concern in a lot of customer's faces.
And also our employees, too.
They were really, really worried.
Scared to work long hours because they didn't want to get
exposed to it.
And worst of all--
everybody now is forgetting-- is that Seattle was
the epicenter for this thing.
And though New York and other places picked up later on,
but it's happened to us in Kirkland,
and which is next down to Bothell and Redmond.
And so it's fresh in everybody's mind.
Everybody is really scared and a lot of people are dying.
I mean we know that they are dying because of COVID.
And most of our customers are young couples
coming from abroad, and their loved ones, their parents and everybody
are back home in India.
And the majority of them are the main breadwinners
for the family too.
These guys earn money and send it back home.
So there's so much riding on their well-being.
So you could see all that in the customers.
And so they tried to maintain the social
distance and everything on their own.
And if somebody also comes too close to them,
they would get upset and worried and they
would bring that to our attention, even if we bring in more people
or if they're too close.
Those kinds of things.
But was there a marked change in consumer behavior
that you noticed?
What was it-- the consumer behavior change?
It's getting a bit more relaxed about now.
From March, April, May, June, they're
getting a little bit more relaxed.
Because now we know how it's transmitted.
As long as you are careful that you
wash your hands and everything that they are telling you.
Maintain that and they know that you may not get it.
So that's what they're doing.
They're not going out too often, unless it's necessary and so on.
Yes.
So we don't know when the pandemic will be over
because we don't know so many things right now.
So if it continues for a year, when
you look ahead how can you plan?
Are you prepared for Mayuri to continue
if this continues for a year?
Oh, yes.
We will stay in business.
We'll continue to do what is necessary
and we are in fact looking for new locations
to expand our business and so on so forth.
And at the same time, we are investing money
into doing this online business, curbside business.
And the new leases that we are negotiating,
we are requiring landlords to provide us curbside pickup
areas, and all those things.
Yes, we are planning ahead for this.
Thinking that if not COVID-19 then
it could be something else.
But this is going to be part of our life going forward.
That's how we are prepared.
As South Asian, the big festivals are coming up.
How do you think the festival season will be?
That's a good question in the sense
that we just went through one or two festivals
and there was a test for us.
Especially in March when the COVID
really peaked in the later part of March and early April,
people were really, really concerned.
We went through a couple of important festivals like a New
Years for many states.
And what we noticed is about 20% to 25% down on our volumes.
But still people bought those items
and excludes a lot of fresh coming through the stores.
Only even that drop happened because we
feel that the lines are too long for people
to get into the store.
And that's the reason why we couldn't service them.
Not that the demand wasn't there.
It's mostly because of the lines displaced a lot of people.
And so moving forward what we are trying to do
is prepackage some of those items for each festival.
And you can come in for the Ganesha,
whatever thing you need for the Puja
We would just package those all in one big bag
so you just pick that up and you purchase that.
It makes it much easier for you to get it done.
And so we can get you in and out much quicker.
So those are the things that, for Durga Puja,
we're doing the same thing,
for Lakshmi, we're doing the same thing.
We're pre-packaging items so that we could do that.
So just for our listeners of South Asian [AUDIO CUTS OUT]
and Hinduism is a prominent religion in South Asia.
And so all these references are meaning
they're like big celebrations revering some of millions goddesses
and gods and goddesses in this, Lakshmi, Durga, these are all goddesses
and there are big celebrations.
Right. One question I'm asking everyone in this series is,
was there a particular moment during this last four or five
months when you suddenly realized
you were living through the global pandemic?
If you recall it, can you share or describe the moment.
Yes absolutely, in the sense that especially
during the late part of March, I think, or early April, I
personally stayed home because of my health conditions
and so I started watching TV and the news
that we would get from New York and Washington DC, the White
House and all that.
And then of course the WhatsApp from India.
A good thing is back then India was in lockdown
so there's not much of the bad news coming from there.
And we were really praising how well they've managed it.
And then we were feeling really scared in our country,
especially Seattle, California, and New
York, and all these places.
And during that time, I was really, really scared
and staying home and watching TV and talking to people.
And I thought, OK, this is it.
I mean in WhatsApp you would see animals
coming into the streets and all these things.
It's no wonder everybody knew that this
was something unique and you will never
see that in their lifetime.
So yes we felt that really.
So you said because of health reasons
you decided to stay back.
So are you completely quarantined?
Are you visiting--
Well, I did that and then I snapped out of it.
I said OK, as long as I maintain social distance
and maintain the recommended guidelines
I shouldn't worry too much.
I should about doing my fairly routine business.
And just staying home only was getting me depressed on day
to day basis.
I think mid-May I decided to start working again.
And every day I'm going to work
I'm glad you are doing well now.
Thanks for sharing this with us because I think a lot of people
have to choose between life and life issues.
I think that has been one of the most difficult decisions
you have had to make during the pandemic, right?
How can you prioritize between life and life issues.
Exactly.
So thank you so much for talking with us, and for your time,
and telling us all these stories.
Like your story about arriving and getting your visa soon
enough.
It's like, for a green card right now
immigrants have to wait for 20 years.
So I'll keep thinking about all that.
So at this point we'll ask if anyone has questions for you.
And we have a couple of questions on the chat,
and then turn on your video and ask the question.
Amar, if you want you can turn on your video as well.
OK.
Hi, Amar.
I think there's a question from Ruth.
Amarnath, can you read it or should I read it?
I can't read it, but if you could, that would be nice.
OK.
Yes, sure.
So, Amarnath, thank you so much.
"You mentioned the many changes you
had to put in place for your business due to COVID 19.
What support did you--" Oh, excellent question, Ruth.
I almost know the question now.
"So what's support did you and other small business owners
in Seattle receive to make these changes?
Was there good guidance and/or any financial support
to make these change?
I'm curious what you might have done differently,
or that could still be done."
Yes, the support we received is from the local Redmond city
council.
They're still holding regular small business meetings
with all the small business owners and offering
us support if anybody needs any help.
You have to understand, the Bellevue-Redmond area there's
a lot of ethnic business around there and some of them
may not be able to communicate properly
in English the signage that is required with this new COVID.
So they would help us to translate
that's in Indian language and in English,
and so on and so forth.
And even the script a [? bank ?] and then you
can give it to your sign makers and they can make the signs
and put it in.
And also explain to your employees what to look for
and how to do all those things.
A constant help both from the Health Department and from the city
council.
And then financial help as well in terms
of the Small Business Administration
loans and all those things.
And if employees need any further assistance
the Indian local associations also
reached out through us asking us if any of our employees
need any help in terms of food-wise,
or any boarding assistance.
And just to remind you if not else
I'm curious what you might have done differently.
If you did not receive this support what would
you have done differently?
Or that could still be done.
Yes one good thing is that we've been
a very successful business.
And community did really help us to grow so much.
From 4,000 square feet, now we have two locations,
one is 13,000 and the other is 14,000 square feet.
We do over, I would say, one point
some million dollars a month in revenue in both the locations.
So we have a good precedent.
We have good cash flow.
So if I couldn't find any funding
from the SBA or the city I would have funded myself
the majority of these things.
We would not have hesitated a single second
to take care of this issue.
And what else I really wanted to tell you--
I really, really want to focus on this online business.
It's not as easy as we think it is.
Keeping the inventory because people are shopping
and constantly taking the stuff, and then we
have to update our inventory constantly.
And then most of our products come
from abroad and from other southern states
and it takes timing, and logistics,
and all those things.
It's a challenge I don't know how Amazon does it.
Maybe that's the reason why they pay millions
of dollars for their logistics,
they invest in.
We, on the other hand, don't have that kind of capital
to invest.
But we are working on it.
That's great.
And great question, Ruth.
Any other questions?
Amber, yes.
Yes, I have a question.
Thank you so much for sharing your story.
It was absolutely fascinating.
I'm a historian by profession, and I
didn't know how interesting it could be
to learn about supply chains.
But believe me I was hanging on your every word.
And I have like 100 questions for you.
But one that I was thinking about your past experience
in a number of different businesses.
One of the things that has happened
to me since the pandemic is I have
begun to look at everything I've done in my life
as preparation for this moment.
So for instance I'm sitting here at my sewing machine right
now sewing masks while you were talking,
and I'm so grateful that I learned to sew from my mother
when I was a child.
Traveling abroad, living in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh.
Thinking about how I could consume different things
or develop different habits.
That I learned to be resilient and nimble.
Because of those experiences that I feel
have helped me a lot during the pandemic.
So my question to you is having had all these experiences what
are the ones that you look to that you think were the best
preparation or helped you learn some tool or skill that
have helped you to manage and be as flexible as you have been
during all these changes?
It's definitely I would say it's our staff that came
from different backgrounds.
They came forward and they guided us in many ways.
Like some of my staff's spouses are IT-based people.
Some of them have other skills.
So they kind of said, hey, do you need this?
My husband, my wife, can do this for you.
We could build this shield between the customers
and us if we can get plexiglass
and then they would make those things.
And masks.
They would stitch those masks.
And then they'd say, hey, we have a very good source
to purchase these masks, so customers coming in
and they can't afford one we can provide them for free,
or nominal price.
And all these things, these resources,
everything came from--
believe it or not, majority from our employees,
and as well as the customers.
Even the customers.
They came to us and say, hey, we're so glad you're open,
you're doing all these things.
Do you need any help?
We can do the crowd control.
We can clean the baskets.
We can clean the shopping carts.
Trust me, it's unbelievable.
We know that we just added expenses I
know you guys can't afford it.
We can do this for you.
And you know it's unbelievable.
I didn't think it's in them, but it is remarkable.
I can see it in your smile, what a difference that has
made for you.
Yes.
Absolutely.
And Dharitri was saying earlier that the grocery
store is a taste of home.
It is an extension and that way of home in a way
that people get that familiarity and that then you
are all family to each other.
It's really amazing.
Sure.
Yes.
I mean, just the smell, right, of an Indian grocery store.
Mustard oil, all the things that you're familiar with.
Also, again, great question Amber.
And great answer because it looks like - and of course I've talked to Amarnath before -
It's not surprising to me that your answer is the answer
that it is because you've spent your time
investing in relationships.
And now is the time that you reaped from it.
So that your employees became he biggest support.
That's great. Any other questions?
I do have one more question.
It's a quick one.
Dharitri was asking about consumer-based behavior.
And one of my friends who's from Calcutta lives in Arizona.
And she said there is no dal.
There are no pulses, There's no lentils in my desi store.
And I suspect that all the white people
have gone in there to get them, because they keep so well.
My family has been surviving on dal.
And so I wondered if you noticed any shift
not just in consumer behavior but in who your customers were
during this time.
Yes I did but not so much in the dal, especially in Seattle.
But we did it in the chicken and the mutton.
Especially with the meat market in the mainstream.
It dried up a little bit.
At that time we saw a lot of people come in
and shop in our meat department.
And far as the lentils and rice, the wheat flour--
not much of a difference.
But we did notice most of the mainstream people coming
in for chicken, some haldi.
You know the ones that comment in the social media about how
to increase your immunity.
So those items.
The kind of people were coming.
Turmeric is very cool right now.
even Whole Foods-- turmeric try this, turmeric tea.
Turmeric is the newest--
[? yogurt ?]
Right.
So we noticed this stuff.
Yeah.
Thank you so much.
I really enjoyed learning from you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Amarnath.
Thank you Ruth and Amber for joining.
Yeah thank you so much for giving me
this much opportunity.
Sorry I also meant to-- is there anything
else you want to share, please.
No.
That's wonderful.
I'm glad you gave me the opportunity
to tell my story of our lives.
OK.
Thank you so much everyone.
Athena.
Thank you.
Thank you everybody.
Oh, thank you so much everyone for joining us today
another awesome interview with Stories to Tell.
I always learn so much.
And again I'm so grateful for the experience.
Thank you to you both that was wonderful.
And thanks for giving us your time
today and wonderful questions.
We're grateful for these great questions that come in.
Thanks and we have another week coming up
with more great interviews so I hope you can join us.
Thanks so much, everybody and have a great afternoon.
Thanks everyone.
Thank you.

In collections

Stories To Tell Oral History Project: A South Asian Perspective on COVID-19

Details

Title: Amarnath Deva interview
Description: Amarnath Deva, owner of Mayuri International Grocery Store, discusses small businesses, the economy, immigrant consumer culture and adapting to a changed notion of public space during the pandemic. This interview was conducted by Dr. Dharitri Bhattacharjee and presented online initially via the Western C.A.R.E.S. program and website (with Athena Roth as session host).
Date created: 2020-07-30
Type of resource: Moving image
Contributor: Deva, Amarnath (interviewee)
Bhattacharjee, Dharitri (interviewer)
Roth, Athena (host)
Western Washington University. Outreach and Continuing Education. Western C.A.R.E.S. (supporting host)
Genre: interviews
Related to: Stories To Tell Oral History Project: A South Asian Perspective on COVID-19
Related item link: http://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv345932/
Publisher: Digital object published by the Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, Western Libraries Heritage Resources.
Physical location: WaBeCP
Western Washington University
Repository: Center for Pacific Northwest Studies
Access conditions: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
This resource is made available for educational purposes, and is subject to U.S. and copyright laws. For more information about rights or obtaining copies this resource, please contact the Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University, Bellingham WA 98225, USA (360-650-7534; cpnws@wwu.edu), and refer to the identifier and title of the object. All citations/credits must reference: [title/identifier of this object], Stories To Tell Oral History Project, Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, Western Washington University.
Identifier (local): storiestotell_20200730_deva
Identifier (mabel PID): wwu:37434
Physical description note: The original session was broadcast and recorded in Zoom, with this edited/titled version of the recording created by CPNWS staff for the archives.

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