Charles Kong Soo

“If you hear of a plague in a land, then do not go in­to it. If it hap­pens in­land where you are, then do not go out of it.”

Ara­by Ali, the own­er of Ara­by Ali’s Dou­bles in Barataria, quot­ed the above Ha­dith from Prophet Mo­hammed on treat­ing with the plague in the sev­enth cen­tu­ry and said the right thing to do dur­ing the COVID-19 lock­down is to stay home.

On March 26 Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced that from mid­night last night all non-es­sen­tial ac­tiv­i­ties will be cur­tailed un­til April 15, 2020.

The Min­istry of Health an­nounced the sec­ond COVID-19 death in the coun­try on Fri­day and lat­er that day Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young list­ed the ser­vices and busi­ness­es that were con­sid­ered es­sen­tial; dou­bles busi­ness­es were not among them.

Yes­ter­day was the last day his cus­tomers were able to have the pop­u­lar del­i­ca­cy and icon­ic T&T break­fast sta­ple at his es­tab­lish­ment at 71, Fifth Street, Barataria, as his and oth­er dou­bles es­tab­lish­ments will be forced to close dur­ing the two-week coro­n­avirus clam­p­down.

The hum­ble dou­bles con­sist­ing of two bara and filled with chan­na (chick­peas) is a pop­u­lar street food that is en­joyed by all stra­ta of so­ci­ety--from the wealthy, busi­ness­men in suits dri­ving lux­u­ry ve­hi­cles, pro­fes­sion­als, blue-col­lar work­ers, school chil­dren to the poor.

It is nor­mal­ly eat­en at break­fast, but al­so for lunch and as a late-night snack af­ter a fete.

The cheap and af­ford­able dou­bles has kept many UWI stu­dents, whose par­ents sac­ri­ficed every­thing for their ed­u­ca­tion, alive. Some nu­tri­tion­ists say the chan­na is a good source of pro­tein, vi­t­a­mins, min­er­als and fi­bre, peo­ple on a flour-re­strict­ed di­et or the health-con­scious skip the bara and buy a bowl or cup of chan­na in­stead. There is even a whole wheat bara and it has evolved in­to gourmet dou­bles with ex­ot­ic meats such as al­li­ga­tor, chick­en, beef, duck, goat and seafood. And there is a va­ri­ety of what can on­ly be called sides in­stead of chut­neys.

Dou­bles has spread its wings over­seas to coun­tries like USA, Cana­da, Eng­land and oth­er coun­tries in the Caribbean.

Lines of loy­al cus­tomers and their cars parked on the road­side by Ara­by Ali’s Dou­bles, maxi taxis parked on the bus route are usu­al oc­cur­rences es­pe­cial­ly on Sun­days for the de­li­cious fare, which in­cludes sa­heena, baiga­nee, pholourie, cheese and aloo pies.

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic changed all that, how­ev­er, the black­board chalk mes­sage where the ta­bles and chairs would nor­mal­ly be dri­ves home the grim re­al­i­ty for so­cial dis­tanc­ing “Take away on­ly. Call-in ser­vice avail­able: 620-8292. Busi­ness has fall­en by 50 per cent due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day, the penul­ti­mate day be­fore the ces­sa­tion of dou­bles sales Ali said “The clo­sure will have a ma­jor im­pact on my busi­ness. I have mort­gage to pay, chil­dren to mind, my youngest, Za­kiyyah, is 12, my fa­ther, An­war, is 79 years old and is ill, my moth­er, Ko­r­isha, is 71 years and is a heart pa­tient.

“I have a staff to pay, in­clud­ing my chil­dren, Ameera, Ar­i­fah and Arif who are in the busi­ness and a geri­atric nurse for my fa­ther who needs round-the-clock care.

“I will have to close for the next 14 days and put cater­ing on hold. I am a law-abid­ing cit­i­zen. It doesn’t make sense if I come out to work and no­body is com­ing to buy if they say on­ly so-called es­sen­tial per­sons can come out and the rest of the peo­ple have to stay home.

“Rich peo­ple from as far as West­moor­ings, the not so fi­nan­cial­ly well off from Cale­do­nia, Laven­tille, po­lice and mem­bers of the T&T De­fence Force, I don’t know if I can cater for the se­cu­ri­ty forces af­ter Sun­day, and even some down-and-out peo­ple al­so de­pend on me for a lit­tle break­fast.”

The third-gen­er­a­tion dou­bles mak­er said he will err on the side of cau­tion and do his part for the greater good of the coun­try in the long run.

Ali said to achieve this, Trinida­di­ans had to take COVID-19 se­ri­ous­ly as was done world­wide.

He said these peo­ple didn’t lis­ten to what was an­nounced at con­fer­ences or un­der­stood the grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion, with ir­re­spon­si­ble cit­i­zens break­ing quar­an­tine pro­ce­dures.

Ali said some peo­ple al­so broke the rule re­gard­ing so­cial dis­tanc­ing when they bought dou­bles and sat by the road­side to eat them.

He said he did not sup­port a com­plete lock­down of the coun­try, but the Gov­ern­ment had to do what was nec­es­sary to con­tain the coro­n­avirus.

Ali, a de­vout Mus­lim, said it will be chal­leng­ing to ad­just to not hav­ing to get up at 1:30 am every day to pre­pare the dou­bles for a 5 am open­ing time for cus­tomers, but will spent qual­i­ty time with his fam­i­ly, pray­ing, watch­ing movies and ex­er­cis­ing.