After Dev came to China in 2005, he opened his own Indian restaurant in a short time. In order to provide authentic Indian cuisine, Dev ensures both raw materials and chefs are from India. In just a few years, Dev's restaurants have entered many cities in China, including Beijing, Hangzhou, Changchun, and Xi'an.
In 2012, Dev came to Xi'an for business. After several years, Dev's business developed well in Xi'an and he has gradually integrated into local life. Eventually, he decided to settle down in Xi'an and picked up his family to the city. In Xi'an, Dev, like many businessmen, is striving for a happy life for himself and his families. His children are also well educated in Xi'an, and their lives are peaceful yet exciting sometimes. However, this unexpected epidemic changed his life inadvertently.
It's affecting every person's life and it was scary as I have never experienced it ever in my lifetime. It was like a complete halt in your daily routine and professional front. As a business person, I have restaurants in many cities in China. It's really difficult for me to stay at the home whole day cause I'm not used to it, as I'm usually out visiting various places for business, but now because of the COVID, we are locked inside our homes since no one is allowed to go out. It is a whole new experience altogether. I spend my day in some exercises, spend time with children, help them with their studies, but simply it's all about eating and sleeping. It is monotonous and often irritating as it is really challenging to kill time.
If I talk about their studies, I'm quite lucky about it and would also like to thank their teachers for it, even though they can’t attend the school currently, they still have some online classes every day. It is a bit tough to maintain the standard like school but online classes are really helpful in this special time. We parents can never provide the knowledge and experience that a teacher can, but still, we are trying our best to help with their studies.
I think this epidemic is a challenge for all of us. After the outbreak of the epidemic, I sent all the employees in Beijing, Hangzhou and other seriously affected areas to India. Actually, all employees did not want to return to India because they know China well and they believe that China can make it, and everything will soon get better. However, their family members were worried, so I decided to send them back to India. The employees in Xi'an chose to stay because I was here. They were willing to stay with me and waited.
After this epidemic is over, I have a lot of pending business tasks as I need to pull a lot of strings to bring back the derailed business. It is going to affect the business, which is really unfortunate. This outbreak, which will take time to bring things back to normal, has formed a lot of negative scare and thoughts within people. It has been really a disaster for people in China and it has affected its socio-economic structure to a great extent, in fact, it also has an impact on the whole world in some form. But what is important for all of us is to follow the guidelines of the government, who is going a tremendous job to control this epidemic. It is a commendable job that they decided to lock down the center of epidemic Wuhan and control further spreading of the virus in the world, they are working day and night to eradicate the epidemic. I have full confidence and conviction in the Chinese government that very soon they will be able to achieve the normal in the country. I am very optimistic and look forward to positive news.