Coping COVID-19: Karur in the Past, Through the Present and into the Future

Abstract

Karur, one of the oldest towns in Tamil Nadu, a southern state in India, embedded with its rich cultural history and heritage of over more than 2000 years can be considered a key textile hub in present times. Being perennially busy with home furnishings and garment exports, like any other “Textile” town of India or other textile players of the world, Karur was pushed into lockdown one after another from March 2020 for a few undecided months owing to the pandemic outbreak of the disease Covid-19 with a new class of corona virus, known as SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) being responsible for the occurrence of this disease. With uncertainty and a lack of clarity looming over their heads, many owners with the backing of their employees of the textile firms and industries jumpstarted their lives trying their best in beating the odds laid on themselves in quite successful ways backed with technical innovations. Though it happened for few, it didn’t realize for some. This paper attempts to track and research on some of the life stories of achievement and the unprecedented misery few were suddenly pushed into. While this town’s success stories as a meticulous process of change in its people’s mindset in desperate times toward themselves and those around can be studied to be implemented as a role model for other towns, the future lying in its unpredictability can never be ascertained thereby only making the successful solutions of those a base study of learning for the next.