Feri tales

It’s not a spelling error. Feri-wallahs or hawkers are the talk of today’s post.

Gopalpura Colony, where employees from Eastern Coalfields Limited were housed, was about an hour from the nearest market place. Until a few shops opened outside the colony, the feri-wallahs were the prime suppliers for everything, from grocery to clothes to cosmetics to small electronic items.

The residents of this colony were affluent, thanks to the regular and generous flow of cash from the coal company. And while the markets were far, it were the hawkers who were making gold. At least a few deserve mention here.

How can I forget that Mihidana wala? He would come twice or thrice a week. Mihidana is a bengali sweet that resembles bundi or bundiya with the only difference being that it is relatively small, thereby getting its name (Mihi means small or fine in bengali). With a small aluminium vessel atop his head and brimming with yellowish-orange mihidana, he moved like a pied piper throughout the colony. Children followed him as he moved from from one locality to another, shouting at the highest pitch. Fifty paise was all you needed to devour on the sweet dish; yet it was not a very easy task to get even that small amount from mother.

Shanichra didn’t have to be so ill-omened to be named thus. Because he visited the colony on Saturdays that the ladies named this hawker of sarees as Shanichra. Thanks to him that the ladies didn’t miss out on any new fashion that hit this small town. Also he was willing to extend credit – thus many ladies who couldn’t have purchased one because their husbands had not yet received their salaries got a way out. Somesh’s mother would buy her favourite sarees and show it to her husband only on the salary day – he would believe that she purchased it only after his salary.

Once Somesh’s mother offended a hawker selling cosmetics. A teenager, he sported a goatee; but was mistaken for a Mohammedan instead. They were Ramzan days and she enquired if he too was observing Roza. He turned out to be a Hindu and the analogy to a Muslim angered him. But the other ladies soon came to the rescue of Somesh’s mother. “Hey, what’s the problem with being a Muslim?” And certainly the people in the colony didn’t feel otherwise. We would join the Muslims in their festivities. I still love the different types of halwas prepared for their festival Shab-e-Barat. Okay no deviation from the main topic, i.e. feri wallahs or hawkers.

As I said once in some post, my window was where most hawkers laid down there wares. A sabji wali used to visit from the nearby village. Thanks to her, our vocabulary was strengthened with a lot many vegetable names in Bengali. Kacha Kola (green banana), Lonka (green chillies), Begun (this one was not very different from our baingan or brinjal) and many more.

With winters came the Kashmiris with hundreds of wool patterns loaded onto their bicycles. Woolmark was unheard of; and so were readymade sweaters. Besides it kept women engaged. And when the Kashmiris returned to their homes at the end of February, their wallets were bulging with the profits they had earned during the season.

There were many more. The bioscope wallah caame once in a blue moon. Snake charmers were quite frequent though. There were also magicians. Can’t forget how they hooked their audience, especially small children. “If anyone of you will leave this place before the show comes to an end, your skulls will burst”. And even if it was unbearable to continue seeing, the children were not able to leave.

I think this is all I have for today on my nostalgic journey. Will talk about some more of these feri wallahs later.

Carpool Rohini to Gurgaon

There’s a good news.  I am not going to Bangalore now. I just got a job in Gurgaon, in a big online advertising agency, and so I am staying back in Delhi. Would be joining from this Monday onwards.

But there’s a new problem now. That of commuting daily to Gurgaon.

I have visited my new office twice and I took public transport. It took me more than 5 hours for the to and fro journey. Also both days it gave me a severe headache and partial heatstroke symptoms.

I have arranged a cab wallah to pick me from Mukherjee Nagar. Since it returns around half an hour earlier than my office timings, I will have to do my own arrangements for the return journey.

If you guys are in the knowledge of some cab or rideshare arrangement in my route, you can tell me through your comments. I will be really obliged.

Some more details of my trip are as follows:

Office timings: 9.30 AM to 6.30 PM

Source: Outer Ring Road/Wazirabad/Mukherjee Nagar, Delhi

Destination: Sahara mall/ DLF Phase I, Gurgaon

Work Days: Monday to Friday

Budget: 3000-4000

See if you guys can help me.

Janta Mai

“Would you like to ride the Janta Express”, Chotey asked as soon as we arrived at our native place for Grandama’s final rites. For Chotey, whose talks are replete with double-meaninged words, you had to be sure that he didn’t mean the Janta Express train that runs from Howrah to Rajgir.

It turned out to be Janta Mai, the mother of a teenage girl called Janta. A women in her early 30s, Janta Mai used to earn her livelihood by doing dishes and cleaning in several homes in the village.

Although dark in complexion, there was something in her face that made her beautiful. She loved to dress. At Satish’s home, where she did dishes, she had traded a chapati less for a small amount of mustard oil. Everyday Janta Mai would bring a greasy old bottle in which Satish’s mother would fill a pint of oil, just sufficient to oil her long, flowing black hair.

“My malik selected me as soon as he saw my beautiful hair”, she says talking about her husband who left for Punjab to work as agricultural labour around five years ago and didn’t return.

“People said that he may have died. But I am not convinced. I will not rub the sindoor as long as I don’t see his dead body”, she adds.

Life for a single women from the backward caste is often very difficult. Howsoever hard she tried to escape attention, she wasn’t able to escape the lustful eyes of men.

On the very third day, I heard an elderly women from our family scolding her for being too friendly with her son in law.

In me she found a person with who she could talk with frankly.

One day while I was bathing at the well, she came and snatched the bucket from my hands.

“How will you city people know to draw water from the well.”

I was actually not good at the act. Almost half the water that I drew fell before reaching the top of the well. But I would prefer to do things on my own and declined her request.

She didn’t go though. Sitting on the edge of the well she began talking about herself.

“Do you know Mrityunjay Jha who lives in Chowdhary Tola?” It little mattered to Janta Mai if I knew of the man. She went on incessantly.

“Today his wife blamed me for stealing her nose-pin.”

When I displayed shock on my face, she got further encouraged and continued her talk.

“Tell me do I look like a thief to you. Had my malik been here, I would have purchased better ornaments than that cheap nose-pin.”

I nodded in agreement.

Everyday there was a new topic for discussion. She would ask about life in a big city. Once she asked if Punjab was too far away. When I asked why she was asking this she didn’t reply.

Chotey and his gang thought I had something for the woman. “It’s not your concern”, I said and moved away.

On the last day she again met me at the well. She was intently looking at the Lux soap I was rubbing onto my body. For poor villagers, a body soap is often a luxury. The same soap is used for cleanng body and clothes.

“Would you want to keep this”, I offered her the soap.

“No, your mother would be angry.”

“Keep it. No one will see.” She agreed, hiding it in her anchal.

……

Months passed and I almost forgot Janta mai and her silly conversations.

It was a weekend and M had come as always for our weekend dinner. He had recently returned from village and he had many things to discuss. There was also news about Janta Mai.

“Your Janta Mai was beaten in public”; the ‘your’ hinted at our alleged affair.

“Why? “

“I was said that she was having an affair with the postman. Both of them were tied to the peepal tree at the village chowk and everyone beat them with their slippers.”

The couple was beaten at the orders of the Panchayat.

…….

A few weeks later I came across Ashish. He too had just returned from the village. I asked him about the Janta Mai incident.

“No, there was nothing between them; Janta Mai and this postman Hari were innocent. You know it was her elder brother-in-law who wanted to grab the little land she still held.”

Is she still in the village?

No! She was expelled from the village and noone has seen her after that day.”

While I was thinking about the injustice on that single backward class woman, Ashish was telling, “Things like these happen regularly in villages. You shouldn’t care much about them.”