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Sellers on the street
Not an easy life.
SOCIOLOGISTS SOMETIMES refer to them as the "little people''. Who are they? They are the vegetable vendors with their rickety wooden carts, balloon sellers at the bus stand, cycle-borne vendors of sweetmeats, and clothing merchants who have arranged their readymade garments in neat piles upon the ground.
Unorganised sellers bring us a host of cheap goods at throwaway prices, but they don't enjoy much comfort, for their lives are one long struggle for existence, from generation to generation. They have no fixed shops, so they spread their goods upon the pavements and park their carts along the sides of busy roads.
They hastily gather up their goods and scatter into the side streets when the guardians of the law appear and order them away, but they reappear soon afterwards, because they need to do business in order to feed and maintain families that live in huddled masses in crowded urban slums.
A group of second year B.Com. students of PSG College of Arts and Science have shot a video documentary on the plight of unorganized sellers, with inputs from the sellers, their customers, and college professors.
``We took 15 days to make the video. Seven days for shooting and eight days for editing,'' said K. Darshan, who led the team comprising M. Sandeep, Aashik A. Siraj and Anandapadmanabhan. "At first the sellers were very reserved, but when they heard about our project and why we were shooting the video, they came out and told us their problems.''
``When we found that the results were good, we hired professional video equipment. We did the editing in the house of a friend, Kumaran, who used his computer to create the special effects you see in the video,'' Darshan added.
We watched the video on our computer and found it a commendable effort, complete with voice-over, background music and titles. Over-exposed shots and echoes on the sound-track only added to the realism, camera-verite style. While planning the video, the students had divided street people into three categories: Those who could invest money for their enterprises, those who made an unlawful living, and those who "wanted to do business but had no finances, who wanted a place in society without resorting to malpractices''.
Among the findings of the students was that some of the street sellers worked 11 to 12 hours a day, had no proper education, and were at the mercy of money-lenders because they could not afford to put up the capital they needed.
Those who sold perishable goods like fruits and vegetables, made varying levels of profit, and suffered a loss when there was a glut in the market, or when customers chose to keep away. Many had started work at a very young age, which was one reason why they had lost out on schooling.
Standing for hours together on the sides of highly-polluted roads gave them health problems, made worse by the fact that they could not afford clean water or good sanitation. "Business has been dull after the bomb blast,'' some of the hawkers said. "Even those who have fixed shops are now forced to bring their goods onto the roads.''
Among the views of customers was that the unorganised sellers were poor people who had to fight to live, struggle from morning to night, borrow money from others, and still remain the poorest of the poor.
``They bring goods to our doorstep and we must be liberal in paying them. We should give them their due place in society,'' was one comment. Though the goods were cheap, there was no guarantee regarding quality.
What was the solution? Some of the professors the students had interviewed, said that the hawkers and vendors could be trained and given financial assistance.
Women in self-help groups should promote group cohesion and the savings habit. Marketing was also important, with the unorganised sector accounting for 30 to 40 percent of total sales.
There were also suggestions from the students on improving the situation. One was that the sellers should organize themselves under a common leadership. A farmers market and loans at low interest rates, would also help them.
By A.A. Michael Raj
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