Keya Sarkar: Not so naive

PEOPLE LIKE THEM

When I had initially shifted to Santiniketan, I was really glad to know that one didn't have to stir out of home if one didn't want to. In fact, in the months of summer that's the best thing that can happen to you. All kinds of vendors deliver vegetables, meat, fish, chatais, cane chairs and even plastic buckets at your doorstep. And, of course, half a dozen others come by and ask you whether you need to have the coconut tree scraped, sell your mangoes or pommellos, jackfruits or lemons, have your grass cut and so on.

Since most of these non-city folks do not share my idea of private space, they tend to almost step inside the house and call for didi. The answer to my often startled, "ke?" is invariably aami, which translates simply to "its me". Why I should be intimate with every male voice who passes by I didn't understand, but when in Rome.... I soon learnt to anticipate the visitor by his footsteps in the garden, and his particular version of didi.

My interactions with most of them depended on how not busy I was that day, the temperature, how many I had already dealt with since the morning and other such erratic factors. But one person's visit I used to quite enjoy was our vegetable vendor, Ram, who came every alternate day. A young guy who, I learnt, had just started his trade endeared himself to me every time he had to calculate my bill. He would be horribly confused and would have to go over the meagre vegetables I would buy, over and over. After the computer-brained provision store guys of Mumbai, I found such naïveté very refreshing. As we got to know each other better he even gave up the pretence of trying. He would simply say: "This is the rate I have paid. Now you decide how much you will pay."

Over the past three years, Ram is no longer as naïve. Now not only is he completely in control, he even tries to hard sell. "This doesn't look good because it's grown organically. The baigan had worms? That's good; it means there has been no pesticide sprayed. If it's good for worms, it's good for us."

Last week, as I stood at the gate to choose vegetables from his cart, he looked at me a little sheepishly and handed me a Nokia mobile set. "Can you check what is wrong please? If I make a call, the other guy can't hear me." I tried to conceal my surprise and realised he had the same model as I did. I thought about his problem and advised him to talk to his service provider because there didn't seem anything wrong with the set.

Next time he informed me that he had indeed taken the phone to Reliance, his service provider, but they had found that there was a problem with the speaker. "I have given it to the Nokia servicing guys," he informed me and added "of course, I have kept the SIM card with me."

Much as I am aware of the globalisation/urbanisation debate, somewhere inside me I was quite happy to know that Ram's business of selling vegetables had grown big enough for him to need a cell phone. I couldn't resist asking him what exactly he needed it for. He looked sheepish again and said "bolbo? (should I). For a minute when I almost saw a blush I thought it was not my business at all. Maybe it was an affair of the heart.

However, I egged him on. "I have another business as well", he revealed. "Have you heard of Amway?" he asked even as my jaw dropped. "I am an agent and I need to receive calls from my customers and channel guys".