Delhiwale: The man who sold school bags

Almost every mask in Mr Alam’s stall is black, and neatly packed in plastic, as if to assure a potential buyer that it hasn’t been touched by any germs before.

Nothing has changed for him. So much has changed for him. Such are the clashing complexities that define Muhammed Khurshid Alam these days.

Glimpsing into a pavement trader’s pandemic-era life. (HT Photo)

He started his career in Delhi as a pavement seller a decade ago. He continues to be a pavement seller. For nine of these years, he was selling school bags. Last year, with the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic, he entirely shifted his business to selling masks.

“It’s not me alone—everyone on the footpath is selling masks,” says Mr Alam while arranging his stall one late afternoon, under a tree, on a pedestrian path in central Delhi’s KG Marg. His assertion is not entirely correct. The stall next to him is selling freshly fried cocktail samosas. Another pavement business, close by, deals with locks and keys. “I mean many sellers have turned to masks,” he says absentmindedly.

Almost every mask in Mr Alam’s stall is black, and neatly packed in plastic, as if to assure a potential buyer that it hasn’t been touched by any germs before. Mr Alam gets the masks from a wholesaler in Sadar Bazaar. He would source his school bags too from the same market. “The school bags used to sell in very good numbers, and were priced higher… they would bring me good money, that was a better business,” As the coronavirus hit the city, he says, schools shut down indefinitely and nobody bought his schoolbags any longer. “I then walked through many markets to see how other hawkers were coping.” Many of them were turning to masks, he says.

“While you see people with masks nowadays, I’m, however, not able to sell many,” he says in a puzzled tone.

A slow but steady stream of pedestrians is passing by his stall, but nobody is stopping.

Perhaps he can go back to his village in Sitamarhi, Bihar, and start something afresh. The middle-aged Mr Alam looks at the traffic on the road, saying, “My village… there’s nothing to earn there.” But it has his wife and four kids. “I’m able to send them only ₹500 or so every month.”

God knows how his family is surviving, he mutters. At 6, Mr Alam would close his stall and return to his room in Nabi Karim, where he lives alone.