By S.Sarwar.Malik
Though internet surfing had somewhat soothed my eyes in the wee predawn hours (- & confessed some words like freezing…night temperature dipping to minus 5.4 weren’t comforting at all) but THAT FEEL of paper didn’t grace my fingers… ( How shall I describe it ?) …a yearning it was…that led me ultimately to the gate, today, a number of times; as unexpectedly late IT was today.
Men connected to ‘newspaper business’, both chair-wielders and those up on their legs most of the time, being lettered, do, at times write about the vagaries of this profession but an important section who face the streets every day & suffer silently, are hardly ever mentioned.
True dozens of youngsters; led by graying heads, probably, do expend sweat and gray-matter-cells, from morning till late hours, that deserves appreciation but salutation is the only word that escapes my lips when I imagine the delivery boy with some sheafs of newspapers, walking or cycling his way, whatever be the season, though belly- fire is the lone reason that draws him to our threshold or to the market squares, road intersections, bus stands and where not; (-after all how many vendors afford a shop?).
Discomfort, at times, disturbs when one ponders how poor is readership in this age of internet but anger unsettled heart when one thinks how queerly a significant-segment of readers behaves.
To begin I share with readers, a portion of what I scribbled some minutes back; followed by a true incident of 1980- both pertaining to the lowest rung of ‘Newspaper-dom’.
Rain, sunshine, wintry chill
Stomach cramps, aching limbs
Rabid canines and posturing cops too
…he who braves them all
did not sound the cycle bell.
Severed,incarcerated, incommunicado
I felt it during the morning hours, Today .
I missed his stubbly face,
Unkempt attire
And the skinny hand…
-that delivers me the newspaper around 7 am.
……..
Who will design a cheap
roofed motorized bicycle?
Who will initiate a welfare fund?
Who will provide an insurance cover?
Who will make an affordable kiosk type news-stand?
..…for my newspaper vendor ….when…
his bruised body
even lens man pooh-poohs
as ‘unfit for publication’.//
FLASH BACK.
Clouds thundered like hell that morning, followed by drizzle. Co- passengers stopped the curses in time that they were about to let loose, otherwise, on the stubborn bus driver, waiting endlessly for the eight (8)vacant seats to get occupied.
Though visibility was poor I saw him materialize out of cascading rain. Drenched he was from head to toe. Curiously I watched him tucking-out something from his inner sleeveless garment, baend; that he carefully guarded from the downpour.
Clothes he wore on his small frame had tell tale signs, here and there. The sparkle that should have been in his eyes, at his age, wasn’t there. Could he be a pickpocket in making? Could he be just another beggar boy fallen prey to easy earnings …. with requisite skills up in his sleeves? …. Or could he be a school drop-out, forced by circumstances back home?…. I began to venture a guess.
Pulling up his wet shirt, he placed the folded sheaves on left forearm and with the right one mopped his nose.
“Akhbaar hay akhbaar…” reached my ears, while I watched him from the rear seat: traversing the passage of the inter district bus …searching twenty two (22)pairs of eyes, expectantly.
Heads turned in disinterest except the two ‘takers’. The poor vendor made another round, with back towards me calling, “Aaj ki tazah khaber”. Near the landing step he stopped for a while, hoping for some more response.
With dampened spirit he eyed the raindrops crackling on the ground beneath.
“Was he exercising choice between head and papers, for safeguarding”?, my foolish heart whispered.
With sudden jerk and triple spew, “trathh yeth kaaras”, he jumped out… as the sheaves landed inside … on the floor of the bus.
To my surprise the passengers, who were uninterested some minutes before, soon scrambled and jostled for the booty.
“Mofteik akhbaar chhinna… laanat —-” escaped my lips, uncontrollably and so did the admonishing words of an bearded aged man, a co-passenger ; busy folding the newspaper that he had grabbed for himself from the booty.
“Rut haz per taam…di paanus akhbarus nazer…. bo parre garre vaatith”.
My weak spine was ashiver and tramp like eyes grew hazy. Bad mood wrecked havoc on my office work that day.
I know not whether the boy ever returned to the business since that day of 1980, but knowing what colossal strength some people exhibit at stormy junctures, (-the brave struggle that an ‘editor-friend’ exhibited, when circumstances forced him to leave a paper he had worked for, many years comes to my mind…that story i must keep for some other day, my brain said in soliloquy…) in this newspaper business, I came to harbour a special relation with akhbaar wallas, in general… silently, by and by. Not that they are “butaan-e-hind” but they do remind me of trees amidst barren tracts- that I would have loved to cling, if I had requisite professional skills. [Above all other more captivating things hold me back as more engaging they are than my “ghamm-e-ishq”].
O, readers! Does this tale mean anything to you? Sit up please… for it is a true story… that I may not forget even when dementia sets in with age. Take it as my sit-in against the muftkhori, most of us resort to, by saying “Talhaz boti dimha atth akhbaras nazer”; even when our newspapers cost 3-5 rupees only.
- The author is a Srinagar based writer. He has written articles for newspapers for over two decades and has been a frequent contributor to Literary Journals. He has also authored “Jewel in the Lotus- Ladakh” and “Cries of a Thorn Bird” which are set to appear in print soon. The author is currently working on a Novel in English
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