The Mysterious Hawker

 

This particular hawker’s selling-call has been an enigma for months. It sounds superposed by inexpugnable traces of secrecy. I simply failed to make out what is his product or service. The drooling notes of insipid loquacity turned troublous enough to niggle at my curiosity. But by the time I would come out to check, he was gone.

In my estimation he could be anything from a trash-picker to a cloth seller. There is a dog in the neighborhood that howls in response to all moods and situations. Its character seems to be interwoven with indissoluble sinews of sadness and misery. Give him the best bone, he will howl painfully as a show of his obligation. Get him engaged to the most beautiful feline girl, he will express his gratitude through an even more piteous howling. In fact, it will howl even while at the top of a weaker dog in a fight. But it would forget its whimpering—eighth wonder—at the sounds of this hawker. Maybe the hawker’s speech leaves him confounded.

Then one fine day, I found out the secret. I was standing outside and was lucky to witness his few seconds of hawking spree before he vanished around the corner. It’s a vegetable seller pulling his rickshaw cart. There is the feeblest of auditory resemblance to aaloo, gobhi, matar, pyaj in a rumbling jumblement of jittery linguistics. I think even a Tahitian coming to the outer world for the first time in his life would do better in his first attempt at pronouncing Hindi words for vegetables.

There he was vanishing on his royal march as if the buyers have the obligation to run after and seek his blessings. I raised my hand and harked from behind. The dog that was having a break in howling to bark instead looked at me and reverted to his howling position as if complaining over something. The vegetable seller was gone without paying heed to my accost. The dog kept howling with its usual finesse.