The item seller

 

‘Item le lo, item le lo,’ the hawker’s voice rings in the village street. A group of adolescent boys would wink and share mischievous smiles.

The word ‘item’ stroking a pleasant fire of desire. A crazy curiosity foregrounding the looming unleashment of masculine desire. The excitement and curiosity about ‘those things’ beneath covers and clothing.

Among a group of village brats, just mentioning ‘chaddi-boddi’ would spread a layer of sexual excitement over the adolescent skins till 15 years back. The item seller arrived frequently then.

The item seller still comes sometimes but not as frequently as the old times. He was the sole to-go person for the poor women in the village during the times so conservative that even a female undergarment left for drying on a cloth line would start scandalous whispers.

The item seller carried a tin box on his cycle containing ‘items’. He just shouted the word ‘items’ without specifying what exactly included the list of items.

He would be subtly, almost secretively, called by the women from the poor localities in the village—they did it in groups to muster up courage—who circled the open tin box and ‘items’ would see the light of the day. Finally.

Sisterhood held in coherence for a circled moment. An interconnectedness of contextual issues. Chastity well preserved from the moral-policing air.

And the magical box would open in the safe circle. Cheapest bright colored female undergarments, trinkets, lipstick, nail polish, powder, lace, bindi, scent vials, perfumes, mascara, make-up kits, sindoor, henna, looking glass, combs. And more.

The girl things, in their cheapest, gaudy avatar. The little box having the big secretive world of feminine ‘matters’ and ‘things’.

And some adolescent brat would crawl up to a nearby roof and secretively peep over the parapet to find out which woman or girl bought what colored chaddi-boddi.

The transgressor would then start a long trail of suggestive, lewd wisecracks. The ubiquitous coat of street-urchin colors. The word would then spread around the village.