The Kabariwala and His Mobile: A Little Anchor in the Sea of Miseries

 **2003**

Strung by such down-to-earth jobs which most of us find unjustifiably humbling and humiliating, the travelling Kabariwala, with his tricycle carrier loaded with castaway items of all sorts and the front stacked with plastic utilities, appears lost in the big, boastful, bragging enterprises of the modern economy.

For too long, such poor fellows, trying to eke out a living from the worthless entities, have presented a poor picture. In a way, they do a work of big beneficence which, unfortunately, goes unnoticed.

For getting some usable, new, clean plastic or crockery item in lieu of the rubbish heap of household items (torn shoes, sandals, chappals, plastic and glass bottles, metal scrap, etc.), which, apart from presenting a dragging, chaotic picture, sap the orderly energy from the surroundings.

Engaged thus in one of the lowest of jobs, the poor fellows, while the consumerist world hurtles past with its castoffs, appear lost in the bleak lanes and bylanes.

But even in the countryside, the consumerist culture now ensures that there are enough castoffs to secure a living for such poor fellows.

Here was this straggling, small and stocky young man in his early thirties, rotund lips, drooping eyes and a faded red headcloth, typical of the labouring class, wound around his head.

He arrived in the village lanes with his long trail—a two-wheeled carrier cart full of discarded household items towed behind a carrier tricycle, fully loaded with a rubbish heap and new, cheap plastic items to be bartered in lieu of a whole heap of scrap items.

This man, however, did not seem lost.

He had energy in his tone and spring in his gait.

The reason for this was evident when his phone rang in his breast pocket, with a well-deserved pride, in the middle of a heckling bargaining with the village womenfolk.

He took out his mobile to talk about his business to the Kabari dealer speaking from his shop in the district town.

A mobile to such poor, genuine strugglers appears like an anchor which supports, provides roots, while the rough and tumble of the heaving sea ever tries to gobble them up for the triumphant sway of its kingdom of miseries.