Pavement Entrepreneurs: The other Gujaratis in Delhi

It is a small stretch of the busy pavement at the Connaught Place end of Janpath in the central district of the national capital. It is a Gujarati square as it were. Many of those who sell handloom cloth-pieces, embroidered, with shining lacquer-work sold on net-cloth or cotton fabric as curtains, pillow-covers, table-cloth or just decorative pieces from the villages of the state are women. They have been in Delhi for 30 to 40 years. A second generation was born here and they are now in their 20s, 30s and 40s. A third generation is now at school. They come from places like Surendranagar, an hour away from Ahmedabad, from Bhavnagar, from Rajkot. They get their wares from the villages in Gujarat and they sell them here.

They are aware of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. They are happy that he is the prime minister but they do not exult over him. It is not because they have anything against Modi. What they like about their home state is not represented by Modi. They like their language – Gujarati – which they say is sweet and they look down upon the ‘rude’ Hindi spoken in Delhi. They love their own cuisine, and they relish the flavour of rice, dal and sabzi imbued with a pinch of sweetness, especially that of jaggery. 

Maya, 35, from Rajkot, explains the nuances of her mother-tongue. She says that in Gujarati they have words to show respect for elders and affection for the younger ones. “We speak Gujarati amongst ourselves,” she says referring to the others selling the same wares as she does on the pavement, “but when I go home I speak my own dialect. Here I cannot do that.”

What do they think is the impact of Modi? Shobha, 30, with her big eyes and round face, speaks up: “There is just one per cent change; ninety-nine per cent things remains the same.” She is not a pessimist. She says that it will take time for things to change.

What is on the top of her mind and of many others is their business. It almost comes to a halt during the summers. They do not make the money even to pay the house rent. Winters are a good time when the turnover is brisk. But do they make big enough money during the peak season which will see them through the rest of the year? Shobha says that they do not make big money and that is why they have to sit through summer and rain, looking out for business.

When they pack up for the day, they keep the materials in what passes for a warehouse nearby. Sometimes they carry part of the stuff home. They face a tough time during the monsoon. They have no solution to it. When the material gets dirty or it is spoiled, they take it home and wash it.

They come in the morning at around 10 and stay on till 8 in the evening. They come from outlying areas like Jahangirpuri, Paschim Vihar, Dwarka. For many years, they faced a harrowing time on the pavement, chased by the police sometimes and by the municipality folk at another. It is only for the last two years that there is some stability. Over the years, they paid huge amounts to the police and the municipality people to let them do business on the pavement. They have now stopped doing it. They are able to spread their wares and sit out, waiting for buyers to turn up. It is this that rankles in their mind and this is why they do not think that things have turned for the better.

They bring food from home. “Sometimes we bring roti and buy the sabzi,” Shobha explains. They cannot afford to buy lunch. It costs Rs 100. “With the same amount, 10 people can eat lunch at home,” she says.

Rakhi, 25, explains the modus operandi: “We tell them (the weavers in the villages) over the phone what we need, and they send them in parcels. We pay them by putting the money into their bank accounts. Sometimes they come over and we hand over the money to them.” 

The men hover in the background. They are the ones who do the backend work, even work on the embroidery pieces. It is the women sales force that serves as the front office of the business. The mother of Shobha and Kiran now sits at home and visits the Janpath pavement outlet once in a while. The daughters hold the fort.

Shobha says with anger and anguish, “We have not been to school. We are villagers But we speak English, French, Italian because we picked them up.” The others merely smile and say that they do speak many languages. They take it as a matter of fact accomplishment, needed to sell the wares.

Maya explains the social structure of the small community. Those on the Janpath pavement belong to a social group called Parmars. She says that they belong to the higher echelons of the social hierarchy. They have a “kul devta (family deity)”. Who is this deity? “We cannot reveal the name. A married woman cannot say. It is for the men-folk to say the name.”

They send their children to government schools. “We do not want them to be like us,” says Shobha. They cannot afford private schools because of the high fees. But they retain their Gujarati cultural identity through the storm and stress. Kiran says that they speak Gujarati at home and Hindi out of home. The Gujarati they speak among themselves is a mixed one. “I speak my dialect when I go home,” explains Maya from Rajkot.

Do they want to go back to Gujarat? They say that it is nice to go home. “It is so peaceful in the village,” sighs Kiran. Shobha is clear. “What will do in the village? We have to be in Delhi for the sake of work,” she says firmly. They would travel between their village and Delhi, keep the cultural ties live and earn their living in Delhi which they do not like very much. They do no complain. 

Sumita, 40, from Khajuraho, sits in the same row as do the Gujarati women on the Janpath pavement.  A mother of a boy and a girl, she stays in Dwarka, a sub-city of the national capital. She does not go back to Khajuraho to get the stuff that she would sell. She buys them off in Delhi. But she is angry and bitter about the harassment that she and others had to experience.

“The jamadar (constable), the jhaduwala (the sweeper), the municipality official – all of them push us around,” she says. “It is a little less now,” she admits. But her sense of anguish is acute compared to others.

“There is no childhood, no youth. We grow old. A rich 30-year-old looks younger than any one of us. We cannot wear anything good, we cannot eat anything good.”

She is articulate and she is angry with the authorities. Why does she not become a politician? “They will shoot me down the day I become a politician,” she says with a smile.

Yes. She goes back to Khajuaraho to attend family marriages. But that is all. She has five siblings, and they are all in Delhi. Each one is leading a separate life. She knows she has to struggle on her own.