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Dilip Raote

MUMBAI's streets may not be paved with gold, but there's lots of cash on them, perhaps crores per kilometre. And every ten metres there is a success story too.

Anything is available on these pavements — from humble ballpens to the latest electronic equipment. Want some item you saw advertised in a foreign magazine, you can place an order with a pavement dealer. The pavement vendor will take an advance payment, `import' the item, home-deliver it, demonstrate how it works, and, then, take the balance payment.

In old-style stores and spanking new malls, a customer who bargains is treated with contempt. In pavement shops, a customer who does not bargain and gives the vendor an opportunity to deliver his or her poetic sales pitch is treated with disdain. So pavement shopping is one of Mumbai's major entertainments for customers from all income groups. Pavement shopping is no more only for the middle and lower income groups. Vendors and regular customers develop an enduring relationship. News, gossip and shopping anecdotes are shared.

Since both customers and vendors are from all parts of the country, a pavement-shopping lingo has also evolved. Perhaps, it is worth a serious linguistics study. Vendors strive hard to convey that they are worldly wise, or globalised, and use English words and phrases freely to impress customers. So well are they organised that vendors do not have to make bulk purchases. Delivery vans bring the stuff to the vendors. Everything is almost as well organised as Mumbai's internationally famous dabbawala system. Only, Mumbai's pavement industry is waiting for the foreign media to discover it, as happened with the dabbawalas, before home-grown experts acknowledge its importance.

A great leveller, in recent years the pavement industry has even eliminated the gender bias. Not so long ago women sold vegetables, flowers and fish; men everything else. This is not true anymore, and the number of women vendors has been steadily increasing. And their enterprise has moved them from the pavement into regular shops; the owner's wives and daughters are now seen behind the counters.

Careers after career

As enterprising as the pavement vendors are senior citizens who are adding another dimension to Mumbai's changing economy. They are taking up careers post-retirement. Instead of idling at home, many are taking up one of the many courses in a variety of subjects. Many have become insurance agents; who better than them to know about debilitating illnesses?

But where they are really contributing is by taking up community activities. They are joining NGOs or forming their own. They organise community support systems to clean up neighbourhoods, to help street-children, women, the handicapped, and more. They are creating social awareness in the city. This widespread effort of elders to prove that they are an asset rather than a burden is a most notable development. As their social work expands, they will need more funding and media support. They will devise innovative marketing and business strategies.

These strategies will not be based on the pursuit of profit, but on the pursuit of social good. This will have an impact on many fields. Since oldies generally have a well-developed sense of humour, they might even institute Young Achievers Awards for those only in their sixties. Mumbai's senior citizens are an emerging force, and worth keeping tabs on. Almost half the population of Mumbai lives in slums. Slums are a milieu from which every slum-dweller wants to escape. Therefore, slums are hotbeds of ambition and aspirations.

These are expressed in various forms such as education for children (preferably English-medium), the desire to set up a business, and to possess goods that impress neighbours. An awesome sight in slums is of mothers accompanying nursery school children to school. Mothers carry the schoolbags and water bottles; children flash their attire. Boys can be seen in three-piece suits in imitation of Dr B. R. Ambedkar. Girls are in colourful dresses and decked in fake jewellery. Their faces are decorated with rouge and lipstick. I once stopped a mother and told her to be wary of lipstick; the chemicals in cheap lipstick might harm her daughter. The woman gave me a haughty stare and said, "We don't buy cheap lipstick!"

Then there is the growing use of English. No slum-dweller can put together a sentence in pure Marathi, Hindi, Tamil, Urdu, or whatever. Nouns and adjectives are English, and the verbs are in the regional language. `Excuse me', `No problem', `Cheers', `Bye-bye see you', etc., are in common usage. Slum cultural entertainment is also being anglicised.

The aspiring poor are making English Mumbai's lingua franca. At even the lowest levels an entrepreneurial class is developing which is familiar with English and can fit anywhere in the world. More and more slum-dwellers will queue up for visas or negotiate foreign outsourcing, perhaps in small-scale manufacture. And ambitious slum youngsters will give a tough fight to contented middle class youths for public and private sector jobs.

How will the ambition and impatience at the street level combine with the social commitment of senior citizens? It is an intriguing exercise in futurism. One can expect a lot of unintended consequences, which mock planning and simple extrapolations. New parameters for economic analysis are emerging which are applicable only to Mumbai and to no other part of the country. Interesting times ahead.

(The author, a freelancer, can be contacted at dlplowlife@rediffmail.com )

Picture by Paul Noronha

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