If picture speaks what thousands of words cannot, there was one on the front page of this newspaper last Saturday. The picture concerns makeshift open shops of readymade garments for children, which give a disconcerting look in the absence of customers. Gabtoli bus terminal in normal times is a very busy place with the crowd pushing, dashing and jostling for space. To a politically uninitiated person, such a barren look of the terminal ought to be most surprising. But the reality is that vendors and low-income people like them have been hit hard by the two-month long blockade and persistent hartals (strikes).
Why are there no customers? These low-end garments are meant for poor segment of society. Now movement of such people to the city from villages has been severely limited. The reasons are quite obvious: they know their employment in the city's labour market has almost dried up and travelling on roads and highways is very risky. However, the vendors have to display their wares in the hope that at least a few customers would be there because as long as there is life, there are some regular human demands to be met. Clearly, they are seldom lucky.
People like them cannot shift to a different trade because of the investment they have made in theirs. But there are others who by nature are round character and know how to change occupation in order to adapt themselves to the changed circumstances. There are footpath vendors who target the morning walkers as their potential customers. Very early in the morning they assemble with an array of daily necessaries on wide avenues such as in front of the Residential Model College, Mohammadpur. Morning walkers in their hundreds stream into the Chandrima Udyan and then return back. On their return home they get almost everything available at a kitchen market.
Fresh and good quality of vegetable, fish, chicken and fruits are of special attraction. They are cheap too. Earlier, just a handful of vans with green coconut used to wait for tired and thirsty elderly people out of exertion as a result of walks. Then vendors of fruits like papaya, wood apple -two most sought-after fruits by people in their advanced age -and banana joined in. Some of them even ventured to display on walkways of the udyan along the Crescent Lake. But men in uniform did not like the idea and drove them away. So they opted for the avenue in front of the Residential Model College. But patrol police of Mohammadpur thana had no intention of allowing a makeshift kitchen market to shape up there.
However, in the context of the deteriorating political situation, the law enforcers seem to have taken a lenient view now-a-days. The vendors are no longer harassed. People of diverse occupations have now turned to vending daily necessaries banking on the fact that these are items that cannot be totally dispensed with. People with shrinking income and in critical situation may have to squeeze on different consumer goods but they cannot do away with a few most essential. They may economise, though.
Clothes and wares are necessary but for people at the lower segments of society, such things are almost a luxury in such hard times. Naturally, market is dull for the low-end garments vendors. If the political programme continues further, vendors like them will face further troubles in the days to come. A good number of them will simply go broke. Another likely outcome is that some of these vendors will be compelled to get involved in crimes. Already the law and order situation has been plummeting; any further momentum will act as the last straw to break the camel's back.
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