There were
the days, during the elections, or kind of emergencies, people speak through the
megaphone to draw attention or warn people of the upcoming danger. Sometimes they speak live on the mike, other
than playing the recorded voice of the announcement while coming around the
streets in the autorickshaw to let people know. The same applied to the
announcement of polio drops, every year, had now become a common use by hawkers
in selling their items instead of shouting out the throat.
To my memory,
I first heard the recorded voice (used by street vendors) was the silk lace
buyers in bikes, in urging tone buying old silk lace of any kind at a reasonable
price. And regardless of Sundays, they used to wander our street playing the
recorded voice as disturbing the leftover peace, and many a time they stop near
our home and playback the audio aloud. Following
their footsteps, I heard the same in different words from the sellers of
Idiyappam – a rice noodle dish from south India, Kolamavu (chalk or rock powder
used for drawing Kolam, a design drawn in front of the houses as an invite to
home), Knief grinders; and many others on the track.
During the
lockdown days, some vendors came on the street selling veggies in mini-trucks,
as coming out of the home has been restricted, these vehicles pull
off the doorstep and their playback is something constant and without a break
is a headache. Glad they aren’t often these days after the announcement of
relaxation; though I care for their livelihood, the noise they create was a nuisance. Today I found an interesting thing happening right
outside the home, where a north Indian hawker, with a bike, loaded with door and
floor mats were adjusting his megaphone. And I just watched what
he was doing as he handed over the megaphone to a vegetable vendor, who parked on
his side speaks over it like one mat 20 rupees, two mats 50 rupees’ in his
familiar tone of selling vegetables in Tamil.
It’s apparent that he doesn’t
know Tamil and though he may understand, his trouble with colloquial forced to
use him on his behalf. He playback the megaphone as the vegetable vendor moves
a little, turned
back to respond with a smile. I moved the way hawkers helping each other even
if it was a little bit of this. I think about the many vendors who ventured into
the south Indian states (or any other state with different languages) to speak or
understand, this kind of help from the fellow vendors will improve their business,
and hope to survive out of their town. And this is what inspired me to write the
post – my experience with megaphones.
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