Newspaper hawkers are a different breed. They have to organise a job that is time-bound. The network has to function like a well oiled machine in order to reach newspapers -quite an array of those - to their subscribers usually early in the morning. Any disruption in distribution has its repercussions. In small towns and villages, newspapers reach a little late and there is ready explanation for any delay. This happens even after newspaper offices have arranged for their private transports to carry their daily broadsheet mails.
If newspaper hawkers are on their toes, there is a different kind of hawkers who just relaxedly distribute weeklies, fortnightlies and other periodicals. Usually, they deal in foreign magazines of which there is a select band of subscribers. Some of those magazines are so costly that individual subscribers cannot often afford those. The office pays for those magazines. Now such a magazine hawker inherits a legacy of the business from his predecessor.
It is an exclusive business with hardly any competitor. Usually newspaper offices, corporate offices, financial establishments and local offices of multinational companies and international organisations have people who avidly wait for such magazines. The magazine hawker has mostly easy access to such offices. He has a keen sense of subscribers' choice and would not mind push-selling special editions of magazines. A quality magazine -no matter the high price - like painting or a work of art has values far beyond the price tag or monetary evaluation.
This the hawker is fully aware of. Clearly the man in his late 30's or early 40's, carries himself as if it is his preserve alone. He can feel the pulse of each subscriber. One wonders if the sale proceeds are enough for him to lead a decent life. About one thing there is not even an iota of doubt and this is his honesty. He surely maintains a dairy as a ledger in which he enters the names of his subscribers and the amount of money owed to him by them.
What is amazing about this man is that he gives the impression of full contentment with his life. Sure enough, the pricey magazine he will never go through because his literacy falls far short of the knowledge the magazine deal with. But still he loves those magazines. He is fascinated with his unusual commodities. If readers of those magazines feel happy going through those, his eyes sparkle with delight. He thinks he has been amply rewarded when subscribers discuss any article or subject in a magazine in an animated manner.
The man is supposed to have a family. He does not seem to be engaged in any occupation other than hawking magazine. One wonders if his income is steady and enough for maintaining a decent life for his family. Newspaper hawkers enjoy commission on the high side. Foreign magazines are unlikely to leave him a similar margin of commission. Also, the magazines are periodicals, not a daily business, and he has to manoeuvre within a limited circle of clientele. His economic condition is unlikely to be very sound. But the man has a vocation to which he is hundred per cent faithful. He may not attain the erudition his clients do but it is he who sincerely serves them so that they are in touch with the world and the events around. He bears an unrivalled legacy of supplying the fuel for enlightenment.
