admin Pradnya Jadhav
To me, the seller was a mysterious man, he would come there around 7-7:30, to clean the premise since it was just an open space, it had no roof, no walls. If you ask him to fill the can of 5 liters, he would not say a single word and just give 2 liters, he hardly uttered any word..
People would get into argument with him, try to persuade him but without any gain.. for a long the time I thought he was someone who cannot speak. The only good thing about him was, no one would return home with empty cans, this was not same with other vendors I knew back then, who used to behave like kings and they would never open their shops, I would get tired roaming around, checking at each of the possible places.
The dark red tika on his forehead and white ironed clothes, I used to wonder why would anyone sell kerosene wearing neat-clean ironed cloths.. he was a little kind towards me as once or twice he said: “Aye porri neet gheun jashil na can?” “will you be able to hold the can properly?” I would give him assurance.
This Janata Bazar was adjacent to the place where I lived, but there was a complete sharp division. Janata bazar was the place where Samana news paper’s office was located, that was to signify that it was predominantly a Shivsena area.
This was enough reasoning for me to consider the kerosene vendor as the Shivsena guy, otherwise, how would he get a place at Janata Bazar? And he always maintained his white collection of clothes.
One day, we went to the weekly market in Juna Mondha, the shortest route to reach there by walking was through Gandhi Nagar, a locality of Dalit Bahujans, mainly Valmikis. There, to my surprise, I found the same kerosene vendor selling bombils, and goat meat. Wearing a lungi and sando baniyan, playing the radio and was singing the tunes. I was with my father, as soon as he saw my father he greeted us saying a loud Jaibhim.
I continued going to buy kerosene from him for many years but at that place, he always appeared like a different person.. How much ever I had the curiosity to ask him about his two faces I could really not ask about that to him because, of course, I was always scared of his image of a kerosene vendor.
Several times we bought mutton from him, every time he would give extra pieces of mutton and tell me to eat properly.
Pradnya and Baba
So, on one of the days, I gathered courage and asked him, why he wore white clothes when he sold kerosene at Janata Bazar and spoke very little with his customers? This was just the opposite of him when he sold mutton in the weekly market.
He laughed so much and said, you have a little brain but see, with great difficulties I managed to get the license for selling the kerosene. And Continued telling me that, he could not afford to bow down before the Shivsena guys who were in power in the municipal corporation, he had to pretend and appear as a very serious and dangerous man, so that not only the Shivsena people but his customers and everyone in Janata Bazar feel terrified by him, so that no one ever dared to disturb his business.
He asked, did you see any baman coming to buy 5-10 liters kerosene? Well they own it in gallons and they need it only on a few occasions and he winked his eye.
He said further, it is only our people, they need kerosene, otherwise how they would cook food? Where will they go? He said, he left school without even completing primary years, but he always desired to be a teacher and so, that’s what he did with his customers too, tried to discipline them, giving only a few liters.
Selling mutton was his most favourite job he said because here he could choose not to be so mean, if customers asked him to give half kg mutton he could give exactly the same or little more in quantity. He said “I am the man with big a heart” and And also warned me not to disclose the secrets behind his white clothes to anybody and he laughed at me again..
Indeed he taught me a great lesson that day.
