Bangalore of the 1960s - visiting tradespersons

Bangalore of the 1960s - visiting tradespersons

“Perugu, perugu!”

This cry from the street usually signalled a flurry of activity from my grandmother. She would quickly wash a vessel and run with it outside to wait for the “perugu” seller.

The year would have been 1962 or 63. The place was our tiny two-roomed rented house in a narrow street off Cavalry Road (since re-named K. Kamaraj Road) in the Cantonment (Civil Station) area.

My grandmother ruled a small kingdom consisting of our house with my elder sister and me as the denizens (later on joined by our younger sister) and which also included a couple of docile Telugu families who were our neighbours. She laid down the rules and regulations for amicable living in the dominion. These rules were never broken and life was quite peaceful.

The “perugu” seller would visit our area once or twice a week. “Perugu” in Telugu means curds and this, along with butter, was what she sold. The curds and the butter were kept in steel vessels placed in a basket which was carried on her head. My grandmother would purchase a small quantity of curds to supplement the curds she made at home. The purchase would be accompanied by light hearted banter and a bit of friendly bargaining and conclude with the lady doling out a little bit extra, or “kosuru”, whereupon both seller and buyer would be happy.

The milkman with his cow was another daily visitor, early in the morning and again early in the evening. There was always a suspicion that he diluted the milk so he had to be carefully supervised while he extracted the milk into a cylindrical container (which I now realise might have contained a bit of water to start with). But he neatly avoided this supervision by tethering his cow a little away from our doorstep. He would measure out the milk into a “paav” measure and pour it into the steel vessel held out by my grandmother, adding, like the “perugu” seller, a few millilitres extra as “kosuru” to assuage any feelings of suspicion.

There was the “kalayi-kaaran” who visited our street once every few months. His trade was tin-coating copper and brass cooking vessels (known as “kalayi”). He carried all the tools and ingredients of his trade in a canvas bag. He would sit down, spread some charcoal from his bag on the ground, light a fire and keep blowing with a mini bellows till the coals were glowing. He would then heat up the vessels one by one by placing them face down over the fire and deftly turning them round and round. When each vessel became red hot, he would rub a small bit of pure tin all over its inner surface and then smoothen it out by polishing it with a cloth till the vessel looked new and shiny. After he finished his work and handed over the coated vessels, there would invariably be a huge argument with my grandmother before an agreement was reached on the charges. But in spite of these arguments, this man would turn up again after a few months!

We had a well in our house which always had plenty of water. During and just after the rains, the water level rose till it was hardly three feet below the ground level! Sometimes, small vessels would fall into the well either by accident or by design (kids loved to throw these things into the water and hear them splash and gurgle as they went down). There were persons who dived into wells and salvaged these vessels for a small fee. One such person, a ferocious looking man with a luxuriant moustache twirled up, visited our area regularly, enquiring at each house if there was anything to bring up from the well. He wore a “dhoti” (a loincloth) and carried a rope coiled around his shoulder with a multi pronged hook at one end. Sometime he would throw the rope into the well and try to dredge up the vessel with the hook. If that failed, he would tighten his dhoti, take a deep breath and descend into the water, to come up a couple of minutes later with the salvaged items. It was not exactly deep sea diving, but still a big thrill for us to watch him at work!

Used clothes were not thrown away but stored carefully to be given to the tradesman who announced his arrival with the cry “Steeeeyl paa-aathra saamaaaaan”. This tradesman, short and stocky and a regular to our street, ran a barter programme under which he accepted used clothes in exchange for steel utensils, which he carried in a huge basket over his head. He would set down his basket and spread out the utensils to be chosen. He would then examine the used clothes offered in exchange. Then the bargaining would start. To us children, it seemed the haggling would never end, but end they would and a friendly exchange would finally be reached. Old clothes replaced by shiny new utensils.

These, then, were some of the tradespersons who visited our area in the Bangalore of the 1960s. There was one thing common with all of them – the personal touch they brought to their transactions. The little chitchat before and the murmur of good wishes after every transaction made it a pleasant experience while, of course, ensuring the customer’s loyalty! Sadly, there is no personal interaction in any of the malls and departmental stores which dot our fair city and shopping has become another form of “paid entertainment”.

© Shiva Kumar 2014

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