The day I realized about toughest vocation of newspaper hawker
Most of the time, when I go for morning cycling,
my eyes cannot help getting riveted to the newspaper hawkers also called
newspapers boys, newsboys or ‘newsies’ busy in the premises of the local police
station, keeping in order of their route on cycle, to be delivered to their
customers and placing pullouts on weekends and pamphlets on demand or opening
of new establishment or announcing of sales, are the most human resource for
the mushrooming newspaper industry in India.
These hawkers are not employees of the newspapers
but rather purchase the papers from the publishers and sold them as independent
agents by keeping the newsboys depending on the circulation in the area.
Since my childhood, I am seeing the old newspaper
hawker – Lakhi Ram Kalra, to whom we still call ‘Chacha Ji’ - whose peculiar
voice worded ‘Akhbar-e’ was a wakeup
call each morning and a message that the newspapers – Tribune, Punjab Kesari
and Hind Samachar in Urdu - have been
pushed under your door. But now his son has inherited this profession and ‘Chacha
Ji’ sits on the stall at the central place in the city. Anyhow, we miss the indication of paper
received at our door-step but just check it up from the approximate time of
throwing the papers in our house.
But their work begins when birds are yet to chirp
and the dawn has not set in, irrespective of the summer, winter or the monsson
seasons when the newspaper publication by the publishers and distribution work
of hawkers continues.
Sometimes I feel that that the prowess known as
the 4th pillar of democracy would be toothless if ever this manpower –
newspaper hawkers – decides to stop cycling.
Their job is without any break except for national
holidays of Republic and Independence days when there is no newspaper and most
of the time every year, we eagerly wait for the newspaper, it is out of mind
and we even go to the door to collect the newspaper. Challenge of the job is
that taking leave for them is not an easy task even if they are ill because any
unsold copy would mean a loss.
One can well imagine how tasteless the morning tea
would be without a daily dose of addiction of news of politics, films,
entertainment, horoscopes etc. which our hawkers bring at our doorsteps.
No doubt, the social media has become the fastest
news network as the printed copy will reach in your hands, on the next days’
morning but one thing is certain, it
cannot replaced, despite availability of various online news portals, the print
media in toto. The survival of
newspapers could only be possible with a new strategy of putting the contents
of the investigative news only in the print papers. Whatever strategies our
newspapers may adopt to promote ‘e-papers’ also, the broadsheet will continue
to have its own charm as the suspense lies between the pages therein. While
online, one goes for headlines and cannot browse for classified ads which too
are important for the readers. This will
not only keep up the standard of the newspaper, the hawkers community would
continue to survive for times to come.
Yet, we hardly realize the importance of the
newspaper hawkers in our lives. Not only
this, the management of any newspaper don’t have any welfare policy for them
while the government has number of welfare schemes for the below poverty lines
categories.
Certain newspaper readers have shown greatest
callousness or lack of sympathy even if the newspaper supply is late from the
back end for few minutes but they forget all sophistication and mannerism while
dealing with the poor hawker who obviously has no high connections. He has to
swallow all this attitude just for few bucks that he gets for delivering the
paper while we hardly bothers to give hefty tips to the elegantly dressed
waiters of the three-four or five star hotels.
We have never thought for this class without whom our mornings would be
incomplete.
Frankly speaking, I feel that the media houses –
known as the sentinel of the high platforms of news generation, have forgotten
the cause of the very arms which make its survival possible.
harish.monga.969
