Kallu kabari

 Some of you Allahabadis may remember a ' kabari walla' named Kallu way back in the day.

I was a young school boy and Kallu was a regular in a number of houses( in the railway quarters and Christian - Anglo Indian houses ) all over Allahabad. 

Every Sunday he would do his rounds on his rusty weatherbeaten bicycle. 

He was friendly , talked loud and had a louder laugh. 

He was a nice chap, around 40 years old, and because he had been around for years, no one minded him coming and squatting in the first room. 

It didn't matter whether you had papers, bottles or anything else to sell. He was the opposite of a good salesman ! A great purchaser.

His eyes would dart around the room and he would offer some silly sum of money for any item that caught his fancy- whether you were selling it or not!

This irritated me for obvious reasons.

He once offered to buy my cycle for 25 rupees! Then kept increasing it till his top offer was 50. We were not even intending to sell it.

As if by miracle he would land up at houses when people were doing spring cleaning or white washing.

That's when everything would be put into the front compound and he would be there trying to pick up a bargain.

To give the devil his due, he often bought stuff which would otherwise be thrown in the bin. However that was a ruse to get the buying going. 

Once he got you in the selling frame of mind he almost hypnotised people into selling more stuff.

He was persuasive, determined and cunning and patient . He would spend hours bargaining and after hours in one house he would go and bring a cycle rickshaw and load up his loot!.

I would often tell him in the best Hindi that I could muster that he must be happy for crooking us. He would reply in his broken English ' Michael baba I go loss, this all rubbish useless stuff'

Then with a crooked smile he would tell the rickshaw man to start moving.

With a big Salam he would cycle off - another day of profit.

Allahabad had its strange yet well known hawkers and buyers!

Am sure other cities had similar characters as well.