Street Hawkers

Hawkers are seen and heard on the streets throughout the day with all kinds of wares they sell like fruit, vegetables, sugarcane and coconut juice, savoury rice and toasted chickpea snacks, peanuts and sesame brittle, small toys and balloons. Others come by infrequently like this man who has a cart with plastic goods. In the late afternoons on his cart, a man fries potato cakes called tikkis on a huge cast iron plate and serves them up with chopped onions, tamarind and mint chutneys. Some hawkers offer services like knife sharpening and minor household appliance repairs. Others collect recyclables such as cardboard and scrap metal to on sell. Each has their own specific call out in a sing song style, particular to their profession and easily recognisable. Some have only one type of product like the man who cycles through every day about 11 in the morning with a basket of violet plums.

Mostly the hawkers are men on foot pushing a cart or moving slowly along on a bicycle. Slow enough to stop should a resident call out to them. Only occasionally do I see women and never have I seen a hawker with mechanised transport.