A Sale! watercolor and ink by Meera Rao
In Mysuru, southern India, even now the peddlers load up a cart with sundry items and push it around the neighborhoods looking for buyers. I saw many different peddlers pushing a variety of things - pots and pans, plastic housewares or sarees and other clothing items, sheets and blankets, balloons and toys etc everyday through the streets. This one stopped around long enough for me to photograph as the lady was taking her own sweet time deciding what to buy. She inspected various items from his cart and finally settled on a dust pan.
I read that in 2013 the Karnataka state government launched a program to try to replicate the success of Bangaladeshi banker and Nobel peace prize winner Muhammad Yunus extending micro credit to street vendors. It launched Mysore City Street Vendors Multipurpose Cooperative Society, which had a seed money of Rs 5 crore to attend to the needs of street vendors in the city. The society, which is to be developed as a cooperative bank later, to lend small loan to the street vendors who are too poor to qualify for bank loans. The society's office was located close to my daily runs during my stay and I hope that this initiative is a success.
A Sale! 5.5x8" watercolor and ink on 140 lb Strathmore visual Journal
