The Chick Seller

The Chick Seller, Aatmaj

By Maitreyee B Chowdhury

I was on my bicycle one evening, when I chanced upon a queer sight. Another man who was riding on a bicycle in front of me had a strange basket that looked like it was full of colorful creatures! The riot of deep colors caught my eye and I pedaled faster to get closer to the man.
As I came close I noticed that the basket had a huge number of chicks (baby hens). Now that isn’t really out of the ordinary for someone in India, what was uncommon was the color of the chicks.
As I closed my bike on that of the other man’s, I asked him to stop. I learnt that his name was Aatmaj, a Kannadiga who spoke broken Hindi, thanks to the onset of people from outside Karnataka, he tells me. Aatmaj tells me that he runs a small poultry from home and that he carries these chicks all day round, which sell at Rs 25 per colorless piece and 50 per colored piece.
I asked Aatmaj why the chicks were colored and if the color on the chicks would affect their health, he says that he really has no idea. According to Aatmaj, the idea of coloring the chicks occurred accidentally. One day while playing with paint, one of his children, accidentally spattered some color on a chick. That day, the chick spattered with paint was the first to be sold off; as the customer who bought it found the fact that the chick was colored, as unusual and pretty.
This gave him the idea of coloring some of the chicks and he says that invariably these are the ones which always sell faster. While the colored birds did look cute, I was tempted to ask him why some of them were not colored, when according to him colored birds sold better?
To this Aatmaj said that there were many people who like me were curious and later angry at the fact that he had colored the chicks. He says, many such people immediately bought few of the uncolored ones, in a bid to save them from pigmentation. He grins sheepishly, and adds some people even ask me if the chicks would be laying proper eggs when they grow up or would they be colored too!
True salesman fashion he says, “I tell them, why don’t you wait and watch!” This confuses many people and they end up buying one of each.
Aatmaj was rather disappointed when I didn’t buy any of the chicks even after asking so many questions, he signs off, with what distinctly sounded like ‘Jasti matar bedi’ ( talks too much- in Kannada).

Maitreyee B Chowdhury is a Bangalore based creative writer and poet. Apart from being a professional web content writer, she is the author of two books on poetry and regional films in India. People watching is a compulsion for her. She is fascinated by ‘ The man on the road’.

The idea of writing about ‘The man on the road’ came naturally, says Maitreyee. “Some of the most compelling, beautiful and bizarre stories unfold on the road. The everyday man’s struggle for existence, his tenacity and the beauty of the stark is what is absolutely fascinating”, she says.

Maitreyee writes for us every month her column, The Man on the Road. She can be contacted at maitreyee@thesipoflife.com