Shops will be decked up with novelty that would be released by manufacturers to attract more and more customers and even when they had similar items at home just to tweak the design here and there to attract people into buying. Be it some utensils or glassware or decorative pieces or firecrackers or what you may have there. People also want to be well stocked for food items with spices and grains that they usually don't keep but for festivities they would be using them for making savories and sweets.
The weekly markets would be larger than the usual with more vendors and more items and noise levels will go multifold. In those days we used to enjoy such noise and often mimic it then or later and laugh. My father had taken a loan and bought a running flourmill from someone to add some extra income as it was hard for him to meet up with expenses of family of 7 (including our ageing grandfather, Baa).
Baa was well respected in the village where he spent all his life and during his work life he was engaged in Holkar State service as Patwari, a revenue officer. This was a very important position as even today a revenue officer would have. He would know everyone who has some land, big or small and everyone would know him. Actually, more people would know him than he would know people. As Patwari he would have control over the land of several villages in the vicinity for any kind of transaction: sale, purchase, transfer etc. I am sure he commanded great respect being upright. He was also very kind and helpful to people extending moral as well as monetary support to poor and needy , especially farmers. That left him penniless after retirement. So we didn't have much to spend or got anything in inheritance but respect from people and his values. He had some small savings with which he had purchased a small piece of land but being a revenue office he thought it inappropriate to have it in his name and had given it to his younger brother hoping he would have it back when he retires ..that obviously didn't happen. He must have had little pension from the state that was perhaps sufficient for his own sustenance.
He was happiest when my father opted for a transfer and managed to have a posting in Sanawda as a sole teacher of primary school near Betma. In those days inter-district transfers were very difficult and he had to request senior divisional education officers on compassionate grounds for a transfer. Even to reach out to such authorities was tough so I suppose he approached one of his uncles who was a headmaster in a school and a very respected teacher, a social worker and a homeopath doctor who studied homeopathy on his own and used to run a charitable clinic with his own money, outside school timings to serve people. He was very popular not just in his town Badnawar that was a tehsil of Dhar District, but also in and around Indore Division. For his teaching services he was also awarded a Rashtrapati Puraskaar (President's Medal) in the late sixties. We will talk later about him.
I think the amount was Rs 4000 for which my father purchased the flour mill with earning potential of Rs 200 per month after cutting all expenses including salary of one operator, electricity and Rs 10 per month rent of the place. It was a nice and open place from front and behind with a room size of some 20' X 40' and a platform of 20'x10' in front and some space at the back. On one side of the aata-chakki ( as flourmill are called) was Pehlwan Amarsingh's house that had some 10-12 milk giving buffaloes tied all the time except during the day and on the other was a shop cum residence of a barber. The road outside was also wide by village standards which can allow two bullock carts to pass at the same time. This place was between our home and the bus stand each about 300 meters away due to that there was lot of movement and even if there were no customers, you won't get bored sitting or just being there. This venture of my father was called "Tribandhu Flour Mill (three brothers' Aata Chakki)". There are more stories associated with this place that we will keep for later.
For now, I observed during the weekly market that during the Diwali time other then the regular vendors some new vendors would also sprung up with "seasonal" items. One such item that came to my attention was the picture of Ma Laxmi flanked by ma Sarawati on one side and Lord Ganesh on the other. There were different sizes of pictures of the same deity. I also observed that everyone who came to the weekly market bought at least one new picture (paana) although they may be having an old one from the previous years. Some would be framed in fancy frames and some others loose. Majority of the pictures that for sold were loose printed on shiny papers of 4"x6" or 6"x8 and some 12"x15" as well. I quickly did some calculations and with some money left in my piggy bank I told a friend's father who used to go to Indore for his shop's stock replenishments to get me an assortment of ma laxmiji's printed pictures.. ( Laxmi ji ke paane). Having got them I first put a nice display on the chabootara /platform outside the Chakki but found that the off take was very low so the next week I made a mobile shop and made a cardboard display that I could carry in my small hands with some thread strings attached so that the "paane" don't get slipped.. I had to practice it hard and the week after, when the weekly market started buzzing with activities I started roaming through the place from one end to another it would be about 300 meters with several ( 2 or 3) rows in between. In about 3 to 4 hours I sold some 300+ pictures of various sizes. Overall a 15 day business would have rendered me a profit of Rs 30 or more. Rs 10 on each market days and Rs 10 or so on all other days.
So I had diversified my business and with some innovation managed to remain in business for both Loban and Laxmi ji ke Panne for the next three years. In my last year in Betma I was in class 10th that used to be high school board exam so I gave up my business for other young and budding entrepreneurs.
Picture of one of those paanas that is still with us.
Taken back in times Kasba or small towns we call, where life is all about street learnings and how life is almost same in central India as in North, expect for few cultural tweaks which were as per local needs.
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