Choudwar: `Mama, the paper vendor.’
That’s how he would be remembered, he says with pride.
Quinquagenarian Bijay Kumar Hota, alias Mama, has been engaged in the newspaper hawking business for the past 28 years.
Hota’s childhood was not a bed of roses and was plagued by poverty, but he did not capitulate.
“I came to Choudwar young, in search of a better life and I have never looked back since,” he says.
Walking in his father’s shoes, at first, he joined the Odisha Textile Mills (OTM) here as a contractual worker. To compensate for his meagre salary, he had to work as a paperboy too. “Around 15 years ago, after the factory would close in the evening, I would pedal for around 17 km to reach Cuttack,” he says. He would knock at the door of every major publication, procure the newspaper bundles from there, tie these to the cycle and ride back to Choudwar.
The same evening, he would sell the newspapers here and whatever copies remained unsold, he would sell the next morning. But just like the 5,000 families who directly depended on OTM for their livelihood, the year 2001 brought despair for Hota as the mill closed down.
“I had no job after that, can you imagine?”
However, he continued his “knockings”, he jokingly says. He exclaims, “People would wait for Biju, their messenger, there was no substitute for me, I was their only means to daily news.Tee-hee!” Hota, who resides at Manguli, has stuck to his 28-year-old regimen till date. He wakes up at 4 am and toils for almost 18 hours straight with an afternoon break.
His day starts with unloading the newspaper bundles from the mini trucks and loading them onto his luggage van. “I drive the van to OTM Chowk where my depot is,” Hota says.
“By 7’o clock all my paperboys for Bhatimunda, Bishanakahani, Tangi, Barpada,Padagaan,Shankarpur, Berhampur, Kuspangi and Choudwar Bazaar areas reach the depot,” he adds.
In case any paperboy remains absent, Hota does not mind being the paperboy of the area for the day. “I take my cycle out and do what I do best,” he says with a chuckle.
At around 2 pm, Hota returns home to gorge on a sumptuous lunch to reinvigorate himself for the rest of the day. One can hardly envy him his sumptuous lunch. As he says, “Till then, I rely only on 10-12 cups of tea.”
Evening is time for accounts for the day as he notes down all the sales details from his paperboys. His work for the day ends at around 10 pm when he reaches home after a hard day’s labour.
Hota has married off his daughter and says, “She has found a nice family and my son too has been doing well with his studies. I feel relieved discharging my parental duties.” “My sweated blood will make my name reverberate around after I am gone, ‘Mama the paper vendor’, haha!” he says.
From mill worker to newspaper vendor, 28 yrs on
