Pheri Waali, 5 minutes freewrite

I can't think of anything to write about this prompt because yard sale is not a concept we have in our country.

I am from India and these days it's impossible to find yards in indian houses in urban areas.

So we don't have yard sale here but we do have a barter system to get rid of old stuff, old clothes in particular.

There is a group of street sellers, most often women, who carried these huge woven baskets filled with stainless steel utensils who will a new item in exchange for old clothes.

These women move around various locality and come to each area like once every month. So my used to gather all the old clothes and keep them storage until she had gathered enough to barter them.

It was during late afternoons that they came into our street calling out "Bartan waali, bartan le lo bartan." It means "Utensil seller here, buy the utensil."

My mom would rush to the balcony to call her, filled with excitement at the idea of getting a new utensil. Once the seller arrives at our house she would sit in front of the main door waiting for my mom to bring the old clothes.

She would check each and every cloth to see its quality, to make sure its not too dirty or torn. If she finds the clothes to her satisfaction she'd gather them in heaps according to gender. Then the bargaining would begin.

The value of kids' clothing is less compared to men's or women's clothing. In exchange for 10-15 pieces of clothes she will offer a smaller item, like a serving bowl or a Tiffin box.

For the pheriwaali, the street seller, the goal is to get a large number of clothes in exchange for a small item and for my mom, it was to get the largest set or the most sturdy piece of utensil.

She would often reject the smaller stuff and pick a cooking pot or some larger item like that. The seller would then start to crib about how expensive those items were and these clothes weren't enough in comparison. The would go back and forth and after a while my mom bring a few more clothes that she had kept separately and offer her these for additional value.

Usually it would be adult clothing that has better resell value. These seller gather all these clothes and seller it to second hand sellers who will then sell it in poor localities or in chor bazaar( thief market) where stolen items are bought and sold.

After the bargain is completed, the pheri waali would gather the clothes and her crate of utensil and be on her way.

The funny thing is there wasn't any need for my mom to barter old clothes for kitchenware like this. She could certainly afford to buy them if she wanted to, it wasn't because of lack money. I think she just likes bargaining and getting new stuff for practically nothing.

My mom loves to buy kitchen items. Every time she goes out to shopping she has to buy some utensil. We have several set of kitchenware and crockery yet its still not enough for her. Every few years we gather all that unused stuff and give it away to those who need it. Yet she still likes to call the pheriwaali to get new stuff from her.

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