While engaging with those on an equal footing, we usually decide how much we share about ourselves. Depending on the situation, we either provide information or withhold it. The shared information is seldom free-flowing. Before dissemination, it is edited with punctuations of propriety and embellished with devices of exemplification. For we know instinctively that information is the dough for others to mould opinions about us. We also know people cannot carry information forever. It’s too heavy a load to be carried alone. They will eventually dump it in other ears — often, in skewed forms.
Given this, our caution is justified. However, do we realise we could be ignoring certain other carriers of information? These are not people we engage with closely. But they are there, around us, like radars picking up signals from us. The man who irons clothes from a stationary pushcart, parked forever in a locality. The owner of the neighbourhood petty shop. Members of the local auto stand. They may occupy the remotest fringes of our lives, but they know a lot more about us than we often credit them with.
“These are the people who know a neighbourhood inside out. They are the ones who can easily tell a stranger from a resident,” says Yaseva, a social entrepreneur.
It’s only natural that they possess this ability. Their livelihood is defined by geography. They thrive on the support of a geographically-defined community. Therefore, unlike traders operating on main roads and targeting customers who float in and out, they invest emotionally in their customers. Their customers also extend the hand of friendship — inviting them to weddings and other social occasions in their families.
Sometimes, due to such bonding, a tradesman of this stripe may know exactly how a customer’s clock ticks, how his day goes or when he travels out of town on work or how often. This could be in part, the result of observation and in part, information volunteered by the customer. This knowledge, safe with the tradesman, can reach someone else who may not have the best of intentions.
“Anti-socials are known to discreetly ferret out information before they strike. They are said to have a way of engaging these tradespeople in conversation that could provide a view into patterns in the lives of their potential victims. The tradespeople have to be cautioned against unwittingly revealing information about residents. They could also be aggressively used in crime prevention. We tried out an initiative called Peace Rangers, using autorickshaw drivers, attached to a neighbourhood stand, and ironwallas who were expected to volunteer information about the movement of strangers. The police are, in fact, using them to solve cases. The tradespeople could instead be aggressively used in preventing crime,” says Yaseva.
Not just the police, even detective agencies turn to them to make inquiries about people.
Amutha Jaganathan, manager, investigations, Globe Detective Agency, says, “They are almost always helpful in providing critical data for many of our investigations. We talk to the flower vendor, the seller of cigarettes, the ironwallah and any other trader who is part of a landscape. They are of immense help in pre-marital and post-marital inquiries.”
Not just love and marriage, they seem to hold the key to happiness in every other aspect of human existence.
Says Amutha, “Inputs from neighbourhood-based traders add handsomely to a report we make about potential employees for a client.”
