Though they peddle eatables like a thousand others of their ilk, Kawde Sukhdev and Md. Aleem are different. Hawkers on trains, they are constantly on the move, travelling at least 200 km every day.
Sukhdev sells his taste bud-tingling ‘bhel’ or a mixture of different sweet and sour eatables, and Aleem sells mouth-watering samosas. Both operate from Adilabad and board trains running either side of this comparatively smaller railway station.
“My day starts with the Adilabad-Nanded-Adilabad inter-city train,” says Aleem, a resident of Tatiguda locality, close to the Adilabad railway station. “The hot samosas are in great demand in the morning when it is time for passengers to have their breakfast,” he says.
The young hawker carries a basket load of samosas and reaches Kinwat railway station in Nanded district of Maharashtra, which is 46 km away from Adilabad town, at about 8.30 a.m. He takes the Mumbai-Nagpur Nandigram Express in the reverse direction and travels up to Lingti railway station in Wani district, again in Maharashtra.
Aleem is back in Adilabad by 1 p.m., having retured from Lingti on the Nagpur-Mumbai Nandigram Express. He rests for a couple of hours before setting off to the market to purchase ingredients for the next day’s samosas.
“We have to prepare the eatables at home so that they are affordable,” points out Sukhdev who, more or less follows the same routine as Aleem.
Sukhdev’s mother and sister, as does the mother of Aleem, wake up at 3 a.m. every day and are soon busy making eatable items. “Everything is ready by 7 a.m., which makes it easier for me to take the inter-city train,” Aleem observes.
