Literature’s hard sell
SALESMEN of all sorts were a familiar sight in Chatsworth when I was growing up. Those were the days long before shops, let alone mega-malls. Hawking door-to-door rendered a good service to the public and created jobs. Delivery people were also part of the sales crew.
Many stories have been conjured up about how lucky they were with the ladies.
A handsome butcher now in his 80s, who I shall call Mahalingam, boasted that his clients would wash their hair especially for him when he visited on a Friday.
Another salesman who set hearts aflutter, my mother’s included, was the dapper Alex who did a roaring trade in AMC pots that preached “waterless cooking”. It took years to pay off those expensive utensils, which were great display pieces wrapped in plastic on top of the kitchen dresser.
Then there was a hunched Gujarati grandmother who trotted up and down staircases with buckets of pickle. The aroma of her spices filled the air and the crunch of her pickled green mango is the stuff of culinary legend.
She had a “taste and buy” principle that still applies in my beloved Bangladesh Market district. Needless to say, folks like Boya made a proper meal out of the tasting option.
I recall no teenage boys getting overly excited by the pickle aunty, but then I could be wrong about Sarge’s fetishes.
Juggie came selling underwear. He would have colourful bras draped over his shoulders and had the odd habit of displaying large knickers with outstretched thumbs.
He would dump a heavy backpack by the communal washing stones and proceed to toss its innards into eager hands. Baynee would buy garishly striped undies with a buttoned pocket for her hubby, but would coyly call Juggie into the kitchen to make her private selection.
The salesmen who did their rounds in our neighbourhood were a lively and energetic bunch, well-known in every household.
It came as quite a shock when posters appeared at bus stops and on light poles advertising Death of a Salesman.
Being simple folk, we were perplexed. The mystery was solved by the erudite Glenover schoolmaster Bisnath, who revealed it was American playwright Arthur Miller’s outstanding play, ranked as one of the greatest scripts of the 20th century.
In the US, it won Miller the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony for Best Play. Salesman premiered on Broadway in February 1949 and ran for 742 performances.
An enterprising Chatsworth impresario planned to stage the play at Bayview Community Hall, known in our language as the commanaties. That explained the posters that got our housewives so worked up.
With the mystery solved, the play attracted scant interest and, sadly, didn’t make it to opening night. That was an opportunity missed to enjoy great literature.
Hopefully, things will liven up now that Durban has been declared Africa’s first Unesco City of Literature thanks to the efforts of author ZP Dala and others. Hats off to the intrepid wordsmiths for hard selling.
Find Higgins on Facebook as The Bookseller of Bangladesh and at Books@vintagecafe in Windermere.