One of them was the Vegetable Vendor - KaiAmma ( Kai - Vegetable, Amma- Lady) .
Kai Amma was a shrewd woman from a village known as Lingarajapuram, today a suburb or Bangalore.
She would take the first BTS - Bangalore Transport Service bus and reach the City Market in Town where she would buy the vegetables for the day and fill her round basket made of cane.
She would return with a full Basket of Vegetables for sale, normally she used to come to my home during the end of her days efforts and had a great rapport with my mother.
My mother would listen to her challenges in managing a brood of kids and as the main bread winner of her family and the mother she was also ambitious for the future of her children and wanted them to be educated and comfortable. Her wish was that her children did not have to carry the heavy basket to earn their daily bread.
Kai-Amma was a great friend of mine and would humour me while she waited for my mother, she would always give me some green vegetables which I could eat, my favourite being pea pods. She would be tired and was glad that she could rest in the shade of our veranda unhindered.
She was a persuasive sales woman and would normally leave my home with an empty basket thanks to my mother's kindness.
She had in her basket a weighing balance and a collection of weights and stones to weigh the vegetables. When there was any special requirement of vegetables she would bring them from the market for my mother.
The interesting sales technique of kai-amma was she was a person in no hurry to conclude the sale, plus she had the habit of giving something more then what you bought as gratuity. She was also willing to discount on the price if she wanted to empty here basket and go home to her family. She would choose the customers to whom she sold her vegetables and did not visit every home on the street. Neither did she shout like other vendors who sold vegetables and fruits, she did it in a dignified and wonderful manner, knowing that her loyal customers would ensure an empty basket for the day.
The vegetables were fresh, clean, edible and tasty and seasonal, she had a knack of arranging her basket so that the weight was equally distributed to make it easy for her to carry the basket on her head.
Her grit and determination ensured that all her children did well in life and not one of them had to sell vegetables from door to door for a living.
She was my first encounter with a women entrepreneur, Kai-amma must have died many years ago, but her personality and determination still lingers in my memory and I wanted to share it in this blog post.
