Writer-cum-tea-vendor

Writer-cum-tea-vendor Laxman in Delhi is serving books with a cup of tea Brewing steaming hot cups of tea by the roadside is what he does for a living. But writing books is the passion he lives for. This writer-cum-tea-vendor, 55-year old Laxman Rao, is a unique story in himself. A graduate from Delhi University, India, he pedals to his shop everyday carrying his professional and literary world together. He carries three bags. One contains copies of books penned by him and another bag contains a saucepan, tea leaves, sugar, milk and plastic cups. The third bag on the bicycle handle has his lunchbox. Everyday, 1pm is when he reaches Digambar road, near Income Tax Office in the heart of Delhi where some of India’s major English- language newspaper houses are located, and sets up his shop by the road side under the canopy of an old banyan tree. Until a few days ago, he would set up his makeshift stall just under the tree but now he has been shoved out to the margins of the road in the midst of piled-up debris as a new sewer line is being laid. The stall comprises a stove, a stone slate to sit on and a plastic sheet to spread his book titles on. For his customers, he would quickly make a bench to sit on by placing a wooden plank on two bricks each on either end. Rao is a multi-tasking man. While preparing tea, he engages his customers with his jovial talk and tells them about his books on display and the ones in the offing. He says he has written 21 books so far. But on display there are a few copies of eight titles which he himself published as no publisher agreed to take his work. His first title Nayi Duniya Ki Nayi Kahani(The New Story of a New World), written in 1979, narrates his struggle as a labourer or as a waiter in a tea stall. It took him two years to write this book. It was followed by a play Pradhanmantri (prime minister) in 1984. The book was an outcome of his meeting with the then prime minister, the late Indira Gandhi. “It’s one of the most memorable days of my life. I wanted to write a book on Indira Gandhi but she said many books had been written on her and he should rather write on administration. So Pradhanmantri came into being highlighting the corrupt administration surrounding a prime minister,” quips Rao. Soon other books, including Ramdas, Renu and Abhvyakti, came out. All his books are based on real life stories — what he sees around him. It was one such incident that shook the writer in him in his childhood. A young boy, Ramdas, was drowned while taking a bath. The shock was overpowering and could be dealt with only when he put to pen and paper. “My moving story on Ramdas was liked by everyone,” he says. It was his first brush with literary writing but reading literary works was not new to him. He was quite fond of reading while he was in school and had read at that age many books in Hindi literature though he had a Marathi language background. Born on July 22, 1954, in a family of farmers at a village in Amravati district of Maharashtra state, he had to drop out of school after 10th standard in 1973 and work in a local spinning mill. When the mill closed down, he switched to farming to help his father. But it did not last long. “This was not what I was inclined to do and perhaps destined to do. There was something more compelling to be done,” says Rao. So with just Rs40 in his pocket, he ran away from home at the age of 21 to explore the world. He boarded a train but with that money, could barely reach till Bhopal in central India. There he worked as a labourer with a sharp observation of his surroundings and people around him. It was his observation of a poor girl adopted by a rich family upon the death of her parents, which became the subject matter of his book Narmada, which has gone for a reprint. In three months, he had saved enough to continue his journey, this time to Delhi. Upon reaching the capital, he survived by cleaning dishes in restaurants. “After saving a decent amount, I started selling beetle nut leaves before I opened a tea stall in 1985,” recalls Rao. During this period, he passed his Class XII examination from Open School and graduated from Delhi University’s School of Correspondence. It’s been 25 years since he has been selling tea by the roadside during the day, writing books by night and promoting and distributing them to schools in the morning. Money earned through the sale of books (Rs300 each but sold at 50 per cent discount) goes into paying the cost of reprinting old books and publishing new ones through his own publishing house Bharatiya Sahitya Kala Prakashan. The sale of his books was not very encouraging earlier. But now everyday he is able to sell at least four copies of his books to school libraries and a-book-a-day at his roadside book ‘cafe’. Now, he has enough money to publish two more books, Ahankar and Gandhi. He may not be making big money like other successful writers, but he is getting enough recognition. The fact he is quite happy about. “All these years I was just struggling to keep my passion alive to establish myself as a writer. I think I have reached a milestone and can call myself a writer and just not a chaiwallah (tea vendor),” says Rao. After a day full of running around and work, he pedals back home to be with his wife and two doting sons—the elder one is doing Chartered Accountancy and the younger son is pursuing bachelor degree in commerce. With a happy family by his side, he has no worries in life. But he does occasionally dream of having a better life. He doesn’t miss the cushy life of successful writers but certainly wants an end to the uncertainty over the next meal if his tea shop is shut down. Until he strikes gold, he is determined to nurse his hobby by writing, publishing, promoting and distributing—all by himself and on his cycle. (Hemlata Aithani is a New Delhi-based freelance journalist.)