Face to Face: The bangle seller from Kumta

One of the features of every  Indian village is   the bangle seller, well, it used to be . The bangle seller  visits every house in the village through out the year . Since he doing that for years he knows every story of every house. He can accurately tell  about babies,  kids, lovers , sons and daughters  ready for marriage , couples who just got married, , the old people ready for dying, deaths, colorful stories, gossips … the list goes on!  He plays important role in every village wedding not only by selling colorful wedding but by  becoming himself as messenger between two families!

I met the last bangle seller in Kumta  last year and decided to make his portrait. If I really meet any more bangle seller again I will correct my previous sentence . His name is Balegaara ( )   Kirashanppa   . Balegaara means bangle man. Many in the Kumta town knows him especially the elders. Now the concept of bangle seller has gone due to modernization.

His original name is Kunju Nair and he cannot recall from which part of Kerala he is from. When his village was hit by plague Kunju nair the 3 year old boy and his mother were only survivors in his family. They left  village and migrated to Kumta  in Karnataka. His mother started working as a house cleaner and he did not study also.  Life went on and he settled with  family   in Kumta  and he says his son now is a headmaster in a school. Now he is alone probably due to his drinking habit but   he says everyone at home  abandoned him. He started selling bangles from past 40 years  and still he is doing that to earn his daily bread.

Now he is aged around 85 and it is not easy for him to sell these days in the villages. He told  this year might be his last year  as a bangle seller.  I asked ” will you stop selling  bangles ” and he replied ” no, no, I just might die this year” !