How the bloom in your Diwali hides the gloom in Dadar flower market's street vendors

Marigold lotus jasmine and white chrysanthemum hang fragrant in the toran above your door and on the puja thali inviting Goddess Lakshmi into your home ndash but have you really wondered about the hands that ensure these flowers make it into your homeItrsquos a few minutes to seven orsquoclock and the sunrise has just settled onto the Dadar Phool Market on Thursday Standing atop Dadar Bridge mdash which is a nightmare of honking traffic fumes and a sea of rushing pedestrians through most of the day mdash there is an uncanny calm in these early hours But therersquos a storm brewing right belowCome 7 am the police start cracking down on the flower sellers in order to clear the roads for trafficRight off the bat we meet Angath who moved to the city 10 years ago from Uttar Pradesh and has been selling marigold or ldquopuja flowersrdquo outside Dadar market for the last decadeWe ask him about the losses being reported by flower sellers in recent months ldquoPuja flowers No losses in that Diwali is peak time for us and usually nothing goes to waste The cost of the flowers might be going up but the customers pay the difference at the end of the dayrdquo he says Anagathrsquos gaze keeps flickering between us and the police behind us There is an unwritten rule between the police and the flower sellers mdash get out at 7 am orhellip well you get the drift But in the runup to Diwali even the police add a grace period of half an hour but again only for puja flowersLife is not all sunshine and roses for the decorative flower sellers who have to dodge cops and risk mounting losses while keeping their business aliveAs flower sellers slowly start to disappear from the market making way for the morning traffic rush Angath tells us some of them will be back around 3 pm for a second wave which usually sells out by 4 pm in the festive seasonldquoUsually we are out by 7 am but in the next few days until Sunday things are going to be a bit chaotic Most people come in the morning but there is a big wave of buyers around 3 pm after which we are done for the dayrdquo he saysAngath right Nandkumar JangamThere is a clear hierarchy in the phool market the seth and the labourer This seth is obviously the contact point for the supplier and the one under whom two to three labourers work The work begins as early as 3 am These days due to Diwali rush the sellers start setting up as early as 2 am The trucks come the flowers are offloaded segregated into marigolds lotus jasmine white chrysanthemums or pinwheels Every type for every householdXavier DrsquoSilva has been selling puja flowers right outside Dadar West station for the last 30 years DrsquoSilva catches the first train from Vasai to Dadar at 336 am When he arrives at Dadar at 442 am he rushes to get his small tokri worth of flowers ldquoFrom the time you get down from the train until 7 am that is all the time you have to buy and sell whatever you have You get down haggle with the suppliers see what is the fixed rate of the day then you rush to your spot set it up and sell off all you have in your tokri before the police comerdquo he says ldquoThis means that we are doing proper physical labour for nearly four hours nonstop Any injury or anything happens during this time it might get us a compensation form our boss but that too has a limit You just hope and pray that there is no serious injury otherwise you are on your ownrdquo he addsXavier DrsquoSilva Shripadh Satam and Naval JoreDrsquoSilva is also one of the thousands labourers who has been waiting around for a vendor licence for all the years he has been selling flowers here It remains a dream of his but he has come to terms with the fact that considering there is no more space available anymore outside the station a licence seems impossible to getldquoI am 47 years old now there are a few years left while I can still do this job and manage its physical demandsrdquo he says to us as he picks up his bags of leftover flowers and heads up the stairs towards the platforms to catch the train back to VasaiAt the end of Dadar bridge is where the true tragedy is unfolding This is the section where you find decorative flowers that become part of many homes the FampB industry and even corporate offices in the city during Diwali These sellers in particular have suffered losses due to inflation with the cost of flowers like gerbera daisies lilies daffodils and orchids rising skyhigh Sellers on this aisle say they have not been able to recover since the COVID19 pandemicOne of these sellers is Nandkumar Jangam who has been in this trade for the last 25 years ldquoThe decoration flowers business has not been able to recover since COVID19 People might spend money on the important puja flowers but most people have switched to plastic flowers since you can just reuse them every yearrdquo says JangamEven Diwali and Dushera have not been able to save their business ldquoI had a loss of nearly 50 per cent this Dushera I couldnrsquot do much the flower business mdash except puja flowers mdash is not viable anymorerdquo he addsAnother seller Shripadh Satam says that since they do not have licences the 7 am deadline for them is a doordie situation ldquoIf you donrsquot sell out by 7 am thatrsquos it The police come pick you up fine you or worserdquo he says pointing to the daisies that have been left to shrivel in a corner after they did not make the cut yesterdaySatam also points to rising costs of agricultural products like fertiliser that have racked up the prices of these flowers This is tied to the impact of the war in West Asia which led to a global rise in fertiliser costs The Indian government had only a few weeks ago announced that they had spent around R16 lakh crore to balance out the prices but the damage is doneldquoWe are racing against time and shrivelling flowers to save our business and now this rise in costs by almost 10 to 15 per cent this year is another hitrdquo adds SatamNaval Jore another vendor who is the point person for the sellers and the National Association of Street Vendors of India NASVI talks about how it might not be viable for the next generation to enter the market in the puja or the decorative flower business ldquoThe system needs a total overhaul Workersrsquo rights are constantly being overlooked or misunderstood and there is an alltoo common narrative that paints us as hawkers who cause inconveniencerdquo he says ldquoPeople dog us down for the right kind of flowers on special occasions and then cast us aside with equal viciousness when we are an inconveniencerdquo he adds