Books Sold At Delhi Traffic Lights
Delih traffic lights are significant commercial zones. While the traffic lights count down their 120 seconds and fast people have to deal with stasis, the two-minute sellers leap to their trade of ornaments, magazines, household supplies, etc.
Traffic lights are a major distribution point for the publishing industry, corporate and parallel. Recently, books have supplanted magazines as the most common items for sale. Books are fanned out and held at the window for a second by young boys, twelve to eighteen perhaps, who have a talent for predicting what kind of reading material will appeal to whom. The books they sell are sometimes original and sometimes pirated. At a guess, the boys who sell them make between $40 and $80 a month.
Many of these boys cannot read the books they sell. Most of the titles they hold in their hands have to do with the acquisition of enormous wealth. Some of the favourites are as follows:
Whether they realize it or not these book sellers are utilising a process called "impulse" buying.
They may have garnished a little wisdom about 'personalities' and book choices, but they are definitely banking on those people who will 'impulse buy'
There are probably just as many who don't buy too.
There is another factor of course and that is 'the charity factor'Some people will buy out of charity and that works too.
We have a practice at home were street urchins stand at traffic lights and offer to wash the car front window. I would hazard a guess as I sit and watch this social behaviour that most people who accept the offer, and it is less than 50% do so out of an act of charity or perhaps even guilt!
I feel sure they are really not interested in having their window washed!
Life is full of opportunities - the poor often have to find smart ways to make a buck in a world were opportunities to better oneself don't always present itself easily
Boys selling books to people in cars stopped by traffic is a welcome change from grown-ups scooting in and out asking for money, which was my experience on a visit to Secunderabad three years ago. There is a lot of slumbering ingenuity in India. Judging from the books pictured, I would guess someone has done a bit of quick research, since Clinton and Gates are both very popular in the country.
Cities should have free electric bus services and ban cars.
They can charge up the buses, at night, with power from nuclear power stations.