From a distance, Rouf Basha looks boxed-in by the walls of his tiny office, sandwiched between his living quarters. As his clients flow in, the sombre green paint peels off the walls, as if marking the 20 years of his life as a stamp paper vendor. He thrusts open his ledger to reveal lines of scribble fighting for space on the brown tinted pages.
Over the past two days, Rouf Basha’s clients have been all praise for him after he shot to fame for having sold stamp papers that DMK President M Karunanidhi and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa filed their affidavits with.
Jayalalithaa’s representative insisted that he write her name as he has over the past three elections.
His voice bellows when I speak of his nemesis, not a competing stamp vendor, but a technology that has hampered his business.
But his steady stream of clients who arrive armed with e-stamp papers, still come to see Basha for his blessings. In the past half an hour, the diversity of clients is striking – a scrawny man applying for a home loan, a woman coyly making her way in to change her religion from Hindu to Muslim so she can marry her beau, and a lawyer representing a political candidate to get his stamp paper.
Leafing through a pack of visiting cards, he hands one, only hoping that his trade will not turn obsolete by the time the next election arrives.
(This article has been published in collaboration with The News Minute.)
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