Fancy buying from a fancy cart?
by Kamalanath Liyanage
Kataragama is a place where many
people spend their holidays irrespective of their religious beliefs.
Apart from spirituality, visitors see the southern border of the ocean,
its coastal beauty, wild animals and tropical forests. These diverse
phenomenons attract a larger number of tourists.
 These snapshots might be familiar to you if you visited Kataragama.
Shopping in Kataragama is a delightful excursion.
There exists many types of fancy carts such as Toys thattu and the
Thorombal karaththa. Children get around the carts to buy the toys that
they fancy.
The building of these carts is quite interesting. Lightweight wood
planks are tied around a bicycle and polythene sheets are used to cover
the wooden planks and secure the items tightly.The polythene protects
the cart and its goods from the scorching sunlight and rain. The toys
are stacked in an ‘organised chaos’ kind of way.
These attractive fancy carts are filled with a variety of toys for
girls and boys. The inflatable balls are hung at the edges with the more
attractive toys which are displayed prominently in front. The trinkets
and fancy items are stacked together in a heap and the driver who also
acts as vendor can magically unearth the toy item for a child. Children
and even adults purchase the latest types of toys and fashion
accessories from these carts.
The cart owners buy toys from toy vendors in their towns who obtain
the toys from retailers in Colombo. Obviously, they keep a profit for
themselves because they offer their customers convenience if it is
difficult to go all the way to the town.
In fact, this sort of business is a kind of self-employment and we
saw about 200 such fancy carts on the road to Kataragama. It is always
good to buy toys from such fancy carts because these cart owners earn a
meagre living in this way. They are often poor and need the income to
provide for their families. |
