The word 'hawkers' is correct and usable in written English
It is used to describe someone who sells goods in public places, usually by shouting out their offerings. For example, "The busy streets of the city were filled with hawkers trying to attract buyers for their wares."
But now, through a new community initiative that aims to reclaim public spaces in Mumbai swallowed by motorists, hawkers and illegal encroachments, no cars are allowed on one 6.5-kilometre stretch just to the north of the old centre of the city between 7 and 11 am on Sundays.
He sells fruit on the pavement in Dadar, one of the most expensive areas of the city for hawkers.
But as difficult as Pujan finds it to ply his trade, he refuses to set up his cart in the "hawkers' zone", about 1km away from Dadar railway station.
Here, as everywhere, the truth leaves a breadcrumb trail through tiny, incidental details: the police's premature insistence that race wasn't a motive; the weekly paper leading with the "crackdown" on black "hawkers"; the 250 people calling for calm; the man selling "White Power" T-shirts.
You can see buses and rickshaws jostle for space with pedestrians as hawkers shout out their wares, like the juice seller who sings adapted Hindi film songs beneath the Bandra West skywalk - Jumme ke raat hai, mango bhi saath hai (It's Friday night, and you have a mango drink with you).
The elevated expressways were built to take walkers from the busy railways stations, which are crowded with pedestrians, hawkers, rickshaws and public buses, and connect them to targeted destinations like residential areas, bus stations, taxi stands, office spaces and shopping areas.
About four metres wide on average, most of the walkways are reasonably clear and clean, but at times there are illegal hawkers selling small products like hair bands and mobile phone accessories.
Hawkers in Darar are regularly seen fleeing with bundles of material as the BMC officials arrive.
This "crackdown on hawkers" is front-page news.
Thirteen years since it opened, the five-storey Dadar hawkers' plaza remains widely unused, with only the ground and first floors occupied by sellers.
"Instead of building a hawkers' zone or implementing any act, the local body should allow us to legally work at the place where we have stalls".
