The view from the Newyork sidewalk

The scrapers are the towering hills, that cast long shadows and block the winter sun, the constant stream of vehicles on the streets is the flowing river, the Apple and FAO Schwarz (toy) stores are monasteries, that draw long lines of people keen to make monetary offerings and exit with something to feel good about.

And, on the sidewalks, braving freezing temperatures for an average of 10 hours a day, are several Bhutanese selling pictures of the New York skyline, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, copies of New Yorker and Vogue magazine covers and Broadway posters, all neatly framed and laid on a table and hung on a metal rack that resembles a meshed cage.

The analogy of the location, 58th street on Manhattan’s 5th avenue, to home provide little comfort to the vendors, whose fingertips are hard, the skin around the nails cracked and scarred from handling and fitting frames, and look dressed to walk through a blizzard - in sober coloured windcheaters that hide several layers of clothing.

What would be comforting to them and make the cold bearable is good sales. Of the hundreds, that pass by every few minutes, many stop to look, a few buy. “It’s slow compared to past winters,” says Karma, who has been selling pictures for the past seven years.

By early afternoon, clouds begin to blanket the Manhattan sky, hinting of a possibility of rain and snow, as the weather forecast had said, but Karma is calm. He looks south towards Staten Island and west towards New Jersey - it’s like looking down two long corridors without a ceiling.

The horizon shows patches of blue. “If you see dark clouds in that direction, then it’s time to quickly pack,” says Karma, a big man by Bhutanese standards, who ties his hair in a ponytail. “Within 25 minutes, the rain reaches Manhattan.”

Weather forecasts by the hour may not always be on the dot, but it is a ritual for the former monk to keeps tabs every evening. “Our life revolves around the weather,” he says. That means zapping through five or six weather channels, which can have differing forecasts, and surfing the web as well, which gives hour-by-hour forecasts.

Most vendors have learnt to check the weather once every morning even if the previous day’s forecast predicted a 80 percent chance of snow or rain.

Sometimes, Arial, a 22-year-old Russian Jew, who sells water-colours on the same sidewalk and is friends with the Bhutanese vendors, has friends calling to say if it’s raining in nearby New Jersey.

Over the past week, most sidewalk vendors prayed for good weather because it was the last few days of the holiday season, which begins from Thanksgiving, the last Thursday of November, and ends after New Years’, the best time to sell memorabilia to tourists and visitors from other US states that crowd the city during this time.

A day lost to rain or snow, during the holiday season, is lost opportunity that will return only a year later. It could mean close to a month’s rent if one is lucky or a portion of the utility bills or just enough to pay the day’s meals. “It’s a lesson in patience,” say vendors. Some vendors risk going out in the snow and rain knowing that most other vendors would be indoors, driven by the bug to make money and to make it fast.

How much business a vendor does depends on a number of things. Being strategically located is prime. The sidewalks of 58th street, where Karma and several other Chinese, Tibetan, Russian and Nepali vendors set up their tables everyday, is considered a good spot.

Three years ago, the area was a cordoned off dead spot, when the Apple store was still under construction. When it opened, in the fall of 2006, vendors quarreled almost everyday for three months for a place on the sidewalk. Sometimes it meant going at three in the morning to be the first one there.

Every now and then the quarrelling vendors called the cops to settle the dispute. They always ask, “Who came here first”? Maintaining good links with the security personnel of the nearby buildings helped.

There is also competition on what pictures to sell. This season’s new hot sellers were president-elect Barack Obama and Jonas Brothers, the teen boy band. One story doing the rounds with picture vendors is about a Russian guy, who sold 2,000 buttons of Barack Obama, for two dollars a button, two nights before the election. That’s the kind of business picture vendors hope to hit once in several years.

Sunday, the day of rest, is a stressful time for sidewalk vendors and occasionally begins with heated arguments even among friends. On Sunday fifth avenue is open for every kind of vendor to scramble for a spot on the sidewalk on a first-come-first-served basis.

This makes it a very early day for picture vendors to push their handcart, with the merchandise, out of the underground garage across several streetlights to the sidewalk. Vendors do not need to wait for the blue license holder, only given to war veterans, to start setting up their table.

A number of Bhutanese have taken to selling pictures after trying out jobs in kitchens and retail stores. Most say they prefer being a vendor to be their own boss. “Whether you work seven days a week or one day, it’s all up to you,” says Sonam, 34, whose table is on 51st street.

But most try their best to meet the financial needs of family and hope that it can make up to some extent their being an absentee family member, who’s only heard on the phone.

When the next day’s forecast looks bad, vendors try and stay out a little longer in the evening, till the crowd completely thins out, to make up for the possible lost hours and then meet up with the other Bhutanese vendors for a session of “marriage”.

But there are days when vendors just wish for a rainy day to give themselves a break, do laundry, cook some Bhutanese food, sleep in longer than usual and hope that tomorrow is a good day.

Visit the land of Thunder Dragon with Bhutan Excursion