🍊 Charminar vendors cleared out again, same as every few months

Walked past Charminar last Saturday and the whole fruit and snack stretch near the road was empty. Just bare pavement, 2 municipal workers fixing a barrier, and a shopkeeper who shrugged when I asked. He said it's another clearing drive. They happen every few months, usually when somebody important is visiting. I stood there holding a bag of oranges I'd bought somewhere else, feeling a bit lost. Then I found the corn man, 1 lane down. He's been roasting corn in that area for about 15 years. He wasn't upset at all. He said he moves to the side lane for 2 weeks. Then he drifts back to his old spot once everyone stops looking. He said it very casually. I bought a corn from him and he gave me extra lemon and salt without me asking. What I can't work out is who these drives are for. The same people come straight back. Nothing gets solved, the pavement is just empty for a while and then it fills up again. The vendors lose 2 weeks of income every time, and I'd guess the shops around them lose customers too. People come to Charminar for the noise and the food, not for a clean empty footpath. I don't know how these things work. Maybe there's a proper vending area somewhere that I haven't heard about. Has anyone seen a plan for one near Charminar, or any market in the city that sorted this out? My aunt says a similar thing happened near another market she shops at, but she wasn't sure which one. I'll go back next weekend and see whether the corn man is standing in his old spot.

I took my cousins from Pune to Charminar last year and the first thing they wanted was the roasted corn. They didn't care much about the monument after the first 10 minutes. They wanted the bangles, the pearls, the fruit. So when a stretch goes bare, visitors notice. It makes the whole place feel half switched off. A fixed spot would help me too, because I'd know where to find my favourite fruit chaat.

I'd go easy on calling it a show. Some of those lanes get so crowded an ambulance would struggle. Maybe the drive is meant to fix that, just done badly and with no plan for the people moved. Where I agree with you is the missing alternative.

Not sure about Charminar, but a market I go to had the same trouble until the sellers got marked spots. Painted boxes on the ground, each with a number. The clearing drives mostly stopped after that. I don't know how it started or who arranged it. The shopkeepers seemed much calmer about it afterwards. Something like that would at least end the guessing game for your corn man.

My mother buys bangles near Charminar every Eid and she says the same thing happens there. The sellers vanish for a week, then she finds them 2 lanes over, same prices, same smiles.