Billing and udhaar for every shop in Arunachal Pradesh
Harvest-season udhaar, a back room of sacks and a late truck: the notebook moves to your phone.
Oranges in Lohit, rice in Tirap, kiwi and cabbage around Dirang
A shop owner in one district hears about another district's season from the trucks and customers that come through.
- Oranges, ginger, pineapple and large cardamom from Lohit reach local markets and markets in Assam in large quantities each season.
- In Tirap, over 80 percent of people depend on farming. Rice is the main crop, with maize, millets, oilseeds and vegetables.
- West Kameng has apple and kiwi orchards around Dirang, Bomdila, Rupa and Shergaon.
- Around Rupa, Bomdila, Dirang and Shergaon, growing tomato, cabbage and chilli is a main livelihood, and roses and orchids are grown too.
From the orchard back to the counter, with the day written down
A buying trip to Itanagar or Naharlagun with the list already made
Many shops fill their shelves on a trip to a bigger town, and the trip is long and costs a day. Open the stock the night before, read which goods are low and write the order from that. You walk the market with a list that came from your own shelf, not from a memory of it.
One page that stays open across both harvests
Open a page in the family's name when the first sack goes home. The rice lines carry kilos, and so do the fruit lines. The rice money clears the early lines and the fruit money the later ones. After both harvests the family can see which harvest paid for what.
One page for the work-gang that picks the orchard
A group of pickers comes for the orchard season and shares a cook-pot, so one person takes the rice, oil and tea for all of them and the others pay him later. Open one page in the gang's name. Everything they take is a dated line on it, and when the gang is paid for the season, the page is read out and settled.
Why an Arunachal counter waits on the harvest, the road and the rain
A household with a paddy plot and an orchard has two harvests of money
Rice comes in once, and fruit from the slopes comes at another time, so a family's cash arrives in two lumps with a long gap between. The shop gives salt, oil and soap through the gap and waits. The notebook has a line for each, and when the first lump comes nobody can say which lines belonged to which wait.
A shop that is one job among several
Many shop owners also look after a paddy plot or an orchard. When you are out in the field, a son, a wife or a neighbour keeps the counter and writes the sales on whatever paper is near. In the evening you sit down with loose slips and a cash box and try to match them. A sale that went on the back of a packet is the one that goes missing.
Stock that must be ordered before the road turns bad
On a hill road the rains turn the road bad, and a truck comes late or not at all. The sack of rice or the box of batteries that ran out last week cannot be fetched in an hour, because there is no hour's road to fetch it by. The next delivery is days away, so the order has to leave before the road turns.
Tools for a shop between the paddy field and the hill road
Credit book (khata)
The page of a household that has both a paddy plot and an orchard, left open through both harvests.
Daily reports
Each day's sales when you were out at the orchard, read by lamplight in the evening, a day at a time.
Bills on your phone
Three bills made one after another for three families who came down together on one vehicle, before it leaves again.
Godown stock
The village godown counted by itself, so the sacks waiting behind the town shop are always a number you can read.
Low stock warnings
A level for salt and cooking oil, the two things a household cannot go to the next village for, so you order before the walk to town.
What Arunachal shop owners ask before they start
A family has a paddy plot and an orchard. Can one page carry what it owes after each harvest?
Yes. Keep one page for the family through the whole year. Each sack taken is a dated line, each payment goes on the same page, and after each harvest the last line shows what is left.
I buy goods in town and carry them to my village shop. Can I check my list against the stock?
Yes. Open the stock before the trip and read which items are low, and write your order from it. When the goods arrive, note them against your supplier and the stock goes up by what came.
A neighbour pays me in rice instead of money. How do I show it on his page?
Write the rice as a payment line, with its weight and the rate you agreed. The page then shows what he owed, what the rice was worth and what is still left.
A family is hosting a wedding and takes sacks of rice and oil for the guests. Can I keep that apart from its usual page?
Yes. Open a second page in the family's name for the wedding. The sacks and the payments go on it, and the family's everyday page stays as it was.
Papum Pare's orchards and Changlang's herds
Farming and fruit growing are the main income in Papum Pare, though many people also run small businesses. A small shop there is often one of several jobs in the same household, kept beside a field or an orchard.
Oranges, pineapple, banana, guava, litchi, large cardamom and pears are among the fruit grown across Papum Pare. With so many kinds of fruit, a household's money does not come in on one day but in pieces over the year, and a shop that sells to such homes sees the money arrive in the same pieces.
Most people in Changlang live by farming and rearing cattle, pigs, goats and poultry, with trade in local products as extra income. A shop there sells to households whose money comes from animals as well as crops, and whose accounts depend on when an animal or a harvest is sold.