Walking through a roadside vegetable market

Pumpkins

This is something that still is fresh in my mind.

While driving through Koramangala, I saw mountains and mountains (piles and piles rather) of fresh vegetables and fruits.

I had to walk through that market.

The traffic on the main road was unbelievable.

One had to walk really early in the morning to navigate through all of it, cross the road and walk through the street market.

Yes, mountains of pumpkins.

Coconuts.

Potatos, onions, garlic and more.

The best part was walking through a series of shops that sold nothing other than cilantro.

My God, the smell of such volumes of fresh cilantro was out of the world.

It was like falling into an Indian salad bowl.

Well, commerce goes on.

Despite the well manicured supermarkets nearby, it is business as usual at these stores.

That reminds me of an ex vegetable vendor in Chennai who had quit his trade just because he couldnt keep pace with competition from supermarkets.

Very much akin to cornerside grocery stores  disappearing in the US thanks to the advent of the super and hypermarkets.

It does seem that the convenience of shopping in airconditioned quarters makes the cost of the ‘supermarkup’ worth it.