Tuesday's Vegetable Market

Going to the market to purchase vegetables is a new learning exprience every time. There are the vegetable vendors, a breed of people specialised in remembering names, prices and profit margins of every brinjal and tomato. Then there are all those who come to purchase (me included)... a microcosm of the world population itself! Here are some who caught my eye today...

Besides these two (or within these two) general categories of people, one gets to see some poor nomads collecting some throw-away vegetables or those which drop off the baskets and sacks.
There are also some who 'recycle' these, along with stolen livestock, in another corner of the same market!

There are the hotel cooks who make a round of the market to gather all the left overs of the past week - for a pittance. The reason: the vendor has no use of them. All he can do is throw them away. But for the hotel guy, he can very well use these for his kitchen since none of those who frequent the hotel for meals ever step in the kitchen to see what's cooking! He might as well cook all dried and rotten things but in the final mixture of the curry it tastes good! All of this he can purchase for any price that he decides (but not the vegetable vendor).

There are those who collect just a handful of vegetables: families who can afford no more and will have to stretch them till next Tuesday or those who think money is for something greater than silly vegetables.

At all entry points into the market are the 'tax collectors' those who have taken the market place on hire from the panchayat. No one escapes their hawk-vision! Everyone who gets in something to be sold has to deposit some prearranged price at his 'desk'. One can witness more bargaining here than at the stalls!