Sabzi Mandi…

… So I am just a year and a half old in Bangalore … and now I love this place. But there was something that was driving me crazy and making me not like Bangalore in the beginning. And the reason was that I could not find the market place… and by market place, I meant sabzi mandi

Sabzi mandi I wanted, fish market I wanted, fruits and flowers market I wanted and I couldn’t find them. I was too fearful to venture out alone… ok, now don’t give me that what-do-you-mean-alone-look… I am just meek and unadventurous by nature

So anyways, I still wanted all that… I mean no amount of Big Bazaars and Spars and colonial supermarkets were helping me… I just wanted the rough, crude, fresh mandi…

And then one day my husband and I found it Found one of them… the HAL Market… there are many like that in Bangalore actually, but this was what I found quite close to my house… and did I love it or what!

 

Image courtesy: Mothernature.wordpress.com

 

 

My husband is a squeaky clean Monica Geller kind of a guy who hates wet mud, sweat and grime and anything crude. He loves the mosaic floorings and freezers in the food markets in malls … I like the mandi I squealed with joy when I saw it all, green, fresh, vendors yelling out the day’s price, fresh fish, baskets full of fruits and coriander leaves still with all the mud on them… trucks unloading tonnes of vegetables…it was just so amazing… fresh, green… to the risk of sounding over excited, I even told my husband that it feels great to be in these markets once in a while… Sujalam Suphalam malayaja sheetalam, shashya shyamalam, mataram… is what comes to my head….

Mother, I bow to thee!
Rich with thy hurrying streams,
bright with orchard gleams,
Cool with thy winds of delight,
Dark fields waving Mother of might,
Mother free.
Glory of moonlight dreams,
Over thy branches and lordly streams,
Clad in thy blossoming trees,
Mother, giver of ease
Laughing low and sweet!
Mother I kiss thy feet,
Speaker sweet and low!
Mother, to thee I bow.

(http://o3.indiatimes.com/gayathrinagarajan/archive/2006/11/10/2473321.aspx)

I love mandis and haats of any place… I have said that before… they define the character of any place, they say so much about the people who live in that city or town, what they like to eat, what they wear and what is it that they buy.

And the wafting smells of everything fresh is such an earthy and a humbling feeling…You must visit the mandi to know that… Give the mall a break and a skip and try the local bazaar… its fun!

 

Courtesy: Mothernature.wordpress.com