City Market

If you are a little depressed about the cards life has dealt you and you've managed to build a little whining tower with them (like I have), City Market at 5 AM will bring it crashing down. However, that was not the stated purpose when my friend and I plotted to drive down to City Market at 4.30 AM one Friday morning. We just wanted to do something random. It was a bit of bad timing though - the morning of Varalakshmi Puja meant that prices and the crowd had as much as quadrupled overnight.

Our bleary eyes turned wide when we stepped out of the car. Why were so many people up and about at 5 in the morning? The only protective armor we had was a cloth bag A had brought along. And our elbows. I've often wondered how people get trampled to death in festival melas, and I got my answer here. In all the melee, we couldn't really figure out what we were stepping on. It could have been anything from rotten vegetables to a human head, I could not have told the difference. It took a lot of elbowing and jostling and all the power of our 5'2" frames to push through the crowd and get into the market.

The early morning light and the orange sodium vapor lamps reflect off the reams and reams of marigold and chrysanthemum laid out in tall coils like some unending Hanuman's tail. No way to stand and stare though. There is every possible color of roses stacked around. There are tens of flowers I do not even know the names of. We jostled and elbowed some more and found that it was only the entrance to the market that was so crowded. Once we are through the entrance, I make the mistake of looking down. In the orange glow, I see that we had been stepping through ankle-high muck all along. Perhaps a foot-high in places. I do not go in for a closer look, it must simply be a rich mix of every possible waste you could imagine. Hmm. I have had enough discomfort. This is not my playground. 

A hundred bodies pressed against each other. The stench of survival. Flowers in the millions,

but the fragrance long gone. Here a young man struggles with a huge stack of flowers over his head, a bundle much bigger than he should try to carry. Flowers - a burden for him, a blessing for me. Two sides, as always. As everything else. An old lady stacks up shriveled jacket potatoes, remains of the previous day perhaps. A couple of nuns stand by the side, a little taken aback by the crowd. We make eye contact and smile. Fish out of the water.

We buy a few bunches of flowers. We do not haggle. Maybe it is guilt that did not allow us to even try. We wiggle our way out again. I turn to take a photo, just to say we were here too. After a few more unspoken resolutions to count our blessings, we leave. A gives me a warm hug when she drops me off. I reciprocate with extra warmth; I suppose I just want to share my joy over the cards I've been dealt.e a warm hug when she drops me off. I reciprocate with extra warmth; I suppose I just want to share my jo