Freshening Up

Come Sundays , Appa ( dad) had an important work . He used to go to Pudupatinam Market to get the vegetables in his moped. Kalpakkam, being a small township had only one market . Market was flooded with vegetables only on Sundays. There was a huge amount of business going on as mostly all the families made their purchase over the weekend and stocked it for the week.The non veggies would get their pile of fresh fishes and meats on Sundays. Just in case you go to pdpm on Sundays you could catch up with almost all your friends . The vendors knew almost all the residents by heart as did we know the vendors personally. The Kallans, senthils , muthus shops were all lined up just after we took the right from the exit gate .

Appa had the strategy of giving equal business to all the shopkeepers getting one vegetable from each one of them dropping them into his green bag . Appa never used to bargain . I used to silently observe the business acumen of each of the vendors , their speed in dealing with people and calculating the fractional quantities without computers :( . Probably those guys ate more of their own ladies fingers !!!

Amma never used to go the market. She went only on festive occasions to make special purchases. Otherwise she was more reliable on the street vendors like Mookan the Long Nosed

Pallan , Who had a specific teeth structure which gave him this name or Maariamma ,Who had such a big kumkum on a forehead( I used to be scared of her vermilion) . They were more of the door delivery types. They used to scream at the top of their voices to get the attention of the dwellers in the flats. They had specific times for each areas. Our area was covered by them in and about 3:30 pm .

Amma's business was drastically different from Appa's .Amma used to haggle a lot with them even for a rupee. She used to compare all the vegetable vendors prices and always made sure she got the best deal .As a child I used to be amazed by her bargaining skills.. God Knows how she came to know those details sitting back home . Kosuru ( extra vegetables after the normal weighing ) was one important point amma made during her business. Some days I used to get so irritated with Amma over the bargains she made with them . It was another matter that she used to give the hungry vendors food from our house after the business deal was over . I had once asked her why do you have to bargain for one rupee and give the vendor food, instead give that extra rupee to Mariamma . My mothers answer was pretty simple , buying vegetables was business and serving people was humanity ..Point well taken mom..Appreciate it.
Sir , you could either pay the bill for these vegetables over the credit card or use the sodex ho coupons said the person on the otherside of the counter in the air condtioned Fresh outlet near my house at Hyd .My lifestyle has changed even for buying vegetables. I walked out of the outle t with the frozen vegetables pondering about the hundreds of Kallans and Mariammas who would have been affected by the Chain of Outlets like Reliance , Fresh , Subikshas .....

Cheers,
Madhu
-Vegetable buyer .