Defeating dish washing by a few points, buying vegetables is the most boring and arduous household task. It’s a multidisciplinary art — economics, botany, mathematics all come into play. Even when strolling through the vegetable market, an astute buyer makes a mental calculation of the time the produce on display will stay fresh. Longer that window, greater the flexibility in the kitchen. During that pre-delivery inspection, a few vegetables such as okra get mutilated. Fortunately, seasoned buyers can intuitively identify the right vegetable with panache.
Every weekend, I accompany my father to the market, a place with unmatched dynamism and uniqueness. Not many locations can boast so many entry and exit points with the core of a circuitous maze. As we move inside, the density of air gets thicker with competing aromas. In different seasons, the market expresses its richness through a variety of vegetables. Beneath its dynamic nature, there is an underlying current of aggression stemming from a sense of urgency. The area gets consumed by the repeated chants of hawkers. Gleaming in sweat with watchful eyes, they are proficient in multitasking — exchanging notes, weighing items on a shaky balance, sprinkling water on their stock, bargaining with people.
Suddenly, there is a loud shriek piercing through the commotion. Everyone stops in their tracks. A bull appears from nowhere breaking the crowds, and the buyers dash helter-skelter. Sellers collaborate swiftly to create a green corridor, steering the bull out of this madness. As time passes, the second law of thermodynamics is followed — chaos and entropy keep increasing in the market.
