My search for organic small onions to sow in my farm led me to the weekly market at Sulur, locally known as the Sulur santhai.
The directions were specific. I was told to take a left turn at the Sulur police station and that the shandy would be just a few hundred meters away. The journey didn’t take as long as I thought it would.
At first sight, the shandy was all that I imagined it to be. A colourful space bustling with an urgency, as traders and visitors went about their business.
Poles of various heights held up temporary roofs made of tarpaulin or thatch, all positioned to shield the sellers from the intense rays of the morning sun.
I got plenty of curious looks at each stall. I was directed to the farthest end when I asked for the onion sellers. There are many of them, each trying to outbid the other with raised voices and attractive deals.
I was looking for small onions of the traditional variety. Sadly, there was only one trader who sold them. All the others sold hybrids. Once I struck a deal, the small sack of onions was quickly loaded into my vehicle.
While I had been bargaining with the onion seller, many of the elderly vendors had been watching the exchange with unconcealed amusement. I was obviously not a regular and they were watching to see what I would do next.
When I pulled out my camera to get a few pictures of the vibrant marketplace, they burst out laughing. While the men posed happily, despite their cosmetic shortcomings, the women adjusted their saris and looked for combs. A few even grumbled that they hadn’t used kajal or powdered their faces.
I walked around looking for traditional produce and was sad to see that only a few sold local vegetables. Some country yams, wild broad beans and rain-fed greens were the only things that suggested that it was a village shandy.
For the most part, carrots, potatoes, cauliflower and beans dominated the vegetable section. When I remarked on this, one woman selling nattu avarai said that soon most people would have no idea of locally grown ingredients, leave alone how to cook them.
The fruit and vegetable sellers share space with people selling other wares too. Next to the heap of greens sat an old man with a display of turmeric-smeared baskets of many sizes and dried grass brooms. These were a quintessential part of households before the plastic invasion. I now know where to go next when my basket needs replacing.
I spied one of my favourite ingredients: groundnuts in the shell. A childhood snack was to boil them with salt, peel and eat the nuts when still warm. At the shandy, the groundnuts had been roasted in the skin. When I snapped them open, a delicious aroma is released and the taste of those smoked nuts… I brought back a kilo to satisfy my nutty cravings.
Among the other prominent displays were metal bowls from Perundurai, sickles from Puliampatti and sambrani cups from Podanur. There were flowers and arappu (for the hair).
But more than anything else this santhai serves as an outing for many of these people. Between their sales, they stretch their feet out, catch up on local gossip, talk about the weather... I even overhead a conversation cursing the mobile phone.
The sandhai is on every Friday from 6.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m
