Where the market is still offline

The city’s old Sunday market (a euphemism for many things), nestled in the heart of Chickpet, throws up a contrasting world, just a few kilometres away from the mall-obsessed new city. BHUMIKA K. takes a walk through it

October 18, 2016 04:00 pm | Updated December 01, 2016 06:40 pm IST - Bengaluru

19bgm-Market7

19bgm-Market7

Jostling between the group of young men gathered around a small stool on the pavement I’m curious to see what is attracting such attention. I’m stumped. With an orange plastic jug filled with colourful wax and a lone burning candle standing amidst it, is a man selling strips of “industrial strength” sealant to mend cracked plastic ware.

If a plastic jug is broken at home, I would throw it and buy a new one, or re-purpose it as a saucer under some potted plant. There are few takers for it among the young men too and I realise they had gathered around for the “show” as the hawker melted the sealant on the candle flame.

This defines for me the famous Sunday market in the heart of one of Bengaluru’s oldest business districts -- the Chickpet area. The market runs along the length of B.V.K. Iyengar Road, branching off into many little gullies into Sultanpet. I remember being taken there as a child by my father, over 20 years ago -- my most shiny memories from then were the antiques and brassware. Even now my eyes are scouring for them. And I’m not disappointed. A pair of brass “Deepada Malli” for Rs. 4000 being sold off the street and a neckpiece strung with semi-precious stones for Rs. 2000!

“All original madam,” I’m assured. An antique fish-shaped cylinder lock looks tempting but it has been fitted with an ugly new steel ward. I ogle the wood-lined binoculars and telescope, the gramophone and the stained glass lampshades.

A few kilometres away is the different world of shopping complexes, malls. And behind these stores set up on the road and pavement, are the wholesale stores (shut on Sunday). While online shopping is all de rigeur now, the offline kind is thriving as well. Here is a doting dad, with diamonds in his ears, buying pink and purple dusty rip-off Crocs for his daughter for 50 bucks.

A young man sits and shines up a huge steel drum with ash and ditch-water from the road. Several older women are pulling out used shoes and new shiny ones from huge plastic bags and arranging them on the plastic sheet before them. I’m transported to a different world. Where old rickety television sets are playing “Chandini O meri Chandini” (to prove to customers they are in working condition), shiny glass top stoves, induction stoves, microwaves, refrigerators, washing machines... the young men gather around the stall selling Chinese goods -- electric shavers are the hot favourite. Steel weights, or dumbells are a popular product too. Mobile cases are the second hottest product for sure. Earlier, people came here for cheap floppy disks, I remember. Now it’s the Chinese USBs. Which jostle with space for rudrakshi malas and astrologers reading palms.

From the hawker on the cycle selling yellow chunky coconut burfi for 10 bucks for two pieces, to the enthusiastic young man screaming and hawking “Apple” branded formal shirts at Rs. 100, to the second-hand aluminium Prestige cooker which can be bargained for Rs. 150, the drilling machine that a man and his wife are haggling for, quoting “boni” (first auspicious sale of the day) as the dangler, the Sunday market holds many in thrall. A group of young college students are holding up several black-colour t-shirts, all in the heavy-metal vein, asking “Machi, nodo idu channagidiya?”. At Rs. 80 a piece, and Rs. 200 for three, I’m nodding my head. The women are largely gravitating towards colourful dresses and garish, red teddy bears, kidswear, school bags and utensils.

Many have called it chor bazaar, branding it a smuggler’s market that mustn’t be encouraged. Call it an alternate market, a de-glamourised second-hand flea, or what you will... Around 2009 possibly, a man was shot in the market apparently using a gun and bullets sold on the market’s streets. A ban ensued...but the market grew back, controlled and checked, losing its sheen gradually over the years. The dimensions and the beauty of what it holds have dimmed.

Earlier in the day, I’ve arrived to a fairly more saner scene, when the rush still hasn’t begun. It is the weekend before Ayudha Pooja, the stores of the wholesale market have already conducted pooja, so there are plenty of rotten smelly banana stems lying on the road. The Namma Metro construction has meant that there are cordoned off areas, metal barricades, dug up dusty roads and hundreds of people hell-bent on business, amidst it all.

The pourakarmikas are cleaning up. The road begins to get jammed as small trucks and autos, stop to offload the maal -- wooden stools, metal kitchen stands, mixers, shiny new plastic ware, cookers...my eyes go wide with each passing stall. Hawkers are fixing colourful plastic umbrellas to their scooters and the seat becomes the shop under the shade. An overpowering smell of chitranna and masala vade permeates the air - breakfast for the vendors. A lady in a fancy hat gets out of a car on the opposite side of the street, even as her driver stands-by, to buy rusty huge garden shears! And I’m amazed as I see in the distance, a noisy family piling into a rickety Maruti van with the washing machine they’ve just bought secured on the roof with ropes.

Rusty used nuts, screws, bolts, rope chains, hammers and saws, spanners and other tools, find takers among the older men, many of whom are examining them in great detail. Many DIY fanatics turn up to buy motors and parts they will go back home and use to design their own contraption. I find an old man selling attar and incense sticks sitting under a tempo for shade!

I’ve been walking around several hours and tell myself a souvenir has to be bought. A pair of knee-length leather and suede boots for Rs. 200 is what I settle for. “Original hai madam. Sirf iska jhip hee do sau rupiya hai,” is how the seller promotes it. Onward the rumbling stomach pushes, through the pete’s winding gullies till we reach the legendary Udupi Sri Krishna Bhavan in Balepet (founded in 1926) and wolf down a masala dose with a blob of butter, paying Re. 1 extra on the bill for sitting in a family room!

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