Mandi Skills


Grocery shopping is an art which requires awareness and experience to master. In India, most of the people buy grocery from small vendors in a place called mandi or bazaar. In order to bag the best of fresh pieces for a good price, you need skills which I find lacking among the millennials. There have been instances where the fruits which I had bought were not of good quality or sometimes I have paid much higher price for the items bought. Here green grocery is not like packaged goods in supermarkets which would have a MRP and best before date therefore skills are required in a mandi bazaar.

The demand-supply ratio is the basis of these mandis. The prices fluctuate quite often in a wide range. One has to be aware of the current prices otherwise you might end up paying much higher price for the items bought. These skills come with experience which requires the best of hand-picked fresh pieces to be selected from the lot. Good quality fruits and vegetables are chosen on the basis of colour, firmness, ripeness, smell, sometimes sound, weight, blemishes and texture, basically using the senses. The same goes for fish, chicken and meat.

A mandi is the busiest place in a city during the peak hours. It is also not the cleanest; heaps of garbage and rotten stuff would be just lying at corners giving off bad odour. It is an unhygienic and unpleasant sight especially if fish, chicken and meat are being sold. Stray animals, crows and insects are a common sight; especially the dogs, cats and cows would be roaming in pride of their territory. Still customers prefer to buy from these small vendors in mandi mainly because they bring fresh produce which is available at a good rate provided you have the bargaining skills.

A normal day in a mandi starts at around 5 am and ends by 12pm but in some places there are evening shifts as well. Punctuality is also one of the key of a good grocery shopper. Apart from the crowd jostling and hustling there is constant yelling from the vendors to attract more buyers who would be screaming as well in order to bargain. A mandi is a chaotic place, but the satisfaction which you get after a good grocery shopping is something else.

Location: Diamond Harbour Rd, Jele Para, Behala, Kolkata, West Bengal 700034, India

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Tale behind my Unusual Surname

Ever thought about surname? Sure, I did. My surname is Shaw and that is not so common in India. Quite often I am asked, where do you belong to, what’s your native place, are you a Christian, are you a Muslim or more directly how come your surname is Shaw. Once I was asked are you an Anglo-Indian. So every time I meet a new person, I have to explain why is my name Shaw. But, sometimes I also get complemented on having such a cool surname. It’s actually quite a tale behind my surname. People have weird surnames, some are funny too. Especially in India, which is a land of diversity, you can find all kinds of surname. Your surname or as for south India your initials are supposed to carry your family legacy with it. Some people have their father’s name, grandfather’s name, community’s name or even villages name as a part of their surname. With all these sub-names, you tend to have quite a big name, so you have to use initials. But, in my case I have a short and cool surname. ...
Read more

Learning's from Farming

Image
  The pandemic has wreaked havoc on life as we knew. But at the same time, it has taught us to seek contentment in the smallest of things. We have learned to appreciate and to be grateful for the things that really matter. Although I understand, in this tsunami all are not in the same boat as some have a ship, some have a yacht, some have a boat or some are just staying afloat on a plank. But believe me, you are privileged enough if you made it safe and sound this far. Confined in our places, we have found new hobbies and things to do. Not just for the gram but engaging in activities that interest you will keep your spirits up in these unprecedented times. One such activity our family started is farming. Fortunately, at our new place in Mysore, we had land to spare which was unused for many years and manure from accumulated leaves and weed was an added advantage. The idea was to make ourselves self-sufficient in vegetables. At first, it seemed pretty challenging as we are no skil...
Read more

Change is the only constant

Image
Life as we know is fleeting, changeable and imperfect. All things human are short lived and perishable. It is true that “Change is universal and permanent, rest everything is transient”. In fact, the very existence of homo-sapiens on Earth is because of evolution or in other words a series of changes brought in by nature. Changes can be gradual like one’s depleting health condition or sudden like demonetisation. But, sooner or later we all have to face difficult times, and the way we deal with this can make a huge difference to our quality of life.  It’s not what happens to you, but how you react that matters. The nature in its wildest form teaches us the same, survival of the fittest. You must have heard the story of two frogs. There were two frogs, both were kept in separate tumblers filled with normal water. For one of it the temperature was raised very slowly every day, so that it can adjust to the change but beyond a certain point its body was deteriorated and it finall...
Read more