Dadar Vegetable Market

One morning, a fellow photographer and I decided to visit the wholesale vegetable market in Dadar in central Mumbai, for photography. So, as we went around exploring the vegetable market, we spoke to some of the sellers there to know more about the place.

The market opens as early as 3-3:30AM in the morning. At this time trucks laden with vegetables for sale arrive, and the sellers set shop. 

One of the sellers told me that buyers start pouring in, as early as 4AM. The buyers are usually caterers, canteen/restaurant cooks, local vegetable sellers, and also those buying for their home. 

The vegetables come from all a huge variety of places, north and south, east and west of the country.

Each vegetable sold here has stalls dedicated to solely selling that vegetable only. Some sell according to meals cooked.

The market is fast paced, as you would expect any business in Mumbai to be.

The air in the market is filled with the smells of chillies, potatoes, tomatoes, leafy vegetables, etc. But the smell of chilli is the most dominant, and there is a lot of chilli dust. So watch your nose, while walking through there. 

Abandoned Laundry Shop

Another one of the several street sights I captured in Chennai during my PhD days over there, made into a sketch. This one is a closed down laundry shop (from the writing on the wall that says "Ramesh Ironing and Dry Wash"). Here is the sketch.

Abandoned Laundry Shop

Dear House Owners

Most house owners (especially the upper middle class ones) live on a massive prejudice. This is a prejudice towards unmarried men and unmarried women. In most of these so called 'societies', youngsters with jobs in a city new to them are often told either by the brokers or directly by the owners that 'we don't allow bachelors' (referring both female and male bachelors). Bachelors get very raw deals, when it comes to that. They get places to live, which their parents find uncomfortable, when they visit them. They get fleeced both by the brokers, and by money-minded owners who will readily accept them as tenants, due to their desparation for a place to live.

 In the brains of these so called 'homely' house owners (brains so small and narrow, that even an electron microscope can't see them), bachelors aren't humans, they are ogres, that ought to be ostracized for not being in that institution called marriage. You know what, we bachelors are mature working adults, I hope you've read the word 'mature'. Below is a note to these so called 'sanskaari' owners.

(Not so)Dear House Owners,

  FUCK YOU!! FUCK you and your hypocrisy, for you were unmarried at one point of time, or you have kids who will grow up (or are grown up) to face the same prejudice (prior to their weddings), when they settle in a job in some other town. You are that (cancerous) scum of the society that believes that people cannot have friends of a gender different from theirs. You believe that friends of different genders are only there for having sex (a fictitous character from a comedy sketch explains it better here. Actually that line of thinking clearly reveals who is a bigger pervert. You are the reason that our society will never ever become progressive. There is a lot of amount of sexism in you, about which all my female friends will tell you lots more, and more. You are the ones who display tonnes and tonnes of casteism as well. You better hear about it from every one of the people you've oppressed based on their caste, and that list is long, really really long.  You are the most judgemental people on this planet.

So long you 'sanskaari' barnacles.

Yours (not) Sincerely,

A Bachelor