The Old Man's Shop

It was an evening in early August. In this small town in West Bengal, just a hundred miles west of Kolkata. Evenings during this time of the year are usually pleasant. The last vestiges of the long drawn out monsoon makes a couple of appearances before journeying farther south, where they keep up their lively and tireless performance for the rest of the year. Well..almost.Today was one such day. The evening was without the Rains. Slightly cool. A light breeze was blowing. Mrs B was getting ready for an "outing" to the local market place. It was a short walk from her house to the market and the weather was perfect for walking. However she did not feel like walking. Seemed to her that she was alwayyys walking. She wanted to ride a rickshaw*. A mischievous self in her liked to think that riding a rickshaw was aristocratic! She had always associated that with Mana (Mrs B's grandmother). How Mana would get down from the rickshaw, after her evening rounds of magazine club, bridge games and marketing! Piru kaka** would bring in the bags after her, and Daidai (Mrs B's grandfather) would be waiting at the door to greet her. And to think Mana had been away for only a couple of hours! That was regale!
Mrs B just couldn't help but give in to her desire of riding a rickshaw to the market.
The day, however, had not been as perfect as was the evening. The morning was cloudy. Mana had been upset and irritated that even today she couldn't hang her clothes outside to dry. Well..she had been upset most of last week and that was not just because of overcast skies.. it was just another few days before Mrs.B flew west again. Mrs B had been upset too. So today afternoon, when the sun peeked through the clouds, for the first time in weeks, she decided to go to the bajaar (the local market place) in the evening. That would surely cheer her up.

Now, going to the bajaar was not exactly like going grocery shopping. The bajaar also was very much unlike the grocery stores here. It is a collection of rows of small rooms next to each other; each room being a "shop" geared to sell specific sets of merchandise e.g. the music shop would have a variety of cassettes, batteries ...CDs and DVDs.
Each "row" divided up the market place into several small "regions", also called "markets" e.g. the vegetable market, the fruit market, the flower market, the meat and fish market, the sweet shops , the tailoring shops, stationary shops, banks, grocery shops, internet cafes...all distributed in that random order. Open spaces separated the "markets". In these open areas vendors would sell anything from day old newspapers, handmade cane-wood-clay goods, corn roasted over open flame to regular snack and beverage-all in makeshift stalls. These vendors did not “own” any shop. They would put up their stalls early in the morning and take it back with them late in the night when the bajaar closed and the shopkeepers locked their stores.

In India, this is how a typical market would look like...well..till a few years back.

Mrs B loved to walk aimlessly around this bajaar. She had been there at all ages, at all times and with all degrees of necessity. Sometimes it had been early in the morning to buy a kite paper for the craft class in school; sometimes, in the late evening, to buy a present for a friend’s birthday party ; in the afternoon to buy a soda; late at night to have a few pages photocopied for the exam next morning; to stroll with a friend or just to meet Mana, who would go there every evening at around six o'clock for grocery shopping. And..at no time had she been disappointed.
This Bajaar, was also in a sense, The center for entertainment in this small town. It was interesting at how one would "chance" upon the next door neighbour and talk for an hour about an upcoming wedding. Mind you they chatted about this only a few hours ago over the evening tea. So, there was always a possibility that a voice from a long lost time would call out to Mrs B as she walked aimlessly through the teeming mass of buyers and sellers who seemed to occupy every corner of this bajaar. The voice may be that of the girl she hated as a second grade kid. Or that of the school teacher who taught her Wordsworth in high school. Or the rickshaw kaka on whose vehicle she had sat on the foot rest as the naughty kid. It may also be of Mana's coming back from Babloo's dokan (the sweet shop at the rear end of the marketplace) or of her best friend who went somewhere far off and was simply visiting the little town. So even though she wasn't acquainted with all the people who frequented the bajaar, she felt a sense of familiarity with this crowd.

Today, however, a major purpose of her trip to the bajaar was to have a packet of snacks that she was exceptionally fond of. An old vendor, who had a small stall in the open space in front of the bajaar, sold "baro bhaja" (a spicy mix of nuts, spices, vegetables and puffed rice).
His was a small stall; more like a table, on four rickety wheels, and a cover supported by four flimsy wooden posts. He would push that stall all the way from his village up to the market every evening around five o' clock. His stall would have several mouth watering ingredients..varaities of nuts, chanachur (a spicy mix), puffed rice, some spices and half cut onions, tomatoes, green chilies-all stuffed carefully in heavy glass jars. The lids of these jars had glass knobs on their tops. It was known as Dadu'r dokan (the old man's shop).

This stall had been the primary source of entertainment for Mrs B all throughout her school life...more so in junior school. Whenever Mammam (her mother) would allow some extra changes, she would rush off with Buni (her younger sister) and other kids of the neighbor hood to dadu'r dokan to buy a packet of barobhaja. The journey to Dadu's was as exciting as was the snack. It would be the time for hatching notorious plans to rag the new kid in the neighborhood. Or to solve some pending work for their doll's wedding party next week. And then they would be there at Dadu's. Almost always the first customers.
She would pick out her choice of ingredients ....and as she did so, he would lift the lids of the glass jars carefully and pick out meager quantities of each and put them in a big plastic cup. How excited she used to get watching that! It had always seemed to her that inside those jars were the best eatables that could possibly exist. And how lucky Dadu was...he could have as much of those as he wanted and ..whenever he wanted! He would then stir them all together vigorously and put them in small paper containers, made from old newspapers, and hand it over to her! Oh those first few fingerfuls! She took little mouthfuls. So that it never ended...

Much as his snack was desirable..so were his stories. In reality, they were just the day-to-day happenings of his life which he told with a placid face, in a monotonic voice and in a strange rural accent. He would talk of his perpetually ill cow, the problems in the paddy field due to the untimely rain, his meager lunch and his family. She later realized that those were not really stories. They had to themselves a touch of desperation …a sign of resignation. But to little B they were from a world beyond hardships. A place where there were no home works, no studies, no fixed lunch menus, and most importantly from a world full of glass jars, filled with goodies, which could be opened anytime and every time...one just had to want it!

Over time, even as she was growing up, Dadu's Dokan kept losing its charm to the kids of the neighbourhood. The market grew. Many vendors had crowded the open space. They sold Rolls, Chowmein, and a plethora of delicious fast food. Bright halogen lamps lighted up the stalls and kids flocked to them like flies. She was also drawn to those stalls. Dadu'r dokan faded into a little corner, only a week lamp trying vainly to indicate its existence. Only poor kids occasionally went there.
She went off to college and never remembered Dadu again. On her way back to home on weekends, she would just pass by it, hardly giving it a glance...
Today, after so many years, when it was almost time to fly west again, and she was walking towards the bajaar...she remembered Dadu'r dokan...and all of a sudden , she felt in her mouth the old tang of barobhaja. She hoped that Dadu was there...unknowingly she walked a little faster. Was he there? Was he even alive? As she neared the bajaar, she saw the stall..small, rickety and in the corner. And then she saw those glass jars. They still had those round knobs on their tops. They were filled with nuts and chanachur. Dadu looked a little old. But he always had looked that way. Her mouth watered at the thought of that small packet. Today she was going to have a thousand of those little packets..
She was glad that she had come to bajaar today..somehow she felt that a part of the old world still existed..maybe in little corners. But she could reach them..anytime..she just just had to want it. It was reassuring. And she understood for the first time, perhaps vaguely, how it was for Dadu to own the little stall with the glass jars..which he could open..anytime, anywhere..he just had to want it...maybe.

*a three wheeled cycle with cushioned seats in the rear for seating at most two passengers.It was driven (also referred to as pulled) by a man.

** Piru Kaka was the the rickshawa puller who accompanied Mana everywheere.From births, weddings to funerals.He expired two years back.Mana had lost her best man since then. Kaka means Uncle in bengali.