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5 Kilometers and 50 years

The time change appears very apparent, all of a sudden, around the new year. I woke up to the fact that I am on the other side of eighty and so on.

On the first tuesday of the new year, my better half coaxed me out of slumber to get into some action and finish long pending chores. I reluctantly agreed and offered a cup of coffee to her if she accompanied me. She thought of it as a great gesture whereas my motive was to share the "workload" - selfish me!

It is only after we got on the road we realised that today is "tuesday" and local malls are all closed in "Gurugram". Once out of slumber, I offered to go on an extended trip to the old market of "Sadar Bazaar".

It was, as expected, a flood of experiences. Shops, more shops and even more shops interspersed with street hawkers and crowded with people. On the road a kilometer long, there are at least 1,000 shops, 400 hawkers and probably 10,000 people at that time.

Range includes or rather extends from restaurants, fresh juice outlets, jewelers, Khadi Bhandars, shoes, groceries, religious materials, music, clothes, rat poison, strings, luggage, sweet meat, vegetables, fruits, decoratives, durables, cereals, mobiles, milk etc. selling branded and non branded goods. Not to mention presence of a post office, a bank, a few travel agent and a couple ATMs.

I was enjoying all of this just like a child who has so found so many attractive things catching the attention.

I noted a few key things :

- each shop was a speciality shop with a greater choice and more personalised service than shops in the famous malls of Gurgaon
- street offered all that you needed
- prices were at least 20-30% cheaper than "super markets" for unbranded goods and 10% cheaper for branded ones
- EVERYTHING sold was of bright colours including sweets


A few other things-

- roads were dirty, very dirty
- only cash transactions
- goods that were only in childhood memories are still available

On walking back, my better half said:

"What a world. I grew up in markets like this (and so did I). It is this India that is in my blood. We did not travel 5 kms from our house; we moved 50 years in past."

I recall a discussion on an economic platform claiming that India lives in 3 centuries simultaneously (or three time zones - past, present and future) in complete harmony. There could not be a better example than Gurgaon.

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