A Walk with Kantaben

As soon as I entered Kalupur Sabzi-Mandi (vegetable market) in the city of Ahmedabad with my uncle I started sneezing violently. It sounded like a volley of barks made by an adolescent dog.  No, I do not own a dog nor did I suffer from cold at that time. The sneezing was the response given by my olfactory system to the strong mix of smells that greeted me as soon as I entered the dusty lane of Kalupur Sabzi-Mandi.

Smells are like time capsules, they take you back to the time when you last encountered them. They have the capability to jog you down the memory lane and relive that experience again with astonishing clarity. However, a mix of strong smells can jinx your mind with multiple images floating around in your head. Sorry, I am digressing from the incident, so back to the 'lane of smells'.

Kalupur Sabzi-Mandi is one of the biggest and cheapest vegetable markets of Ahmedabad. People from all stratas of society fill up their weekly baskets every Sunday with a wide variety of vegetables which come from farms across Gujarat. One thing that clearly stands out every Sunday is that the ratio of male to female buyers is highly skewed in favour of males. Uncles park their cars in front of closed shops as early as 6 in the morning and then take a small walk to the 'lane of smells'; the chaos that greets you there is oddly satisfying.

Once I was over the chaos and the shouts and smells part, I observed the plethora of colours that lay sprawled on the ground in front of every vendor. It was a feast for the eyes, a rainbow made out of vegetables of every shape and size. I trailed behind my uncle who was now swiftly moving from vendor to vendor just to enquire about the prevailing rates of vegetables. Finally, he stopped in front of a vendor and began bargaining for a bulk purchase. After a short lap of negotiations a consensus was reached which was followed by selection and packaging of a number of vegetables in a sack. He told the vendor to keep the sack aside and told me that we would collect them on our way back.  As we continued our journey ahead, we followed the same process several times, I was a bit tensed for our journey back since our overall weight was a bit north of 20 kgs. Finally, the lane ended with some big fruit shops, these shops harboured an eclectic mix of imported and indigenous fruit and were the eye candy of the entire market.

Before approaching the fruit vendors I found my uncle scouting for someone, he was asking a few nearby vendors for 'hemali'. This was the first time I had heard the term 'hemali' so I did a quick check on google and found this - 'Hemali is a Gujarati name for girls, meaning to bring wealth; Gold'. This did nothing if not increase my curiosity, so I approached my uncle to ask him about the same when an elderly lady approached us. The lady quickly struck a conversation with my uncle in pure Gujarati language which I could only make out in bits and pieces. She seemed to be negotiating on the weight of something and the distance to our car. The lady could be in her late 50s or early 60s. She wore a yellow saree and had a small red bindi on her forehead. Her face and eyes had the feel of the soil we were standing on, as if she belonged here. My confusion was quickly doused once the conversation ended and my uncle gave me a task to do. I was to guide the elderly lady (hemali was a common name for a female vegetable porter) to all the vendors who had our vegetables and finally take her to our car which was parked outside the lane. Yes, the lady would carry all the vegetables! Almost 20 kgs of vegetables on her head ! Even after a few moments I could not digest the fact the we were asking an almost 60 year old lady to carry 20 kgs of vegetables for us. I turned towards my uncle to argue on this when I noticed that he had already strolled off in the direction of fruit shops. The elderly lady or 'hemali' was looking at me for directions and had already donned on a ring shaped cloth on her head, similar to the one used by porters at railway stations. Feeling a bit helpless I started walking towards the vendors who upon seeing me handed the vegetable sack to the 'hemali' who kept on placing them over her head, one on the top of other. As we walked towards the car I couldn't help notice the footwear she was wearing because there was none. She walked barefoot on stones and gravel with a grace of a ballet dancer. The 20 kg on her head did not deter her from giving a quick smile to familiar faces who greeted her on the way.

On the way back I tried to strike a conversation with her in my broken Gujarati which she acknowledged with a kind smile. She had two sons and a daughter. The sons were married and worked as construction workers and the daughter was married to a peon working in a small village in Gujarat. She missed her grandchildren who would come to meet her once a year. She stayed in a slum nearby with her husband who was bedridden due to paralysis and was previously a construction worker. The medication was costly and while her sons sent some money from their wages it was never enough. She herself would earn somewhere between Rs. 100 - 150 in a day after toiling for 14 hrs.  While she was explaining how beautiful and smart her grandchildren were, I noticed the happiness and gaiety in her voice. There wasn't any bitterness towards the hardships that she faced everyday, no grudge towards how unfair life had been to her, she was just happy talking about her beautiful grandchildren and how god had been kind that they didn't have any disease.

We reached the car and she slowly unloaded the vegetables in the car trunk. As she turned around towards the market, I asked, "tamaru naam su che"(What is your name?). "Kantaben" she said with a quizzing smile, as if it had been a long time since someone had asked her or called her by her name. While she walked back towards the market, all I could think was the satisfaction with which she lived her life. The satisfaction which is bereft of any lofty ambitions, the satisfaction of being able to earn a living, the satisfaction of being independent.

Today, when I tried cooking after a long time, the smell of spices took me back to the 'lane of smells' and to 'Kantaben', because smells are like time capsules.