Sunday Shopping

This is the Thagaraya Nagar shopping district and the site of the densest non-event crowd I've ever been in. The sheer volume of human activity makes New York look quaintly staid. These are just people shopping, not seeing a ballgame or show or something, just out for a Sunday Stroll and some shopping. They were buying socks and such. This isn't a sale or anything, just a regular day.
T. Nagar, as the locals call it, is made up of all kinds of shops: large 7-story superstores, tiny hole-in-the-wall nooks, street stands, and winding, cramped warrens of improvised covered stands leading in and out of actual buildings. We tended not to like this last sort as well because it became disorienting and easy to end up turned around on the wrong street. And it's not easy to recover lost distance in T Nagar. Even in the stores you have to use this slow shuffling gait. You don't want to go blocks in the wrong direction in this heat.


We saw lots of improvisation that made us smile. This guy is a bicycle coffee vendor. He has giant bags of biscuits and other supplies strapped to the front. He is pouring the dense South Indian coffee syrup into a small plastic cup. Next, he'll dispense hot steamed milk from the spigot on the side of the metal drum strapped to the back of the back. Viola~ coffee to go for only a few rupees, please.
This is an outdoor stall. There were hundreds of these, but good luck finding anything to fit our big, Western bodies. Most things I couldn't get over my shoulders, never mind the rest of me. Val looked hard for tops, but in the end couldn't find what she wanted in the right color. All this shopping and we came up blank.

It was past lunch and I was eyeing a samosa stand when Jona and Mike hollered for me to come over. The gentleman above had come out of his store carrying a melon. It was painted with spots and had a burning swath of camphor on the top. He waved it in the air in a series of circular gestures. Some sort of puja. He dumps the camphor in front of the store (you see the still-burning flame there on the left) and then raises the melon over his head and smashes it down on the ground with great gusto.

Next he finds some coconuts and starts smashing those, too. We've seen that at temples before, as it is fairly common. The signifigance I think is about humbling yourself before god. No one in the street is paying it much attention. In fact, the weird American taking photos of it seems more interesting to most of them. After the shopkeep smashes three he leaves the camphor burnng in front of his store and heads inside. A young girl runs around picking up the coconut pieces, apparently to eat. Later in the day we saw a number of smashed melons scattered around the streets, so I guess this was fairly common.

We had pressed through a lot of distance at this point and the heat was making me want to duck into a shop for a cool drink of water. At length and after an exciting road crossing we find a place. A man ushers us toward the back room where a hand-made sign reads AC Room. It seems odd, but we go in and find ourselves alone in a separate (air-conditioned) dining room. Were things pricier there? The rest of the place was packed. Waiters without much English come over to take our order, sure of a big payday. We aren't hungry, though. We just want some bottled waters and maybe a snack. I see ootapam on the menu and order an onion one.

Ootapam is simiar to dosa; it's basically a thick rice batter pancake which may have something else cooked in. I like the onion, but tomato is ok too. They serve it with chutneys and sambar, which is the tasty veggie lentil stew you dip it in. The one we got here was served on a banana leaf and had some spices over the top as well. Masala maybe?

Of course they bring four instead of one. No worries, though as four dishes and four large bottled waters end up costing about $2.50.

This guy is pulping sugar cane to make a refreshing drink. See the pot below? I've had this before and it's good, but I think the best part is the cool machine they use to make it. If it came in bottles I don't think I'd bother. As long as I'm on the topic, we've been enjoying the fresh lime soda of course but ginger beer is also popular here. It's tasty, but the sharpness catches the American palette of gaurd at first.

The one shopping item I saw for the first time here was wigs and hair extensions. There were stalls for it and street vendors like the woman below. Hair dying is very popular as well. We see very little salt and pepper in the uniformly black heads of hair at work and some of the crew teased one of their counterparts for coloring his hair. We see less henna'd Muslims here. It tends to be more Christian - oh and Sai Baba is everywhere. I'll have to blog about this later.

And of course with that many people, there were beggars. Several of them laid on the ground and pulled themselves along with their legs folded like this. Seeing more than one in the same pose made we wonder what it indicated. Whatever it was, we dropped coin in the cup. The hawkers weren't as bad today, perhaps because there were so many people they just couldn't follow you along.

Overall, I found the crowds at T. Nagar more exciting and fun than troublesome. If I had to do real shopping there instead of mostly people-watching, my patience might wear thin. But, again: that's the most striking thing. Not that there are a million people crammed togther, it's that there are a million people crammed together and getting along with each other. The calm acceptance vibe was striking even as cars and motorcycles push through these insane crowds. Not that it was easy; we all went home and slept afterwards, just that it was astounding. Another amazing sight in India.