One has travelled fairly extensively all over the world during one's hey days, and one of the things I noticed was the difference in the character and ambience of the roads/ streets in Europe, the USA as compared to our own Indian towns and cities. Those in the developed countries are very well engineered and regulated as compared to ours. But they are all so sanitised and sterile, uniform in their disciplined lifelessness, meant only for traffic to pass through as quickly as possible. They have no "character". Our Indian roads and streets, on the other hand, support a distinct, albeit chaotic, eco-system of people- murderous motorists, suicidal jay-walkers, illegal hawkers, teeming masses of pedestrians, persistent beggars, quick fingered pickpockets, ruminating cows- a veritable sub culture of Indianness or of the particular region that town belongs to. Over time various roads have even specialised in the business they support: think College street in Calcutta (books), Meston road in Kanpur( leather items), Lakkar bazaar and Tibetan market in Shimla, Johari bazaar Jaipur, Chor bazaar Mumbai, Fashion street Pune, Arpora bazaar Goa, Police bazaar Shillong, Jew Town Kochi, Ima market Shillong ( where all shopkeepers are women!). Quite often these streets define the towns themselves and they reflect the richness and historicity of our many cultures.
These street markets have grown organically with their towns and cities and quite often are better known than the towns they are located in, such is their iconic status. But they are now endangered in our blind rush to "modernise" our cities to make them fit for a five trillion dollar economy. They are being torn down and banished on grounds of security and "urban planning", to make way for flyovers, broader roads, metros, more cars and the ubiquitous " transit oriented development." In the process decades of history, tradition and culture are being buried under tarmacadam and concrete piles and livelihoods of thousands being snatched away.
One such market was the Daryaganj Book Market, held on the pavements of Daryaganj ( Delhi) every Sunday. According to the historian Sohail Hashmi, Daryaganj was established as a market by one of the queens of Shah Jehan and was known as Akbarbadi bazaar after her. The book market evolved naturally in the early sixties. It has been a landmark for sixty years and has served countless generations of students, scholars, researchers and book lovers with a deep desire for reading but shallow pockets. During my impecunious days in Delhi university I was there every second Sunday with my friends, buying all our text and reference books there at rock bottom prices, along with " The Sensuous Man" and the occasional Perry Mason and James Hadley Chase if a couple of rupees were left over. Future generations, unfortunately, have now been deprived of this experience by the Delhi High Court which in August this year ordered the market to be shut down, because it obstructed traffic. To me, this is a metaphor of our times: a car is more important than a book, ease of driving more important than love of reading.
Kabadi Bazaar, behind the Red Fort, was another such market which has also been consigned to history. It was exclusively dedicated to old, recycled clothes of which Delhi generates plenty, thanks to the purchase therapy of Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra and their likes. The market supports a whole community of "bartanwalis", a traditional trade by which (mainly) women go house to house taking your old clothes in exchange for kitchen utensils. This informal business supports a whole community of 40000 people in the JJ Colony of West Delhi's Raghubir Nagar. But they, like the booksellers of Daryaganj, have become helpless pawns in our rush for urban planning: in 2001 the market was shifted to a location near the Indraprastha power station, but was deemed to be an eye sore for the Commonwealth Games and was again moved to Subhash Park near the Red Fort. With each translocation the markets lose a big chunk of their business.
And then there are the flea markets all over a city, functioning from pavements, selling every thing you would find in a mega mart, but which function for only a few hours one fixed day in a week. There are two in my area of I.P. Extension in Delhi- one on Monday evenings called Som Bazaar and one on Saturdays called, naturally, Shani Bazaar. I find them utterly fascinating and do a lot of my shopping there. They exemplify all the management mantras taught in fancy B schools- Farm to Fork, Seller to Buyer, Direct to Home- for here there are no middlemen or rapacious commission agents or "arhtiyas" between the seller and the buyer. Everything is available at about 30% to 40% below regular store prices and the vegetables and fruits are fresh from the farms. I am a dedicated patron of these two bazaars and pick up a lot of my requirements here: track pants, jackets, running shoes, T shirts, underwear( no one will know the difference!), coffee mugs, kitchen appliances. Everything costs 40 to 50 percent less than your fancy malls, lasts just as long and Indian ingenuity ensures that just about every international brand is available, either copies, export surplus or stuff with minor defects. The pavement shops are a boon for not only the poorer sections but also for the middle classes like yours truly, always in danger of sliding into the BPL category.These markets are the downstream points of the informal manufacturing sector which Mr. Modi has almost decimated with Demonetisation, GST and his dream of a cashless economy. A hundred meter stretch of these flea markets generates more employment than any mega mart or Mall.
[ Images of Shani Bazaar in I.P.Extension, Delhi. Photos by the author.]
[ Images of Shani Bazaar in I.P.Extension, Delhi. Photos by the author.]
And yet they are treated with contempt by our administrators and the courts, as Daryaganj and Kabadi bazaar have shown. They are shut down on the slightest pretext, whether it be Republic Day or Independence Day, a visit to the area by a VVIP, a marriage on an adjoining road, a security alert. Even though every shop pays a "tehbazari" fee and arranges its own electricity there is no guarantee that it will be allowed to be there next week. They live on sufferance and are at the mercy of our urban planners and administrators. Their heritage values, usefulness to society, contribution to the economy and employment are not recognised; they are considered eye sores which have to be removed at the first opportunity.
This philistine attitude is in sharp contrast to other countries, even some developed ones, where heritage bazaars are preserved and even flea markets patronised by governments and citizens as heritage- in- the- making: the Grand Bazaar( Istanbul), Chatuchat market( Bangkok), Tsukiji Fish market( Tokyo), Camden market( London), Pike Place market( Seattle), the flourishing markets of Samarkhand and Bukhara, the souks of the middle east countries. Our city governments need to realise that not only do such markets serve a very real economic purpose, including tourism, but also define a city's history and heritage. The soul of a city does not reside in flyovers and ugly Malls but in the daily intercourse of its citizens in public places, in preserved fragments of its soft history, its traditions, arts and crafts, the continuity of practices over centuries. Bazaars like the Daryaganj Book market, the Kabadi bazaar and the Som and Shani bazaars reflect this soul much better than the brick, concrete and glass piles of today. Cities should grow around these oases of history, not over them.
Excellent...and deservedly got high praise from Shashi Tharoor! A tremendous accolade. Local street markets need strong institutional support.. not just to preserve 'city culture' but to give citizens an opportunity to go out.
ReplyDeleteAvay, I'm glad you've articulated (in your own inimitable style) the value of these roadside markets to the sellers AND consumers (me included). Hopefully at least some administrators and judges will see this and change their outlook.
ReplyDeleteCouldn't agree more ..it takes an endless amount of history to make even a little tradition
ReplyDeleteI don't see them under threat. The Som Bazaar happens in Pushp Vihar opp. Saket's N block with cheerful regularity to the sputtering indignance of car traffic. A wide-ish road is rendered virtually impassable every Monday, as has been since 1981.
ReplyDeleteYou are therefore far from alone in picking up choice items at less than half the price elsewhere. What is more remarkable however, is the singular spirit of enterprise in the sellers of wares, their hoarse voiced but dogged persuasion and ready sympathy. These guys traverse the city and its various limits. They have not been shut down (because they can't be), springing up like crocuses anywhere there's a little damp.
just to take this thing a little further: There is a situation where the so-called underdog kiranawala is/ was actually a little despot. The big bazaar/ reliance fresh etc have brought about a reasonable balance. Shop where you want, as long as you know what's available where, summer or winter or spring. The credit facility however, is missing, except at the level of credit cards. And of course, until catch up, the poor and destitute continue to depend on the good humour and brusque sympathy of the kirana fellow.
An important reason for them to be left alone and in fact encouraged to live. Otherwise a life-line gone. As very nearly happened in '16-'17.
No dhyardi. No credit after a point. But money is back where it is meant to be and so thank goodness for that.
Loved reading your yet another masterpiece, especially after a visit to Bihari Market which is in our neighborhood in Indirapuram (Ghaziabad). We go there to buy veges and fruits twice a week. Many regards.
ReplyDeleteMuch appreciated piece! There are many potential 'heritage' markets in towns and cities across the country, if the authorities banish traffic from them instead of shutting these down! Sector 17 market in Chandigarh is a case in point, where pedestrianizing the place has allowed / brought in the informal street sellers in a big way and done this otherwise square and linear city some good.
ReplyDeleteNecessity and Cause of the much maligned street markets is very well articulated by the author – a habitual virtue. Congratulations.
ReplyDeleteMany of these weekly markets are actually continuation of their pre-urbanization status. If we drive out of or towards any city, we do find weekly markets in the surrounding rural, peri-urban and semi-urban area; and when the place/zone is urbanized in the natural course and the city grows around them, the market gets embedded in the city space. So it is part of the growing-up and history of a city in India (except cities like Chandigarh which were imposed after 'clearing' and did not grow in-situ).
Fully support the concept of preserving these living markets and city planners (mostly by shahari vikaas pradhikaran or vinaash pradhikaran – depends on one’s perspective) must find some other place for the fast moving traffic or the 'high-speed road' should be made underground or raised (example Baba Banda Singh Bahadur Setu) so that these street markets not only survive but also ‘live’ to remain safe for both shopkeepers and shoppers. They also demonstrate the resilience of local domestic market as a distinct model of marketing (remember! T-series first sold its audio cassettes through paan shops) and it’s very real and live forward (customers) and backward (growers/makers) linkage with frugal overheads. I have picked up freshest of fruits and vegetables from these markets always.
Long Live the Street Markets!