The Small Market Near The Village | Pratapgarh | Lalganj
I believe we all have beautiful memories from our childhoods. Here is one such memory which I want to re-live.
Every year during summer vacation we used to go to our village. The village has its own fields and we used to have two cows and their calves in those days. In the village, people get up very early in the morning, retire from their daily pursuits and go to work in the fields immediately. They keep working in the fields till am and when the sun gets strong, they return. In our village too, everyone used to have this routine.
I also used to go to work in the fields with my grandmother in the morning. By the way, she would not let me do anything, so I used to sit on the bunds nearby and watch her and the rest of the people working in the field. Actually the village was the place where I realized where we get vegetables from. We only get to directly see vegetables in the cities in the Mandis (Market), I had never seen them on plants.
Grandma used to collect different types of vegetables like brinjal, ladyfinger, potato, tomato, coriander etc. and brought it home till 12:00. She then washed and cleaned them and tied them in different clothes and kept them aside. Similarly, she used to make small bundles of coriander and kept them in light wet clothes. After that she would ask someone from neighborhood to keep these vegetables in a big basket and tie them on the bicycle carrier. But now that I was there, I proposed to tie the basket on the career of the bicycle. Grandma said, "Arey Betwa Tohse Na Hoye" (Hey son ! You won't be able to).
Actually, she feared that if the basket of vegetables fell, the vegetables could spoil. After all, she had to work so hard in the sun to get these.
Nevertheless, I insisted and said, "I will tie it" and grandma allowed me to do it. What was it then? I had observed the boy from neighborhood tying the basket before, similarly I also pulled the rope from inside the house and tied the basket tightly on the carrier.
Now I asked Grandma, "Where will you take it?"
Grandmother said, "I am taking these to the market."
I asked her, "These vegetables are not for us?"
She said, "Son, the entire field is full of vegetables for us to eat. This is to feed those who do not have a field."
She added, "Just call your uncle to carry the vegetables to the market."
I quickly said, "I too know how to ride a bicycle. Today I will come along with you to the market."
Grandma must have been afraid again that if the bicycle falls, all the vegetables will be spoiled. But today, I had insisted that I too would go to the market.
Then what was it ? She lost to my stubbornness and I took the bicycle and walked with her to the market on foot.
After walking about 2 kilometers I saw a bridge over a canal. On the same bridge, people were sitting on both sides having their own small shops. Well, those were not actually shops but all the people had laid a 3 to 4 feet rug, selling greens and vegetables on them.
I looked carefully at all the shops one by one. The size of the rug of each shop was indicative of the economic condition of that shopkeeper. The one who had the bigger sack, the more he had to sell. Whose sack was small, it is imperative that his shop was small and the vegetables kept on it were also less. Most of the shops that had sacks laid on the bridge were of vegetables. Off the bridge, on the other side, some people were also frying chaat-dumplings on the banks of the canal. There was also a blacksmith kindling a fire for his business.
Seeing a small empty space on the bridge, grandmother asked me to lay the sack. But because I had never done all this before, I got a little confused. Seeing me confused, Grandma smiled a little, then she herself laid the sacks, garnished the vegetables one by one, then sprinkled a little water on them, and put the measuring scales on the side. Putting the basket on the other side, grandmother also prepared her own vegetable shop and sat down.
In a few moments I also sat next to her.
Till today I always stood as a customer on the other side of the shop but today when sitting at the shop, I felt very different. I was one by one looking at faces all the shopkeepers. Some shops had customers, some did not. Some customers used to ask for the price of the vegetable at one shop and wrinkled their nose and headed towards the other shop. Seeing some customers returning without buying anything, the shopkeepers were calling back after lowering the price. No one came to our shop for a while.
While sitting at the same place, I was thinking that when everybody has a farm in the village, then why do these people come to market to buy vegetables? Actually, at that age I did not know that these people who have come to buy vegetables, either they do not have a farm or they are financially sound people of the village who do not themselves farm but give their farm to laborers on share.
After some time, the market started growing crowded and slowly everyone's vegetables started selling. I was watching the customers talk to grandma and bargain. After bargain, grandmother used to weigh vegetables in the scales. If a customer had given a note of ₹ 100, she would have seen it in reverse, check properly and kept it in her bag only after being satisfied for its authenticity. By the way, even today in the village, people do not accept a note of ₹ 500 without testing in the light.
We were left with only coriander while the darkness was waning, everything else was sold out. Gradually, people began removing their shops. Grandmother said to me, "Son, we must ready home before it gets dark, otherwise there is a risk of money getting snatched away in the night.
Hearing this, I got a little scared and quickly kept all the remaining things in the basket and came home with Grandma.
When I reached home, I saw the lantern was lit. I took the bag from Grandma in which she had kept the earned money and counted it in the light of the same lantern.
Even today when I remember that thing, I feel happiness and sorrow at the same time. The earnings on that day were ₹ 82.
After that day, until my summer vacation was over, I went to sell vegetables with grandmother in different markets several times.
Even today, when I remember this, I sometimes wonder that after my father started serving in the army and the family became financially sound, why did my grandmother still continued to go to markets to sell vegetables?
Today I realize that not only my Grandma, but there were many people in the village who lived their entire life with simplicity in harmony with nature and they continued farming-work as long as their limbs were capable of it.
It has been almost 10 years now, my Grandma is no more, but those fields are still there.
There is still a market on that old bridge over the canal today......
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