Weekend Herb Blogging: "Shopping Local in Kolhapur" (a photo-essay)

I have been a fan of "Weekend Herb Blogging" ever since Kalyn first came up with the idea, but this is the first time I am participating in this fun event. Many thanks to Cate from Sweetnicks for hosting it this weekend!

This is a photo-essay depicting the vegetable market in my home-town of Kolhapur in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. All pictures have been taken by our Polish friend Lukasz . Lukasz visited India for our wedding and enjoyed capturing glimpses of everyday life in India on his camera. Of course, marketplaces are simply a whirlwind of activity in India and he spent quite a lot of time there. He was a very courteous photographer, always "asking" his subjects (with smiles and mime) if it was OK to take a picture. I thank Lukasz for being so generous and sharing these beautiful pictures and allowing me to present them on One Hot Stove.

An overview of the vegetable market: it is a big open area, covered with some tarpaulin for protection from the beating sun. Inside, vendors sit down in rows with their wonderful produce artistically arranged around them in baskets. All the veggies look so luscious and inviting! I love the concentric arrangement of the eggplants. The market also has a couple of stalls that sell stuff other than produce: Can you spot a colorful stall selling glass bangles in the right background? (Bangles are wrist ornaments and glass bangles are inexpensive, popular accessories: they can be matched to a saree of every color!)

This lemon-seller laughs self-consciously when she is caught in the middle of a tea break. I love the neat arrangement of the lemons, crowned with two colorful chillies for good luck.

These two ladies are selling (left to right) green beans, ridge gourd and baby eggplants. Most of the sellers here are small-scale farmers who come from the outskirts of the city, hauling their fresh vegetables (packed in reusable jute sacks, not cardboard boxes). The taste of these locally-grown veggies in unbelievable. Note the small metal scales behind the eggplants: here the vegetables will be weighed and placed into your bag or basket. No plastic bags, no shrink-wrapped produce here!

This veggie-seller decided to pose with one of the vegetables she was selling. That beautiful, bright and huge cauliflower certainly deserves to be shown off! Selling vegetables is hard work and a business with a very low profit margin and no retirement plan; this lady is still working when she looks like she deserves to retire and get some rest.

Finally, here is a stall where the weary shoppers can buy themselves a little treat. This lady is selling a number of mouth-watering tidbits: (from left to right) slices of raw mango slathered in salt and red chilli powder; a fruit called jamun or jambool...you chew up the purple flesh, toss away a large seed and are left with a bright purple tongue; next comes young tamarind (still in its pods) I discovered in Feb 2010 that this is actually a different variety of tamarind called vilayati chincha in Marathi and Manila tamarind in English; then gooseberries called amla in Hindi or avla in Marathi; and finally, dried salted slices of the same gooseberries, some are pre-packaged into a cone of newsprint, for convenient munching as you stroll through the market.

Have a great weekend, and eat your veggies :)