Who Moved My Tomato?

While the book ‘Who Moved My Cheese’ by Spencer Johnson is about how people can adapt to change in their lives, this blogpost ‘Who Moved My Tomato?’ is about the entrepreneurial spirit within the informal tomato markets in India which rests on the belief that ‘change is constant’.

It may be that the onion wholesale markets or the potato wholesale markets are not so different. However, we had the chance to visit the wholesale tomato market at Vaddahalli and observed what goes on there. It is in the Mulbagal taluk in Kolar district,  just off the NH4, about 90km from Bangalore and has been functioning since the past 25 years. We saw how farmers, commission agents, wholesale dealers and retailers involved in the tomato trade accept that ‘change happens’ and how they adapt to it.  Each year and each season, the output from the field is likely to differ and the demand from the markets is also differs. Every day a new price is fixed for the tomatoes that depends on how many crates the farmers bring in and how many kilos the commission agent thinks he can sell.

The tomato traders can “anticipate change” in that they know from their informal interactions with fellow workers or with customers that there will be an increase in the demand in the coming season, either because there was a sudden rise in demand at the same time the previous year or because they have been told that in the current year, a particular crop season coincides with the marriage season, i.e. there may be many days in those months that are auspicious for marriages and the demand for tomatoes will be high.

The traders can “monitor change” or “smell the cheese often so you know when it is getting old”. In the case of the market for tomatoes, it is about knowing whether the crop must be harvested early or late. If the demand is high in the local areas, the tomatoes can be harvested when they are almost fully ripe. If the demand is low in the local areas but is fairly good in faraway towns and cities, the tomatoes must travel longer distances and need to be harvested when they are still green. The green tomatoes fetch a better price than the ripened, red tomatoes. The ripening of the tomatoes is a function of the weather. At certain times of the year, the tomatoes ripen faster and while they are still small in size.

There is a multitude of ways in which the tomato moves from the hands of the farmer in the village to the hands of the small retailer in the city. The market at Vaddahalli has 43 commission agents. Anyone can start a commission agency, however, the challenge is in getting farmers who would be willing to supply the tomatoes. Most farmers live and work within a radius of 50km from this market and have already established a relationship with a Commission agent. For a new Commission agent, business can only come from bringing in new farmers by assisting them with loans or providing them with saplings for a better crop.

The tomatoes are brought in every morning by the farmers and handed over to the Commission agents who then auction them at the Vaddahalli market starting at 9am every day. The farmers also spend money on transporting the tomatoes from their villages to the Vaddahalli market. The tempo drivers charge Rs.6 per plastic crate for the transportation. This includes picking up the tomatoes from the farmer and then, taking the boxes back to the village, so that the farmer can bring his produce again, which is done once in three days. Some Commission agents own 5000 plastic crates. During circulation some of the crates get misplaced and this loss is borne by the commission agent. Each empty plastic crate costs him Rs.15.

The selling of tomatoes between the farmers and the commission agents is based on volume and not by weight. It is ‘how many’ crates, where each crate of tomatoes can weigh upto 14-15 kilos and can be priced at anywhere from Rs.15-20 per crate to Rs.300 per crate. This means that the lower price range can bring the farmer Rs.1/kg. The pricing is based on the size, the colour and the firmness of the tomatoes.

The commission agent gets about ten percent of the final price. So, if a crate of tomatoes is sold for Rs.20 at the Vaddahalli market, the tempo driver gets Rs.6, the labour for plucking in the village costs Rs.3 and the commission agent gets Rs.2. The farmer’s profit is Rs.9 for every 14 kilos of tomatoes that he brings. A farmer gets 100 crates per acre for every 3 days.

The buyers at the auctions are the “agents” of the wholesale traders from various cities. It could be Chennai in Tamil Nadu or Guntur in Andhra Pradesh where the tomatoes are supplied to. These agents get a five-day credit period from the commission agents. However, the commission agents have to make the payment to the farmer almost immediately. In addition, the commission agents have to ensure that good saplings go to the farmer. The price of the saplings is deducted from the sale proceeds. So, the commission agents are crucial cogs in this entire market process.

Last year, at this time, each crate of tomatoes was selling at Vaddahalli market for Rs.300. Because of the high demand, this year more farmers planted tomatoes and the price has dropped drastically with supply being in such abundance. The agents need to be in the know of what is happening in the cities so that they can fix the price accordingly. If they don’t do that, they may sell the tomatoes at a much lower price than what the market is willing to pay and it is the local intermediaries that make large profits as a result.

There are two varieties of tomatoes: the natti (indigenous) variety and the hybrid variety. The Vaddahalli market is the hub for the natti variety. There are other wholesale tomato markets at Madanapalle, Kolar and Malur. Each of these markets have their own commission agents and their own set of farmers. The farmers sometimes can sell at multiple markets, so it is in the best interest of the commission agent that he doesn’t let his farmer go away to another agent or to another market. This is done by getting nurseries to give them saplings when they need them, ensuring that the farmers get a good price for their produce and giving them their payments on time.

Coming back to the Who moved my cheese analogy where cheese is representative of happiness and success, what does the tomato here represent? For the Bazaar entrepreneur, ‘finding new cheese’ is about ‘finding new opportunities’. The key to success in the tomato trade seems to lie in knowing how much to grow, how often to harvest, how to deliver to the rural and urban markets, how to distribute, how to price and how to reinvest in the business again. You need to be innovative, efficient and productive whilst the environment around you is constantly changing.  And, it seems that those who find new ways to respond to the ground reality are likely to experience greater success.

(I would like to thank Keshava Reddy for identifying this market for us and for conducting the interviews on which this blogpost is based)
 

Marketplace as an aesthetic urban experience

Every marketplace in India is an aesthetic urban experience – whether it’s a flower market, a wholesale tomato market or a temple bazaar. I recollect and share here my experience of the flower market in Bangalore. It is an informal market that takes place for two hours every morning in the vicinity of the Krishna Rajendra market. The K.R. market zone is one of the most chaotic, congested and noisy neighbourhoods in the city of Bangalore. The city’s main intercity and local bus terminal and the main railway station are located within a radius of a kilometre from here. However, there is one time of the day when you would go there even if you had no task or purpose in mind, in the early mornings, just to enjoy the visual experience of the flower market.

The place where the market happens is not a street, it is not a square and it is not within a building. The market comes into being at an extremely busy traffic junction, a crossing of roads, a space just below a flyover. It is difficult to imagine this urban space as a flower market because it is not designed as a place for flowers and neither is it an organised traffic junction. It is simply a point in the city where the most number of cars, people and goods cross paths. This is where flower vendors gather every day and where business is brisk as retailers and individual customers buy flowers for consumption.

If one thinks about the edges of this urban space and of the flower market, one realises that it has no defined edges. The market stops where the last flower vendor sits. When there are no more flower vendors, there is no more flower market; until it appears again in a small lane much further away from the central location under the flyover. But, these small flower vendors in the small lanes continue to sell flowers throughout the day; whereas the main flower market opens at 5am and closes at 8am.

The visual experience of this market depends on who you are and why you are here. If you are a temple priest and have come to buy flowers for the rituals of the day, you may or may not take note of who sells large garlands and who sells small garlands. You may simply go towards the vendors who sell loose flowers and perhaps directly go to the vendor who knows your daily requirement of the golden yellow marigolds.

If you are a flower retailer and have come to pick flowers that you will sell in another part of the city, your experience of the market is an ‘everyday’ experience but you may want to look for the unusual and the exotic, your eyes searching for that which you have not seen the day before or the week before. Just as your eyes search for a special buy, your ears listen intently to the prices being shouted by the vendors as they deftly move their hands and raise their voices to attract customers.

If you are an individual visiting the market for a regular, weekly purchase of fruits and vegetables, you may walk through the paths that meander between flower vendors, partly just to enjoy the visual and the sensory experience of the morning and partly to choose which vendor has for you the best flowers at the best price.

If you are a tourist, a first-time visitor to the city of Bangalore, the visual and spatial experience of the market will be completely different for you. The colours of the flowers will make you walk this way and that in a marketplace that has no straight lines and no defined routes within it. On one hand, you will smell the roses and the jasmines and wafting through the same air will be unbearable smells of goods that have gone rotten and drains that are overflowing. Inspite of everything that doesn’t seem right, this walk can be a beautiful experience and one that you will always cherish!!

Related Posts:
Flower sellers: To create, to forget
Dadar Flower market, Mumbai
The Garland makers in the Bazaar

The Marketplace as Urban Heritage – the Devaraja market in Mysore

The Devaraja market in Mysore was built during the reign of Chamaraja Wodeyar IX (1868 – 1894). It is said that there was at this place a small weekly market which may have been as old as the origin of the city itself. A few months ago the Mysore City Corporation invited a team from UNESCO to study the heritage structure and to help restore it. As I recollect the experience of the Devaraja market from my recent visit, I think about the ways in which we assimilate our observations and how we share our discoveries and our concerns. Often, we express ourselves in words and in pictures. If one had to make a film about the Devaraja market and its heritage, how would one begin?

I realise that the beginning of a film is not like the beginning of a book. In a book of non-fiction, you would begin with the Contents page. The reader must know what is to come in the pages that follow. In a book of fiction, there is no Contents page. It may be a story of love or a story of mystery and the ending must not be revealed. I suppose a Feature film would be made differently from a Documentary film. But, in a film, is it ever possible to have a Contents page? If one were to make a film about the Devaraja market, would it be about Urban heritage or about Architectural heritage?

Whilst telling a story about the architectural heritage of a place, we tend to talk about buildings and their preservation and yet, it is in the making of this built-heritage, in the hands of the artisans, that the value of the tradition lies. Who made the wooden truss roof and how? Who built the stone masonry walls and how? Who prepared the lime plaster and what was the skill that made it possible? The architectural heritage value of a market is in the physical expression of its craftmanship and the film would need to be about the traditional artisans; their skills, their beliefs and their lives, because without them, this heritage would not exist.

On the other hand, Urban heritage is deciphered through reading its many layers and a film about the marketplace as urban heritage needs to be about the social life, the cultural life and the economic life of the market precinct. I discuss here about these two kinds of heritage because Devaraja market needs to be valued both for its Urban heritage and its Architectural heritage. When a marketplace occupies a substantial part of the urban fabric, it influences the life of the city and is itself changed by how the city grows around it.

When I walked through the Devaraja market and got a sense of its planning, I found that it reflected the same principles that were deployed in the planning of Crawford market in Mumbai, the Russell market in Bangalore and the Connemara market in Trivandrum. In all of these markets, there is an architectural façade that faces the street on two sides while internally there are large open spaces for the formal market building to function as if it were an informal marketplace. I have yet to study this aspect of our colonial market buildings and to find out the reasons for this unique planning where an urban space is embedded within the architecture of a building. So, there is the urban space or public square that lies outside of the Devaraja market but also an urban space or private square within it, for the exclusive use of traders.

When you look at the Google earth map of this area, it is interesting to see how the Devaraja market (in red) was geographically located in the city and its proximity to the Palace complex. This is quite similar to the positioning of the Russell market in Bangalore with the public square outside it being a meeting point of arterial roads of the city. I have earlier written about this aspect of the Russell market at Urban structure – City Market and Russell market 

The second Google earth image zooms in further and we can see that the south end of the market is close to the K.R.Circle and opens into the public space with the Dufferin Clock tower built in 1886. Nearby is the Devaraja Urs road, which is presently the high density commercial street of the city. The east side of the market is flanked by Sayyaji Rao road and at its north end you can enter the market from Dhanvantari road.

Currently, the day-to-day functioning of the market with its 842 shops, spread over three acres is looked after by the Municipal Corporation of Mysore. They have an office within the market building to manage its affairs. I had an opportunity to speak to Mr.Kuppuswamy, one of the staff members there. I learnt from him that the market is owned by the Corporation and it gives out spaces to vendors on a rental basis. The Corporation officer makes his rounds every day to collect rents from the individual vendors.

There are shops along the edges of the market that face the main streets and these pay rents from Rs.4000 to Rs.10,000 per month, depending on the area of the shop. Besides these, there are semi-enclosed stalls (angadis) that are in the large open space within the market complex, where rents vary from Rs.5 per day to Rs.50 per day. The Rs.5 per day are the fruit and vegetable vendors and the Rs.50 per day i.e.Rs.1500 per month are the Kum Kum shops and Flower shops towards the south of the market. The Municipal Corporation prefers to collect the rental charge on a daily basis since it reduces the risk of recovery. The buying and selling of fruits, vegetables, flowers, incense, betel nut, kumkum powder  seems to be the everyday life of the market, a life about the livelihood of the vendors and the needs of the people of contemporary Mysore.

Going back into history a little, I include here some excerpts from the book ‘History of the Wodeyars of Mysore (1610-1748) published by the Directorate of Archaeology and Museums, Mysore in 1996. The chapter on ‘Society and Economy’ notes that: “A market place or a bazaar was an essential feature of town life. A large number of people depended upon trade and commerce. The artisans, the cloth merchants, the metal smiths, oil mongers, carpenters, goldsmiths, jewellers, tailors, cobblers and so on lived in their respective localities. The rulers of Mysore encouraged trade and commerce by laying good roads in the kingdom, introducing a unified system of currency and standardising weights and measures in the kingdom. An important feature of urban economy was the organisation of guilds. The merchant guilds carried on trade in articles like cloth, cotton-yarn, betel nuts, tobacco, sandal wood, wax, ghee, turmeric, pepper, ginger, betel nuts, tobacco, sandalwood and so on.”

Today, as you experience a marketplace, you know you can go back and look at a Google earth image of it, you know you can trace its history in books, you can read recent newspaper reports about its daily affairs. You know a bit more each time. And, yet nothing seems enough. You hope that one day there will also be a film about the Devaraja market that will unravel a story of heritage and a story of time.

Buddha festival at Namdroling Monastery

We walked into the Namdroling Monastery through its painted gates in that quiet afternoon. There came upon us a stillness that halted our steps and our thoughts. A performance that was a prayer within a square courtyard and rows and rows of Tibetan monks in orange and dark red robes sitting on all sides. A few monks chanted, a few counted beads in their hand whilst in the centre of the space; there was the slow movement and the slow chanting of the performers. It was a quiet chanting, that those who chanted could hear and not others. The sounds of drums and cymbals as if coming from somewhere far away.

We had come here on a day when the Buddha festival was going on at the Monastery. According to the Tibetan calendar, the month of June is a special month for practice since the enlightenment and parinirvana of Buddha falls on the 15th day of the month. This is known as Saga Dawa Dhuechen. The Dhuechen are the 10th and 15th days of the month and the fourth tibetan lunar month is called Saga Dawa. The Losar cham (Lama dance) is performed during this time and we had a chance to see it that day.

The Namdroling Monastery is in Bylakuppe, the largest Tibetan settlement in India, near Kushalnagar, in Mysore district. This is the link to the official website of the Namdroling Monastery. This Tibetan settlement is about 82 km from Mysore city and 220 km from Bangalore. The monastery was established by His Holiness Pema Norbu Rinpoche in 1963 and is also known as the Golden Temple. In 1978, the Ngagyur Nyingma Institute, a Center for Buddhist studies and research was established here. It houses five hundred monks studying the Buddhist sutras and tantras in a nine year program. The monks graduate to become Khenpos and are then sent to teach in different Nyingmapa (a lineage of Tibetan Buddhism) monasteries and Centers of buddhist learning.

I came across this really interesting website of the Tibet Oral History Project - which has interviews of Tibetans living in India - stories from the last generation that had lived in a free, unoccupied Tibet and who have now lived in exile for several years, many of them in Bylakuppe.

At the festival that day, there were between the rows and rows of seated monks, a few monks standing and walking around. They were not chanting, they were selling food. They held in plastic bags and plastic crates several items for sale. There were cold drinks, packaged drinking water, potato chips and slices of watermelon. How long had the monks been sitting here in this square? Was this meant to be uninterrupted prayer? There was also hot chai and cold buttermilk being served without a charge. A few monks walked along the sides and the seated monks bought what they needed, a snack or a drink, to sustain for a while.

This experience at the Buddha festival that day made me reflect on the ‘act of consumption’ and the ‘act of restraint’. I think these thoughts came because what we saw that afternoon was a congruence of both. On the one hand, we need to sustain our body and consumption becomes a part of our daily life. On the other hand, we need to sustain our mind that seeks peace and contentment and restraint seems to be the path to follow.

At the Namdroling Monastery, as in other monasteries, the monks who immerse themselves in the teachings of the Buddha have exercised restraint in the way they live. Outside of the Monastery, it is the ‘act of consumption’ that takes precedence over everything else. We buy clothes, we buy food, we buy gold, we buy books and we buy furniture. We shop and we consume. I thought perhaps the Bazaar becomes then the embodiment of this consumption and its various hues.

There are also the temple bazaars where what we buy, we offer to our Gods – sometimes its flowers, sometimes its incense. The Temple bazaar is a place where we mark time before or after our prayers. It continues to be an ‘act of consumption’ that falls on our path of momentary restraint and holiness. The bazaar around the Mylapore Temple in Chennai, like other temple bazaars, is about daily necessities, religious bonding and periodic festivities. In the temple town of Tiruvannamalai, there is a central marketplace for both the devotee and the common man. As people go about the town and the marketplace, some consciously seek spiritual attainment and others fill their lives with days of labour, reaching sometimes the same destination without seeking it.

It seems to me that in every bazaar and in every moment in our lives, the act of restraint and the act of consumption emerge from within us quite in the same way, for one there is the temple and the monastery, for the other – the bazaar.

Related Posts:
the Tibetans at the Cliff
Mylapore Temple Bazaar, Chennai
Market streets of Tiruvannamalai

The Marketplace: Lonely Planet Blog Carnival #23

The theme of this Blog carnival is a journey through a market or bazaar anywhere in the world. These thoughtful and exciting stories unravel life in the marketplace experienced at different times but all coming together here for you to transcend from wherever you are at this moment to where the Lonely Planet Travel bloggers think you would love to be!!

David Bennett of Quillcards tells us the story of the Changing Times In The Largest Indoor Market In Europe as he describes the Kirkgate Market in the center of Leeds in Yorkshire in the north of England.

“As long as I have known Kirkgate market it has been the province of ‘working class’ Leeds. Some people in Leeds never shop there, preferring to shop in more upmarket places. So to see Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food in Kirkgate market helps to bring about a paradigm shift in the way markets are seen.”

Jennifer Hattam of The Turkish Life recollects her experience at an Uzbek bazaar - the Chorsu bazaar area at Tashkent in Uzbekistan which she had noted down as a journal entry during her travel there in November 2004.

“We dipped our fingers to taste honey dripping from a knife and spices sold out of canvas sacks as nearby vendors sat and churned huge vats of a marshmallow-like substance and offered tastes to passers-by.”

Brandon of Freewheelings writes about the Mysticism in an Indian Bazaar sharing an enlightening experience as he sat at a chai (tea) stall bench in the middle of a New Delhi bazaar in North India.

“All the noise of the contemporary bazaar for that moment stopped, all the movement.  It was just me and that bench amidst a sea of uninterpreted perception, a procession of thought imagery.  I had, for that moment, no question to pose to the universe and no quarrel.  For that split second I had tapped into what I believe to be the collective unconscious."

In A Leap Into The Dark Aubrey Groves writes about the Camden Market in North London set on and around the canal.

“It is full of trendy stalls with some of the wackier designer clothes, music, hippyesque handicrafts from around the World, antiques, and an excellent array of cheap food stalls reflecting London´s multiculturalism.”

Anuradha Shankar of a Wandering Mind writes about the historical Hampi Bazaar in South India

“From gold and diamonds to horses and cows, the markets boasted of a variety which impressed even visitors from foreign shores! These marketplaces weren’t like our roadside shops, but well planned and well laid out areas, paved with stones, with residences for the merchants as well stables for their mounts!”

Erin Ridley of La tortuga Viajera writes about Madrid’s markets – about El Rastro, a popular market in Madrid’s oldest neighbourhoods as well as about the Mercados which she says are a hybrid between grocery stores and farmers markets.

“Spanish fans, stinky cheeses, fanny packs, fresh fruit, wine by the glass and of course antiques. Madrid’s markets have something for everyone – and a market for everyone.”

Julie from a Lady in London explores more than one market at Lady goes to Market She takes us to the Boroughs market, the Exmouth market, the Leadenhall market as well as to the Camden market.

“There are at least four vendors selling ten different kinds of fresh olives, multiple bread bakers, a handful of specialized cheese shops, two wine stores, a smoothie bar, and a Scottish meat counter. Free samples are given generously, and one could eat an entire meal on bits and pieces alone.”

Louise Heal writes of the La Boqueria – Barcelona’s premier food market

“La Boqueria also does a great line in bars and restaurants. It's not a place for a full meal, rather for a tapas selection of whatever-takes-your-fancy or whatever the chef is doing today. The chalk blackboard menus are testimony to the changing selection.”

Barbara Weibel of Hole in the Donut Cultural Travel describes for us her walk along the Mekong river in Chiang Khong, Thailand.

“In the center of town, vendors sprung up along either side of the street in an unbroken line that stretched as far as I could see. Not the normal trinket sellers, these vendors specialized in food. Plump, fresh fruits. Glistening piles of hot peppers in red, green, and orange. Gelatinous sweets coated in shredded coconut. Piles of wide, flat noodles – phat sie eww – coated in black bean sauce and piled with fresh veggies. An astounding display of culinary delights that stretched for a mouth-watering mile.”

Jeff Funnekotter of the Big City Blog tells us about the Albert Cuyp market - a Street market in Amsterdam that started in 1904.

“The characters are real-life, seasoned market-hawkers - mostly very friendly, some gruff, always authentic and fair (this is not one of those markets where you haggle).”

Charlotte Beauvoisin of Kampala days – diary of a muzungu writes about two markets in Uganda, in the Human Safari and all its smells and in Justice in the balancing act

“Saturday evening leaving the Old Taxi Park is as crazy an African scene as you’re going to encounter. It’s exhausting. People call at you from all sides, traffic – bikes, boda bodas and matatus – come at you from every direction simultaneously. People and vehicles groan under the collective weight of their wares and purchases.”

At any time, there is as much to discover in our own world as in another part of the world. And yet, we yearn to travel and to explore territories we know little about outside of where we live. What then? You come back to where you started and find that more than anything else, you’ve discovered a way of looking that you did not know before!

Hoping that readers will share their own experiences of the marketplace, their discoveries and their insights!

Thanks to all those who’ve contributed to this Blog Carnival! The posts included here are from participants in the Lonely Planet Blogsherpa programme that includes the Best Travel Bloggers from around the world selected by Lonely Planet. Do check out the  previous Blog Carnival hosted by Nina Fuentes on the theme Has traveling changed you. The next Blog carnival will be announced here soon!

Read about:
Fish market at Sasoon Docks
Flower market in Mumbai
Udaipur City
Bollywood Posters