the Spice vendors & their displays

In the old days, at Kumily, it was heaps of cardamom and pepper that you passed by as you walked the main street. Today, strings of spice packets make the displays in shops. The spices are the same, the packaging is new.

In the informal sector in the towns and cities in India, one finds a different display each day that you go into the bazaar. In the vegetable and fruits bazaar, sometimes it is only the heap of tomatoes that attract attention. At other times, it is the bananas that hang in bunches that are the most eye-catching. As you walk into the streets around the central core of the vegetable market, you see brass pots that sit outside a shop and on the footpath. There are often aluminium utensils of all shapes that begin to form a screen outside the shop, a “shop window” that is outside the shop.

It’s the quantum of brass or quantum of steel that must fill the display to catch the eye. It is afterwards the nature of the arrangement. So it is with spice vendors. The shop windows are first filled with spices and more spices. They create their own pattern. Glass and plastic are used extensively in urban shopfronts, their transparency making the showcasing of spices and other goods, more attractive. The spices are either in glass jars, in small glass containers or behind a glass front or panel of glass. Often, spices are in small plastic packets that hold in one string, more than ten packets, each with its names written, so that foreign tourists can take these back as “spices from india”

Business spaces in Spice Tourism

Any bazaar must have an array of enterprises that supplement each other. In the town of Kumily, between the spice shops are small restaurants. Some sell Kerala food. Others sell Gujarati and Marwari food. A few eat at the Kerala thali places. Others enjoy being at the Jungle café, that overlooks the forest. Food for buyers and vendors, textiles for the locals, the drug stores, the internet cafes that are tourist necessities and Convenience stores that must sell camera rolls, digital camera transfers and CD writing facilities for recording with ease the traveller experiences.

In the main street, business is good for the retailers for almost eight months in a year. However, the land price here is Rs.6 lakhs/cent. So, a shop can cost upto Rs.6 lakhs to Rs.8 lakhs. This main area is known as Kumily town. A short distance away is Thekkady which has shops that also sell spices. This area is less expensive in terms of land prices. Here, a trader can buy one cent for Rs.4 lakhs. With the establishing of five-star hotels such as Taj Retreat and Spice Village, the shops here sell both spices and crafts at a price higher than on the ‘Kumily town’ bazaar street.

When one looks at the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, it is the organic nature of the plan, the ingenuity of the vendors in their marketing strategies and their creativity of displays that lend vibrancy to the spatial experience. In Kumily, it would be good to have a street that is less wide, one that is for pedestrians only, shops that have transition spaces i.e. there is a open space, a semi-enclosed verandah and perhaps an enclosed space within for storage, or those goods that need to be scrutinised carefully or for making a deal with the wholesaler or retail that goes beyond the ordinary.

Shelter forms in Kumily Bazaar

The shops that line the Bazaar in Kumily are private enterprises. Traders in the Spice market rent or lease a property along the main street. They construct a shelter as a shop, with bricks and cement mortar for walls and a concrete roof. In most of urban India, there are no architectural guidelines or principles that govern the streetscape of our changing times.

In the towns that have still retained their medieval character, the space between the shelters on either side of the street relates to the height of the structures, to create some shaded and some sun-lit spaces for the people on the street. The streets of Jaisalmer in Rajasthan and the pols in Ahmedabad are good examples of streets with aesthetic and functional characteristics. The principles that were applied to architecture, to the built-form, generated a life on the street that reflected its architecture, with its hierarchy of open spaces and its responses to the sun and the wind.

In search of the earlier built-forms of Kumily town, one finds one way into the “Bar” at the elite Spice Village hotel which one is told has old black and white photographs of Kumily and Thekkady (thekku, or teak trees). There are many framed photographs that cover its walls. They are pictures of the inhabitants of the wildlife sanctuary, family portraits from Kumily households of the 50’s and 60’s. There are no pictures of streets and houses. One learns that there was no “main street” until a few decades ago. Was this tourist town only forest and the lake till recent times?

Today, the Spice bazaar is dominated by a wide vehicular road, between two rows of shops on either side. This is the road that leads to the Bus stand at one end. Could the Spice bazaar be re-planned as a pedestrianised marketplace and detailed architecturally using stone walls and tiled roofs or brick walls with stabilised mud plaster and grass roof? Can the architecture for Spice Tourism develop its own contemporary vernacular vocabulary?

a cardamom town of Kerala

Kumily is a cardamom town in Kerala. There is the auction market where heaps of cardamom await the bidding of merchants from all over India. During ‘season time’ the auction takes place twice a week. One finds rows of women cleaning the cardamom. It is a native of the town of Kumily.

Although the Spice bazaar in Kumily sells many different spices and nuts, they come from different parts of Kerala. Cashew production is the largest in Kollam. Pepper and coffee have auction markets at Cochin. Eucalptus oil is brought from Kodaikanal.

In Kumily, as also in other tourist towns in Kerala, menu cards always carry ‘cardamom tea’. It is tea with milk with the flavour of cardamom. Of course, there is also ginger tea, lemon tea, black coffee and so on.

One day in the life of a cardamom is an interesting story. There are places for cleaning, places for auction, places for wholesalers and places for retailers. It has travelled through them all. Anything that is a part of a bazaar at any time has seen places and seen people.

Signages at Varkala, Signages anywhere

At some time, signage begins to merge with advertising. A trader needs to announce what he has. He also needs to announce that what he has is better than what another has. Several traders sell the same commodity. How he “packages” and how he “signages” begin to matter. The bazaar in Varkala stretches itself along the 2 km long laterite cliff and has a spectacular view of the Lakshadweep Sea. The signages sit against the backdrop of the aquamarine waters and the green coconut palms.

The role of the user in a Bazaar is an important one. When this target audience or user is an indian, his aesthetic sense prefers the modern, the contemporary. When the user is a foreign visitor, his aesthetic sense for the moment, prefers the “indian” and the “tradtional”. During the season, the months of December and January, Varkala is populated with Europeans and Americans. Some come for a short stay, to enjoy the beach. Others come for a long stay, to learn yoga and meditation. Since the foreigner pays a better price for both commodity and service, the signages and packaging must often reflect his tastes. How does a local Varkala trader know what these tastes are? He asks, He learns. There is a hidden story in Signages at Varkala, as in Signages anywhere.

Other Varkala posts :
Bazaar Tour 3 - Varkala
The Tibtetans at the Cliff
Signage in Cliff Bazaar
Once upon a time, there were no signs
To the Cliff
and
Cafe Italiano & the Badam Tree

Once upon a time, there were no signs...

It is a little difficult to imagine this, but it may be a true story nevertheless. Let’s take it as far back as we can imagine. Man hunted for food, he came back to his cave, he cooked the food. He had already discovered fire. Then, he began to build his shelter and abandoned the cave. He also began to grow his own food. He sowed. He reaped. What he harvested, he ate. Then, there was more harvest than he could eat. So, he began to trade. He exchanged the harvest for something he had not grown and for something that the terrain surrounding him did not have. Nature gave different people different fruit. Man began to share and to live together as a community. Soon, there were exchanges between communities.

As a community, you now had choices to make. You could exchange food for craft, craft for livestock & transport, transport for learning. In the beginning, craft was a daily commodity. If you were a potter, you exchanged clay pots for food. If you were a weaver, you exchanged woven cloth for food. There was trade and then there were trade routes. People travelled far and wide to sell their wares. Soon, the barter system disappeared. Now, you could sell spices and nuts. What you gained was money. You lived happily or unhappily by how much you could buy, with the money you could earn.

Some people sold services. A doctor could cure people of an illness, he could relieve pain. An engineer could build a bridge. People paid money for their services and their kindness. Then, one day, there were many commodities and many services of the same kind. You had to now announce who you were, what you sold and for how much.

I kept wondering about the name of this shop Satori. This was the Wikipedia definition I found : Satori is a Japanese Buddhist term for "enlightenment." Satori is typically juxtaposed with a related term known as kensho, which translates as "seeing one's nature." Kensho experiences tend to be briefer glimpses, while satori is considered to be a deeper spiritual experience.

Other Varkala posts :
Bazaar Tour 3 : Varkala
The Tibtetans at the Cliff
Signage in Cliff Bazaar
Signages at Varkala, Signages anywhere
To the Cliff
and
Cafe Italiano & the Badam tree

Signage in Cliff Bazaar

It of course begins with the common “To the cliff” painted on wood in many different ways at the many junctions one encounters as paths wind their way to the beach and the cliff. Once you are on the cliff, there are signs that say German Bakery or Ayurvedic massage. A restaurant has its own kind of signs. Quite often, it is a blackboard. It does seem like an all-time favourite. You can wipe it clean every day and your signage is for now, only for today! It is always new, never more than one-day old.

Then, there are signs that are for longer, but are also hand-made. These are the wooden signages that tell you that here is your german bakery and your thai cuisine. The wooden signs are attractive because they are hand-crafted and one of a kind. They do not use printing technology and are very pleasing to the eye.

There are places for ancient arts like Kathakali and the ayurvedic massage centres. Their signboards are always in vinyl – the most modern of signage material. The art is ancient enough, the sign must be contemporary and with the times? The vinyl ones are also popular because they can be lit from behind. As the sun sets and the cliff & sea plunge into darkness, the vinyl signs are visible in entirety. The cliff bazaar at night is lit from lights within the crafts shops and without. The path that meanders by the cliff also has lamp-posts in cast-iron. But then, the cast-iron lamp-posts sometimes work and sometimes not. In the dark of the night, in Varkala, some signs you read, some you don’t. Early next morning, as you walk along the cliff, there is light everywhere. Once again, you read everything. That which is there, and that which is not.

Other Varkala posts :
Bazaar Tour 3 : Varkala
The Tibtetans at the Cliff
To the Cliff
Once upon a time, there were no signs
Signages at Varkala, Signages anywhere
and
Cafe Italiano & the Badam tree

the Tibetans at the Cliff

Varkala has a large tibetan market within its Cliff Bazaar. One passes by ‘Tibetan Buddha Arts’ – the shop where Dorjee and Puppu sell their crafts. You retrace your steps and look again at the bead necklaces and the embroidered textiles. You need to go into the shop. As you step in, you hear some music. Now, you need to continue to look at the crafts or pretend to because you want to listen to the music longer. It is the music of “Lama Chopa” – a buddhist Tantric celebration… The music goes on and on and Puppu continues to smile at you every time you look towards her. It must be a nice people, who listen to music such as this. A people for whom living in India means living closer to the Dalai Lama.

You look at her once again and ask about the music, and also about the beautiful beadwork that she strings together with her own hands. The Tibetan woman speaks of her business in Varkala. She and her husband came here six years ago from Tibet. There were not as many shops then and the rents were not so high. Today, they pay Rs.85,000 as rent and Rs.12,000 for electricity for the six month period. The municipality demands Rs.5,000 for being a part of the bazaar. It totals to almost one lakh and that works out to Rs.17,000 per month. Earnings must come also from this six month period since that is “season time”. From mid-november to mid-may is when tourists come to Varkala. The rest of the year, few shops in the Bazaar function. Most of the shops close down.

Dorjee and Puppu go away to Delhi to purchase crafts for the next season, and to Darjeeling to pick up their children who go to boarding school there and then to Ladakh. They come back again next year, with most of their earnings spent. Tibetan Buddha Arts sells bead necklaces, bracelets, earrings, singing bowls, tibetan incense for meditation, cloth handbags and metal crafts.

Other Varkala posts :
Bazaar Tour 3 - Varkala
Signage in Cliff Bazaar
Once upon a time, there were no signs
Signages at Varkala, Signages anywhere
To the Cliff
and
Cafe Italiano & the Badam tree

the Bazaar grows

In Varkala, as elsewhere, the bazaar grows, it flourishes. It responds willingly to every dynamic change in interest from those who come here to buy. The bazaar sells only that which people wish to buy. Now, there are also little convenience stores that sell cigarettes and shampoo and potato chips. These come up within this cliff bazaar like ‘pan shops’ do in our street corners. They sell mineral water too. Sometimes, there is a “supermarket” that has within it the cigarettes and the shampoo and the german bakery plus a bookshop selling second-hand books. The second-hand books are the ones that tourists have left behind in Varkala for other tourists to read.

One looks at the shops and the tourist cottages in Varkala and one is reminded of Goa. There is also an organic growth of resorts, craft shops and cafetarias in Goa, especially on the way to Calangute beach. The use of natural materials in the building of shops and cafes is common to both – Goa & Kerala.

'To the cliff'

‘To the cliff’ and ‘To the beach’ are signs so common. You know this must be the most important part of Varkala. It is also where the Bazaar is. You move in the direction of the sea. The cliff runs along the coastline, along the beach. Varkala, in Kerala, is probably one of the only ‘On the Cliff Bazaars’ in India, facing the sea. There are cafes, restaurants and the many colours of the indian textiles that the foreigners fill their moments with. The restaurant tables have cane chairs that face only in one direction, towards the waters.

The many craft shops that the bazaar has, are interspersed with ayurvedic treatment centres too. And, there are the several “German Bakery” boards everywhere as you walk along the cliff. They sell wholewheat bread and croissants and cinnamon rolls. There are the “internet cafes” and the “STD booth”. There’s the sign that says ‘Oriental Food Court’ or ‘Foods of the Orient – Specialities of Thailand’. There are one or two places that serve Kerala meals. Varkala has the sun, the sand and the sea. It also has the cliff, the tourists and the bazaar.

Other Varkala posts :
Bazaar Tour 3 : Varkala
The Tibtetans at the Cliff
Signage in Cliff Bazaar
Once upon a time, there were no signs
Signages at Varkala, Signages anywhere
and
Cafe Italiano & the Badam tree