Walking thru’ Chickpete

I had a printout of the google map of Chickpete that I studied quickly before I set out. It looked like I could start at the K.R.market and then walk through the many streets and come out towards the Majestic Bus stand at the other end. It was tempting to go into and around the K.R.market as I neared it. I had been there before. Always a hustle of activity, with its fruit and vegetable vendors making brisk sales almost at all times of the day! I loved watching that.

I was trying to be focused that day. So, knowing from my map that taking Avenue road would be a good point of entry into chickpete, I started out. As I walked here, there were stationery shops, diwali cracker shops, jewellery shops and all kinds of other shops. The footpaths are not so wide but there ARE footpaths and they had no encroachments. There is an interesting article ‘Narrow avenue, broader minds’ at Citizen Matters that talks about Avenue road and the communities who live and work here.

The place was crowded at 11.30 in the morning. I got to a “circle” and took a left towards Balepet. A four-way road junction was being referred to as a “circle” whenever I asked for directions. “You will come to a circle, take a right there” someone would guide. There was no circular traffic island or roundabout, just the chaos of a four-way junction without a centrepoint identified.

Soon, I came across a Mutt building and then, some time later saw a Jain dharamshala. These were old buildings – the only ones with elements of vernacular architecture and seemed like they’d been here for many years. That suddenly took me into the past and I began to look at every new façade I passed with a different eye and an imagination of what it might have earlier been before it became a place of “grand sale” and “bumper offer”

What was Chickpete like fifty years before? Was the fading away of the vernacular architecture also a fading away of the traditional shopping culture? Had there been a traditional shopping culture? Were the streets less crowded then? Had there been horsecarts on the avenue road and not the loud, honking autorickshaws that deafened me from sensing the past or contemplating the future?

There seem to be similarities between inner city cores in our cities – Chickpete has characteristics that remind me of Georgetown in Chennai or the Crawford market area in Mumbai. I’ve written earlier at a Street corner in Mumbai about how in the Indian city, the bazaar has been the nucleus of the city growing into many intersecting streets that tell a story of livelihoods and a story of the city's evolution.

I was nearing yet another edge of the Chickpete market precinct and the walk had been about getting a feel of the maze of the streets that made it this dense shopping experience – both in physical and cultural terms – layers of everyday life that unfolded itself in front of you with every step and every thought that time took forward for you.

I knew I was coming back again soon. It was the next day that this happened. I was now at the Mysore Bank entering Avenue road from the other end. There was informal vending all over the place. Many many book titles looking at you from the footpath curb where stands balanced themselves and the books on them. Many booksellers of secondhand books occupied the sidewalks. Were they a spill-over from the formal shops? No, these were independent street vendors, for whom public space was where their livelihoods were anchored.

Suddenly, today, it seemed as if Chickpete was only about the informal sector. Nothing else was as predominant as this incredible range of things on sale – plastic flowers, bags of all kinds, dryfruits, sunglasses, what-not. There was street food of all kinds – from boiled groundnuts to cut-fruit stalls that were on push-carts that stood in the middle of the street sometimes, it really was sometimes the middle or at least half-way to the middle of the road!

I continue to ponder about this marketplace also after my walking around is done. What was a typical street in Chickpete, if one were to do an anatomy of it? It was this undefinable mix of pedestrian, street food vendor, car, autorickshaw, imitation barbie dolls positioned on parked two-wheelers or some other attractive item for sale – all put together – bringing back memories of the dizzying hand movements of the street vendor in old-time calcutta as he would mix the jhal-muri in that tin container with the aroma of mustard oil flowing towards you to tell you that the mixing was good and right!

If you were to walk through Chickpete in the morning, any time before 10am when the shops begin to open, it is quite another place. The streets are rather empty and you might see pigeons perched in the middle of the road, as I saw this morning as I chose to explore the streets of the Pete area when business has not yet begun here. You see tender coconut vendors on bicycles parked momentarily, sipping their morning tea alongwith street sweepers. There are newspaper vendors who have the news laid out for you on the steps of the merchant establishments.

In the morning, you can walk freely with the sun coming in and gently lighting up the street facades that you now see more easily since you are not jostling your way through the street crowds. There is a Nankatai vendor with a bicycle, who is stocking up fresh baked biscuits into a large glass jar for the corner Paan shop, who sells snacks and the paan. There are empty white, wooden shelves along the white wall of a building, which I had seen the day before covered with many books. I see them now in this morning light, waiting for their owner to come fill them again for this day and waiting for those who will read the books for their stories, in a way that others would read the city through walking its streets.

Read about:
Walking in Lille
Faces in the Bazaar

Life in Colour

A GUEST POST by LAURA MANNERING  Most tourists love a market. It’s not just because we’re obsessed with finding the ultimate souvenir of our travels. It is a way of mixing with people, getting buffeted by the trade hustle and joining in the to and fro, the buy and sell. My favourite markets are those where you can really become one of the crowd, an unremarkable addition to the flow of people going about their daily routine. Everybody wants to feel part of the place they are in – not the odd one out, the outsider who doesn’t understand how anything works. A market can be a place to blend in, to wander, watch and discover.

Baskets full of white threaded jasmine buds, of golden marigolds and neatly-wrapped bunches of roses. Bright kum kum powder smoothed into cones, stacks of soapy-looking jaggery cubes, neatly-arranged whirls of green betel leaves, and the air so full of spice that everybody was sneezing. My memories of markets in India are full of energy, warmth, movement and colour. Sure, it was clear I wasn’t a local, but for an hour or two I could pretend.

Flower baskets at Dadar wholesale flower market, Mumbai

Boy with betel leaves at Gandhi Bazaar, Bangalore

Dadar wholesale flower market, Mumbai

Mango seller at Crawford Market, Mumbai

Kum kum powder at Devaraja Market,
Mysore

Fruit baskets
at K.R. Market, Bangalore

Piles of nuts and dried fruit at the Spice market, Delhi

Laura Mannering is a London-based journalist, traveller and market-lover. She recently spent three months in India.

Laura, thanks for writing this post and for sharing your photographs!

Bollywood posters

If you enjoy exploring the Bazaars in India, there is an antique market in Bombay with shops that sell posters from Bollywood movies. This can be an exciting way to spend an afternoon in Bombay. ‘Bollywood Bazaar’ is the name of a shop on Mutton street at Chor Bazaar in Mumbai that sells Bollywood posters and other Film memorablia from Hindi films. It has been a shop in this antique market since the last 65 years. It was in the ‘80’s that Shahid Mansoori first began to keep his own personal collection of film memorablia in his father’s shop here.

For Shahid, this was a passion and his sources were Cinema halls that were closing down, offices of distributors and private collectors. There are about forty people all over India who help him source the material. In the early days, few people took interest in buying old film posters. Today, Shahid sells in India as well as abroad. Every year, his collection is displayed at a private exhibition in Paris which is organised in collaboration with a French art dealer.

Posters can cost from Rs.50 to Rs.5000, depending on whether it is an original first print or a 2nd or 3rd print. In the old days, these were only hand-painted posters. Shahid also has some of these rare hand-painted ones in his collection. He has gathered also the booklets with song lyrics from films which were usually made available to the public after the release of a new Hindi film.

The original shop that belonged to the family was called ‘Mini market’. Later, Shahid Mansoori purchased two more shops on the same street. One of them is ‘Bollywood Bazaar’ which hires out film memorablia like posters, records and photographs and is managed by Shahid’s son Wahid.

The second shop is called ‘Super Sale’. It is managed by Sajid, his second son and caters primarily to a foreign market. They also have a warehouse that stocks more material which is often used in their ‘Film and T.V. serials’ decoration assignments. Sajid mentions that the two books that I might find useful are ‘Living Pictures’ by David Blamey and ‘Bollywood Posters’ by Sheena Sippy.

If one is a lover of Bollywood films and memorablia, Shahid Mansoori offers to relate tales of how some of the posters and photo stills of Hindi film actors and actresses found their way to his shop. In an antique bazaar and to an antique lover, it is perhaps these tales that are so much what he seeks. If you were to take a ‘Bollywood Bazaar tour’ it would center around these shops called the ‘Mini-market’ and ‘Bollywood Bazaar’ at this corner junction of Mutton street and its focal point would be Shahid Mansoori. It is a journey through time and a fun-filled one!

 
You can write to them at minimarket@rediffmail.com or call them on 91-22-23472427. They are closed on Fridays. 



Other Bazaar tours in India :
Bazaar Tour 1 : Dadar Flower Market, Mumbai
Bazaar Tour 2 : Antique market, Mumbai
Bazaar Tour 3 : Varkala, Kerala
Bazaar Tour 4 : Gandhi Bazaar, Bangalore

Mylapore Temple Bazaar, Chennai

There are two kinds of people – those who hate chennai and those who love chennai. The ones who love chennai will always continue to love chennai, no matter where life takes them. As one of our friends put it: “It is only in chennai that you will meet an elderly mami (Tamil word for ‘aunty’) at a wedding, dressed in her traditional nine yard pattu (silk) saree, whom you begin to make conversation with, expecting the talk to revolve around the home and the hearth when you hear her wax eloquent about the latest happenings at Princeton and suddenly your own knowledge about matters of the world seem so limited. That kind of sums up what we like so much about Chennai – a globally aware metropolis where traditional customs are still followed and much of their meaning understood.

In Chennai, you come across a temple or a shrine ever so often as you walk along the streets, especially in Royapettah, Mylapore, Triplicane and the other older parts of the city. The city has two large temples, one at Mylapore – the Kapaleeswarar Temple, and the other at Triplicane – the Parthasarathy temple. Both the temples are enveloped by bazaars.

The Bazaar at Mylapore is primarily the four streets that border the temple and its tank. During festivals, these four traditional Mada streets that encircle the temple burst with people and celebration as the huge wooden temple car housing the idols is taken around the temple. 

In his book 'Madras Rediscovered' the historian, S.Muthiah notes that the Mylapore temple was on the shores in the 15th century and part of the great port of the Pallava Kings who bore the title Mylai Kavalar (Protectors of Mylapore). Meaning ‘Town of Peacocks’, Mylapore derives its name from a legend now depicted in one of the idols housed within the temple, where the Goddess Parvathi, the consort of Shiva, is shown worshipping him in the body of a peacock.

As you begin to walk along the North Mada street, you find shops that sell clothes for the deity. There is the Shree Sathyanarayana Silks – a Wholesale and Retail shop established in 1973 for Handloom Lace, Pure Silk sarees, Cotton sarees, Dhoties, etc. This is also the street that has the shops selling Temple Jewellery, which are worth a visit.
  
Earlier, the jewellery was all hand-made whereas today it is mass-produced. There are thousands of designs that have been carried on through generations of master artisans. They are now codified and each design has a name. The 'Radha Gold Jewellers' has 120 artisans working in silver and gold. The shop gets several orders from the Kalakshetra dance school, which was established by Rukmini Devi Arundale in Chennai and from well-known dancers all over South India.

Then, there are stores that sell Brass and Copper Pooja articles, Handicrafts, Gift articles and Devotional Decoration articles. These shops occupy some of the charming old vernacular houses that still exist in Mylapore, with their country tile roofs and their lime-plastered walls. The items for sale are displayed in the small rooms of the house and you pick up gifts for friends and family as you walk through the house with the salespeople being there when you need them.

At the entrance to the street leading to the east gate of the Temple and occupying a prominent corner is the Ambica Appalam Depot. It is actually 65 years old but in its current location since 12 years. When it first started on Madha Narayana Street, it sold primarily appalam and sambhar powder. Today, it sells all groceries and includes products such as Betel nut powder, Ginger sweets, Groundnut rounds, Idli Dosai chilly powder and the Payasam mix. There is a smaller outlet of Ambica Appalam also on the R.K.Mutt road.

There are shelves and shelves of ambica products such as the Lemon Rice paste, the Tomato Thokku, the Curry Leaf Rice paste, the Tiffin Sambhar paste, the Puliyodharai Rice paste and the Vathakuzhambu paste. You can also buy the MTR sambhar powder and Sri Ganeshram’s 777 brand of sambhar powder here. All of this makes Ambica Appalam a special place for those who miss what their mothers and grandmothers made ever so lovingly at home!

Facing the East entrance of the Temple is a small lane, which houses the well-known music shop – GIRI stores. This place is so special because you can find here recitations from the Gita, Carnatic Classical Vocal, Tamil discourses, Epic T.V.serials, Hindustani Classical and lots more. There is also music from Tamil films and Malayam songs.

There is Sanskrit devotional music that includes Sacred Vedic chanting, Veda Vahini, Chalisa, Shiva Stuti, Gayatri Mantram, Suprabhatam, MahaShivrathri puja, Shrimad Bhagvad Gita and the Lalitha Sahasranama Stothram. As you walk into the three-storeyed shop, there is devotional music playing in the background and pictures of Dr.Chitti Babu (Veena), Bombay S.Jayashri (Vocal), D.K.Pattamal (Vocal), Neela & Kunjumani (Flute), Prasanna (Guitar) and Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan (Violin).

On South Mada street, you will see and smell coffee shops and more coffee shops!! There is the P.R.K.Nadar Sons who are wholesale merchants for coffee. There is the Leo Coffee shop, which is where we always bought our daily dose of “Houseblend” when we lived in Chennai some years ago. Further down the same road, there is the ‘Brahmalaya’s Kumbakonam Degree’ coffee. Then, there is the simple outlet ‘Sobana Tea and Coffee bar’ and the contemporary Café Coffee day as well.

The west entrance to the temple abuts the temple tank and the street is lined by flower sellers, a fortune teller and vendors selling stickers with kolam designs. Further west, on R.K.Mutt road is a house that is simple looking but prominent in the history of Mylapore. This is the 'Samaithu Par' house that belonged to Meenakshi Ammal who is well-known for her three-volume book series 'Cook and See' which was first publised in 1951. It was written at that time for the young bride with advice on how to make the perfect coffee decoction and with recipes for adais and dosais and guidelines for how to manage a wedding function in your family!

To the west of the tank is the famous Ramakrishna Mutt, on R.K.mutt road. Further north on this road are shops that sell musical instruments such as the violin and the veena. There are people who come from all over South India for purchase or repair of their instruments here. 

What we also loved when we lived in Chennai for three years, were the neighbourhood newspapers that provided so much local news. There is the Mylapore Times - a free, English weekly that covers news about Mylapore, Alwarpet, Santhome and R.A.Puram. Every year, in the month of January, there is the 4-day Mylapore Festival with its dance recitals, its storytelling, its Rickshaw tours, Temple tours and its kolam competitions!

The Mylapore temple bazaar has also come to be a place where the women of the music-loving city of madras, shop for their silk sarees. For sarees, there is the famous Raasi silks, which is the biggest in this part of Chennai. This is opposite the Karpagambal Mess, a place to visit for idlis and dosas when you are here. It is especially well-frequented in the Kutcheri months (Music season) in December/ January when the Gana Sabhas (music halls) in the Mylapore region are overflowing with ardent music lovers. You have just listened to Bombay Jayashree or Aruna Sairam sing at the Mylapore Fine Arts Society and then you come by here for a tiffin (snack) and a filter coffee which is an apt end to the blissful day.

On the food front, there is also the Vasantha Bhavan on South Mada and the Saravana Bhavan on the North Mada Street. What you don’t want to miss at Saravana’s is their natural icecreams - including flavours such as tender coconut, jackfruit and panchamrutam! Near Mylapore are also the Luz Church and the Santhome Cathedral, which was part of an old Portuguese settlement of the 16^th century - also worth a visit while you are at this most exciting temple bazaars of South India. If you want to get to know the real chennai this is the place to begin!

Other Bazaar tours in India :
Bazaar Tour 1 : Dadar Flower Market, Mumbai
Bazaar Tour 2 : Antique market, Mumbai
Bazaar Tour 3 : Varkala, Kerala
Bazaar Tour 4 : Gandhi Bazaar, Bangalore

Fish market Mumbai

“Go to Sassoon Dock at break of day, and there before you are the two unchanging forces of Bombay – commerce and the sea – in jostling, clangorous, Technicolor profusion.” It is these words from Pico Iyer's essay on Bombay, in his book ‘Tropical Classical’ that keep coming back to me. I know that I have to go to Sassoon Docks someday. When I finally do, I wonder why inspite of growing up in Bombay, it has taken me so many years to come here.


I'm finally at the Sassoon Docks. I stand there for a moment watching the silhouettes of people and baskets in the first light of the morning. Sometimes, there is so much that one doesn't know about within one’s own city. I start to walk deeper into the market. The environment is changing rapidly - more people molecules and less space molecules. I try to be here without being noticed, try to not be in anyone’s way, which is so difficult to do, because there are so many koli men and women walking about and moving fast. You can’t afford to be in the way of a fisherwoman who is going past with an empty basket or a filled basket. In both cases, she is in a hurry and if you so much as fall within her path, she will either push you aside and move ahead or will swear at you.


The paths are not even defined, so you are always right in the middle of a path that you didn’t know would happen. This could be the only time you wished you wouldn’t understand even a bit of Marathi or had never heard any of these swear words to know their meaning. If they are flung at you, they sound worse than they ever did before. You sense your body mechanisms preparing their second and their third line of defense at this point. And later, as you think about it, you realise that you only like the fisherwomen for being themselves. That’s them and they don’t believe in packaging themselves in politeness.

This Fish Bazaar at Sassoon Docks is a place where the small boats and big boats arrive from the sea and the catch is sold at wholesale prices to fish vendors who then sell to customers all over the city. The fishermen in the small boats make one-day trips out to sea. The larger boats are out at sea for 7-10 days and there are 12-15 fishermen on each of these boats. The boats arrive at Sassoon docks by the evening or earlier in the day. They are offered for sale only the next morning. The smaller boats dock themselves on one side of the jetty and the larger boats on the other side. Baskets of fish are actually swung across to someone standing on the jetty, since the boats are not able to get closer than ten feet to the edge of the jetty when they dock.


The fish move through a series of people and locations, from small baskets that come off the boats to large baskets and plastic bags, from the fishermen who are still on their boats to the wholesalers who are stationed along both edges of the jetty. Along the centre of the jetty, there are roofed sheds and the space is primarily occupied by baskets that are waiting to be filled and taken into the city. Around this space and along the edges of the jetty is where the people movement is and where the bargains happen.


I begin to chat with one of the men who seems not in a haste. I'm sure that this man of quiet demeanour wouldn't mind telling me a bit about the bazaar and its flurry of activity. After all, he is not rushing like the others, with "no time to stand and stare". I learn that he is here to neither buy nor sell. He is a caretaker of fish baskets. While the fisherwomen are going about negotiating and buying the best fish for the best price, empty baskets and partially filled baskets are under scrutiny cover. The caretaker charges Rs.10 for each basket that he looks after. This man does not move from his place but his eyes are catching every movement around him. If there is a theft, he must take responsibility and he is expected to give back a fish-filled basket. He has only sixty seconds to speak to me. He then looks away. He has business to do. There are many such young caretakers all over the marketplace, minding the several baskets around them.


Perishability of the fish gives rise to another enterprise - the selling of ice. There are those who only sell ice to all the fisherwomen. The measure is a nine inch diameter basket, about 7 inches in height, which costs Rs.5 each. Fisherwomen buy the fish. It is put into their baskets and they immediately buy either one or two measures of crushed ice to cover the fish with. Outside the market gate, there are small ice factories, where these vendors buy the crushed ice for selling inside the market. It is a supply chain design strategy that interlinks various stakeholders who must each maximise efficiency to reach their peak values.


In the traditional shopping environments, bargaining has been an important communication channel. If one were to write a story about the art of bargaining in India, the best examples would perhaps come from a fish market. The fisherwomen are the masters of the art. If there are a hundred different ways to make a bargain, they are adept at all the hundred skillful nuances of the art. The words are sharp. The tone is sharp. It’s a completely no-nonsense interaction. On both sides of the bargaining divide, there is a fisherwoman. It’s like watching a sport, to see who will win and to silently rejoice in their victory and to move on to experience more.


I wonder about the marketing strategies. There are no publicity boards. Here, what works today is what worked years ago, when advertising was about how long you could walk and how loud you could shout. I see a young boy in a bargain with a few fisherwomen. He is trying to fix a price on a basket of fish that he wants to buy and must see who will give him a good price.


There are individual baskets that leave the marketplace, carried on the fisherwomen’s heads in which fish catch is moving out. Some baskets get loaded onto hand-carts which carry upto four large baskets each. You see these exit one after another once business is done. The hand carts go upto the gate onto the main road, where they are loaded onto tempos or trucks that travel as far as Andheri, Vakola and other suburban parts of Bombay. Some fish travel out by taxis, baskets are loaded into the back carrier and top carrier of the yellow and black cabs and are seen leaving the gates.

At Sassoon docks, I learn a little about the world of the fisherfolk community in Bombay – what they do, how they relate to one another, what is acceptable and what is not. The physical extent of the wholesale market is large, with no rigid boundaries. There seems to be a spatial organisation that is known to the daily visitors. It is undemarcated and unclear initially to a first-time visitor. But, as you stay here long enough, you begin to notice it. There are patterns of movement and patterns of behaviour that seem to govern the functioning of the marketplace.


There are some questions that arise as you try to understand the nature of the trading practices here. How is functionality achieved in this exchange amongst the vendors and the customers in a seemingly chaotic place? What establishes trust between the people? What is the history of interactions or what are the unstated, unwritten laws of relationships within a fisherfolk community? It is a long process from wholesale to retail vendoring. This is not an organised, systemised operation like that of a Fishing Corporation with its efficient trawlers and its iceboxes. And yet, there seems to be an intangible order influencing the commodity exchange that brings the fish from the sea through a series of stakeholders right upto its final consumption at a home or a hotel in Mumbai.


Even a partial experience of the marketplace is substantial experience for one morning – memories to cherish, sights to always remember in your mind’s eye. Once you are in there, you become an insignificant, irrelevant speck within this sea of people.

How to get there : Any bus going to Colaba bus stand would be ideal. If you are taking a taxi, you must say ‘Sassoon Docks’ but mention that you need to go to the Fish market there, because the market entrance is further down the road from the Sassoon dock main gate. The entrance is next to the Women’s Graduate Union or the Amy Rustomjee hall. The market is at its busiest from 5:30am to 7:30am. It is open until one in the afternoon.

Other Bazaar tours in India :
Bazaar Tour 1 : Dadar Flower Market, Mumbai
Bazaar Tour 2 : Antique market, Mumbai
Bazaar Tour 3 : Varkala, Kerala
Bazaar Tour 4 : Gandhi Bazaar, Bangalore

Mulji Jetha market - a Textile Bazaar in Mumbai

The Mulji Jetha market in Mumbai is the largest textile market in Asia. It is a hundred and thirty-six year old market and located near the Zaveri Bazaar, in Kalbadevi. It was built by a few Bhatia families who came to Bombay from Kathiawad and Saurashtra and has 954 shops under one roof. It is most unusual in its planning and spreads out into street-like aisles that are covered with a roof. It has some of the old, charming skylights that only a few buildings in Bombay have today. The shops are mostly wholesale outlets.

Included below is a google earth image of the Kalbadevi and Crawford market area. I thought this image is a good indication of just how large this market is in its physical extent. Seen in the left upper corner of the image, the market occupies a huge part of the Kalbadevi area encompassing several streets and equipped with 24 entrance gates. In the lower right corner of the image is seen the Crawford market, which is the oldest fruit and vegetable market in Mumbai.
Source : Google Earth

The textile market belongs to the Mulji Jetha Market association whose members are the shop owners. In conversation with the Secretary of the Market association, Mr.Rajesh Patel, I learn that there is a board of directors comprising of ten members. If there is a new entrant or trader who wants to buy a shop in the market, he seeks the approval of the Board. A premium is fixed over the price of the purchase which is paid to the Market association. For a sale price of Rs.50 lakhs for a shop, the premium may be about Rs.15 lakhs. These funds are utilised for the maintenance of the market. It has a security service for its many gates and more than 15 sweepers for keeping the premises clean. The type of traders include wholesalers and semi-wholesalers. The grey cloth comes from Bhiwandi and from Echal Karanjit in Maharashtra; suiting fabric is from Bhilwada; sarees are from Surat and cotton fabric comes from Ahmedabad.


In India, the story of the rise of Dhirubhai Ambani, from a small trader to a large business tycoon is well known. He began by setting up his own yarn dealership in a small 10ft x 10ft space in Mulji Jetha Market, for which it is said, he paid an exorbitant rent of Rupees 150 a month because it had a telephone. I include here some excerpts from an Inaugural address by his son, Mukesh Ambani, Chairman & Managing Director of Reliance Industries at the launch of the Multicommodity Exchange :

“My father, Shri Dhirubhai Ambani, returned from Aden in February 1958. He started a small office in Masjid Bunder. It was then the nerve center for trading of spices. In the midst of the din and bustle of this market place, he had a small office. With two tables and a common care-of telephone. All in just 150 sq. ft. of space. From there he started trading in cardamom, dry ginger, turmeric, black pepper and other spices.”

“Then, in 1959-1960, came an opportunity to export textiles. Against exports, one could get a licence to import yarn. Dhirubhai Ambani used this opportunity to buy cloth in wholesale quantities from Mulji Jetha market and export it.”

“Yarn and textiles fancied him. He dreamed of having his own world-class textile manufacturing facility. This, over time, led to the Naroda textile unit. From Tamba Kata to largest Polyester producer and Mulji Jetha Market to Jamnagar, Reliance has come a long way. A journey founded on the dynamics of commodity markets.”


Why would a visit to such a textile market be of interest to anyone who is not in the textile business himself? I think what is interesting here is that the entire textile bazaar is dominated by Gujarati and Marwari owners. It is therefore also culturally different from other bazaars in Mumbai. In Mumbai, there were communities who came from different States in India to settle here. It is interesting to see in the Bazaars in Mumbai how each of these communities recreates as much as possible their own cultural milieu.

The people from Gujarat who own shops in the Mulji Jetha and Zaveri Bazaar area attract setting up of eateries that serve gujarati food. The arrangement inside their own shops usually consists of cotton mattresses covered with white linen placed on wooden or built-in platforms. These are how they like their places of business to be.

Below is an image from Patan, a town in Gujarat, which was once its capital. Patan is a place known for its hand-woven Patola sarees that can take 4-6 months to weave and are priced high. As noted in Wikipedia, Patan was a part of the Maratha state of Baroda from mid-eighteenth century until India's independence in 1947, when Baroda became part of Bombay state, which in 1960 was separated into Gujarat and Maharashtra. If you walk down the streets in Patan, the shops have a traditional look that you see replicated in the Mulji Jetha market in Mumbai.


How to reach there : It is walking distance from the Crawford market and can be reached either by train from the Victoria Terminus station, Masjid Bunder & Marine Lines station or by bus or taxi.

Other bazaars in Mumbai:
Fish market at Sasoon Docks
Antique market in Mumbai (at Chor Bazaar)
Dadar flower market
Street corner at Crawford market

Other posts about Mumbai:
Bollywood Posters
The Gateway and its small enterprises

Gandhi Bazaar

This post is part of the Bazaar Tour Series. You can read here about Gandhi Bazaar: Street Vendor Eviction and about Pedestrianising Gandhi Bazaar.


The Gandhi Bazaar is a part of Basavanagudi, one of the older localities of this IT metropolis. It is a Street Bazaar, so you can get down anywhere along the street and start walking and exploring. On a festival day, such as Sankranti or Pongal (14th January) or Ugadi (first week of April) or Diwali (October or beginning November) Gandhi Bazaar has more lively shopping interactions and is a place to be a part of. On any given day of the year, the Bazaar opens at six in the morning and closes at nine in the evening.

The paths that take you towards the bazaar are territorialized by the informal sector, the paths within the market itself are patterns of human interaction and movement that are generated only to disappear again in a little while, to be created once more in another way. The vendor displays are simple creations that are changing and transforming themselves to attract and to sell better.





Amongst the shops that are very unique to this Bazaar are the Granthige stores i.e. shops that sell Puja items. I stop by at Ashwini Stores at the Vidyarthi Bhavan Circle. Besides all puja items, they also have Ayurvedic items, Dry fruits, Country drugs, Plastic covers, etc.


The other shops to look out for are the ones that sell local Kannadiga dry snacks, such as Holige (which is similar to the Maharashtrian Puran Poli), Jaggery & Peanut balls and Pickles. These often have nameboards that say, ‘Dealers in Condiments, Dry fruits and General Home products’. There is one off the Gandhi Bazaar Main road, on D.V.Gundappa Road.

As you walk along the main Gandhi Bazaar road, you see vendors stringing flowers into garlands with their dexterous hands. The jasmines (mallige), tuberoses, marigolds, asters and roses are coupled with leaves to make garlands for the temple deity or for a wedding ceremony. If you are in this area early morning, i.e. anytime between 5:30am to 10:00am, you can also step into the 'Corporation market', which is on the main road and is primarily a flower market.



There are shops along the Gandhi Bazaar main road that also sell Silk sarees. There is the Kancheepuram Silk Weavers'Co-operative Society shop. There is also the private Kancheepuram Silk showroom with a shopfront that is more modern.


When it is time to eat, there are two places that can be a worthwhile experience at Gandhi Bazaar. One of them is Vidyarthi Bhavan, on the Gandhi Bazaar main road. It was started in 1938 as an eating place that served students. It is known for its Benne (butter) masala dosas. Since this is the most popular item on the menu, you often see the waiter balancing several plates of dosas in his hand. It is not a sight you see anywhere else. From Monday to Thursday, it is open from 6:30am to 11:30am and 2:00-8:00pm. On Saturday & Sunday, it is open from 6:30am to 12noon and 2:30-8:00pm. It is closed on Fridays.


The Brahmins Café is the other very popular eatery here. You can walk to it from Gandhi Bazaar. It is on Rangarao road near Shankar Mutt. The menu lists Idli, Vada, Khara Baath, Kesari Baath and Tea/Coffee. It is open from 7am to 12noon and 4pm to 7pm. It is closed on Sundays. There is also the Kamat Bugle Rock, a great restaurant for a North Karnataka thali, on Bull Temple Road.


Gandhi Bazaar sits on land that has been an important part of Bangalore’s history. In the vicinity is the Bull Temple. Here the Nandi (Bull) actually belongs to a centuries old temple almost 2 km away – the Gavi Gangadhareshwara Temple. The book ‘Deccan Traverses – The Making of Bangalore’s Terrain’ by Anuradha Mathur & Dilip da Cunha says “The Nandi Bull is a celebration of the rock outcrop, a sculpted summit enclosed by a pavilion on eight columns and a circumambulatory” It further says “An inscription below the right foreleg of Nandi declares that the waters of the Vrishabhavati originate here. These waters join the Kaveri”.

You wonder if the Gandhi bazaar is a Temple Bazaar, because you realise that it is a bazaar for flowers and a bazaar for puja items. These are two important elements of a Temple bazaar anywhere in India. The Gandhi Bazaar is perhaps different from the Temple bazaar in Tiruvannamalai or the Temple Bazaar in Mylapore, Chennai where the bazaars are streets that lead right upto the Arunachaleswarar temple or the Kapaleeswarar temple respectively. However, from what it sells and from its geography, one could assume that it is a Temple Bazaar that is gradually being penetrated with modern-day consumerism.


How to reach there : It is an area well-known and can be reached by bus or by taxi or by an auto-rickshaw. If you ask a cab-driver or an auto-rickshawdriver to take you to ‘Gandhi Bazaar’, he will bring you there. You will know when you are there as you spot flower garland and banana leaf sellers all over.

More about Gandhi Bazaar:
Gandhi Bazaar: Street vendor Eviction
Pedestrianising Gandhi Bazaar
A Street Bazaar and the City (a film)
An afternoon in Festive Dussehra

Other Bazaars in Bangalore :
How "green" is our Bazaar?
Urban Structure-City Market & Russell Market

Bazaar tours in India :
Bazaar Tour 1 : Dadar Flower Market, Mumbai
Bazaar Tour 2 : Antique market, Mumbai
Bazaar Tour 3 : Varkala, Kerala