I had a short stay of two months in Patiala, a city in Punjab known for its educational institutes like Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology (TIET) and Rajiv Gandhi National Law University (RGNLU). I stayed in a residential colony – Prem Nagar – very near the Thapar School of Liberal Arts and Sciences (TSLAS), TIET, where I was teaching. Since it was barely a kilometre from TSLAS to my home, I would walk to and from my workplace. What made this walk interesting was that I had to pass through a huge vegetable and fruit market to reach TSLAS from my home. Punjab is famous for its agricultural production and the impact of the Green Revolution on the region is well-known. Thus, this vegetable and fruit market just outside the TSLAS building intrigued me from the very first day. And slowly, walking through this stretch would become a thing that I looked forward to.

One could find all kinds of seasonal vegetables and fruits in this market at very reasonable rates. There were makeshift shops as well as trucks that had loudspeakers announcing the rates for the fruits and vegetables. One could see people buy kilos and kilos of onions, potatoes, tomatoes, cauliflowers, etc. While the makeshift shops are stationary, the trucks would move around the area. Apart from the fruits and vegetables, what also interested me is the huge number of juice shops. There are lines of shops selling a variety of juices – carrot, mixed vegetable, mixed fruit, orange, pomegranate, etc. There are also many coconut water shops. According to the juice sellers, people in Punjab love to drink juices. It is seen as good for health, particularly in winter. Several cars would stop by the roadside and they would be served fresh juices inside their cars. One could see a price difference sometimes. The coconut water that I purchased for fifty rupees was sold to them at sixty.

As I started buying my daily vegetables and fruits from this market, I became familiar with them. They would often give me ‘discounts’ without me even asking for them. I was given this benefit of discounts over the people who would often stop their cars to buy from them. In their own words, I was an ‘insider’, a ‘local’. ‘Aap toh yehi ke ho, Thapar me kaam karte ho’ (you are from here only, you work at Thapar). They also said that they would give the same discounts to other faculties, staff members and students from Thapar.

Interestingly, I was only an insider to the sellers who got to know me from my daily walks in the market. Otherwise, during my stay in Punjab, one question that did not leave my back was ‘Where are you from?’ Whenever I said I was from Delhi, there would be disbelief and follow-up queries – ‘Aap belong kaha se karte ho originally (where do you belong from originally?), primarily due to my facial features. Thus, it was only through this regular purchase of food items from the market near the TSLAS building that I was considered to be an insider. There was a sense of trust and belongingness that was built between me and the sellers in the marketplace (Borborah 2020).

My position was contrasted with that of the people who came in their cars. They were seen as rich and non-residents who wanted the best of vegetables and fruits for themselves and could very well afford to pay more. According to the sellers, the fruits would make their way to this market from places like Delhi and Himachal Pradesh, whereas the vegetables are more home-grown. They would directly purchase from the mandi and bring them to the market. They claimed to sell very fresh and organic products, hence the high demand. Since my stay was from January to March, the sellers also told me that I got to experience the best of products as it was winter season. Such fruit and vegetable markets are very common even in my home state of Assam. But what was different in Patiala was that there were no shops selling fish or meat along with vegetables and fruits. There are some meat shops in the nearby areas but no fish shops even in the neighbourhood.

Very often the sellers would ask me how certain vegetables are cooked in Assam. They would be amazed at the differences and tell me their ways of preparation as well. As the winter season was fading away, I noticed that there was great demand for a green leafy vegetable that I had not seen earlier. I found out that it was hara chana (green gram) plants that were being sold in large quantities. Since I was not familiar with it, many of the sellers took great interest in explaining to me how one takes out the grams from the plants and cooks them. And thus, I became familiar with this winter delicacy of Punjab.

The gender dynamics of the market are noteworthy as well. One could hardly find women sellers. There were women buyers though, mostly of vegetables and fruits. The customers in the juice shops, however, were primarily dominated by men. This is not a novel aspect, as most public spaces in India are highly gendered and almost exclusive to men (Phadke et.al. 2011). One would barely find single or groups of women in any of the several dhabas, tea stalls, juice shops and roadside eateries in the area (Banarji 2024). But since I was living alone in a new city, I did not have much of a choice. It is these walks through the market – seeing, observing and talking about food – that kept me warm in the biting cold of Patiala. There was also a sense of nostalgia attached to fruits and vegetables. It reminded me of my father who would excitedly buy fruits and vegetables from the local markets in Assam. Thus, for the migrant in me, these food items represented memories as well as hope for the present.

References:

Banarji, Prarthana. 2024. Absence of Women in Public Spaces: The Gendered Appropriation of a Juice Shop. Doing Sociology. 30 March 2024. https://doingsociology.org/2024/03/30/absence-of-women-in-public-spaces-the-gendered-appropriation-of-a-juice-shop-prarthana-banarji/

Borborah, Pratisha. 2020. Community, Trust and Belonging: Reflections from a Periodic Market in Assam. Journal of North East India Studies. 10(2): 50-66.

Phadke, Shilpa, Sameera Khan and Shilpa Ranade. 2011. Why Loiter?: Women and Risk on Mumbai Streets. Viking.