Market
I am stuck on Dadar bridge this morning. It has been raining, traffic is backed up a long way. Two ambulances are making their agonising way through the single lane on each side. Cars and buses and trucks, busy pretending to be cycles or super thin space age vehicles, squeeze themselves almost into the walls of the bridge so that the ambulances can inch past. I wonder if anyone compiles the statistics on people dying in ambulances stuck in Mumbai traffic.
The bridge comes down into Dadar market. The early morning shoppers have been and gone. Those uncomfortable high top black and yellow cabs come into their own here. They can be piled to bursting point with gunny sacks full of onions and potatoes and coriander. These are the most popular wholesale purchases, it appears. The produce is headed to restaurant and hotel kitchens. As the taxis depart, the detritus left behind is staggering in its scale and smell. The road is awash in rotting chillies and piles of discarded greens. In places, this refuse is a foot deep. Rotting vegetables of every description dot the green undergrowth. Squashed tomatoes, shattered pumpkins, soft carrots, forming mulch in real time. A taxi draws up on my left, the driver smiling apologetically for crowding my car. He has the most ingenious solution to the fetid and humid surroundings. Draped on his rear view mirror is the most delicate and lovely garland of flowers. Not the one or two blossoms that generally decorate the dashboard, along with the picture or statue of Ganpati or Sai Baba or the Kaa’bah. No, this is a fresh garland of gundumalli, interspersed very tastefully by pink and green petals. It is looped two or three times around the mirror. On the dashboard is a little fan, whirring away madly. I imagine the cool jasmine scented air that will refresh this cabbie all day. I smile at him and in appreciation for the refreshing sight of those flowers, refrain from cutting him viciously for at least a few feet.
A lone street sweeper battles the green tide. He wears shorts, a face mask and battered rubber shoes. He wields his long handled broom with easy dexterity. He sweeps with a clear plan in mind. He brings all the stuff away from the edge of the footpath about a foot forward into the road. Here he piles it up into a long green dyke, presumably making it easier for the garbage truck men to load up. Of all the thankless, Sisyphus inspired jobs, the one of a Mumbai sweeper or garbage collector must be the most frustrating. There is literally no end in sight to the garbage piled up on the sides of this road. And the next wave is only as far away as the afternoon market.
As he creates the dyke, an old vagabond, dressed in shorts and buttonless shirt, a trilby hat (I kid you not) perched on his head, shuffles along a few steps behind him, kicking the dyke open. Once in a while, he bends down to examine a bunch of rotten coriander or blackened spinach but so far, has fastidiously rejected all contenders. Both the sweeper and the vagabond are lost in their own worlds and neither notices or acknowledges the other. The sweeper continues down the road, building the long green mound and the vagabond follows in his wake, destroying it in search of free food.
Further down, the ambulance is still stuck in traffic. Hardbitten and cynical cabbies shout out advice to the driver about the fastest route to the hospital barely a kilometre or two down the road. One cab driver gets out of his parked car and begins to direct the traffic jam, allowing the ambulance to move forward again. Amazingly, no one complains or gets aggressive. We all watch the ambulance’s flashing lights move away, the self appointed traffic constable retreats into his cab, and we inch forward again, leaving the market behind.