An Afternoon at the Market

Mysore, Karnataka - February 19

The old market in Mysore is still housed in a lovely, crumbling, colonial structure of faded yellow. It's much more picturesque than any other we've yet seen in the country which are primarily comprised of baskets on the ground and rickety tables with tarps stretched over on bamboo poles for shade. There's usually some scrap corrugated metal for sides + back for those vendors with a bit more cash. The produce is limp and dogs, cows, goats + pigs roam around scrounging what they can to eat. The vendors look hot + bored as they swat away flies and animals. In stark contrast stands this reasonably well-maintained and colorful one-square-block building with orderly aisles. It was easy to while away hours browsing the various stalls and during our 5-day stay we bought fruit + veggies, spices, incense and perfume oils. The people were friendly too.

This guy's wrapping garlands of hand-strung roses with silver tinsel. People buy these as temple offering and drape them around the gods.

This shop sells colored powders that people use for decoration and which priests anoint the foreheads of believers when they make an offering at a temple


Even the large, canvas sacks stuffed with rice, lentils + chilies are colorful


I bought mustard + fennel seeds from this vendor. Also shown are cashews, cloves, nutmeg, tumeric, raisins, black peppercorns + three kinds of sugar.

This vendor took some artistic license with her produce display.

She doesn't even own a stall. I watched her carefully arranging her produce straight on the stone floor of the market and gave her a thumbs up. She called over one of the neighboring vendors who served as translator between us and we had a nice, little chat about the basics - country, age, children. Later that afternoon, I passed her again and she asked me to come over and have a chai with her. Sweet and sassy... and what a smile!

This stall sells nothing but seeds and paraphernalia for farmers. They offer numerous kinds of legumes, green beans, squash, bitter melon, carrot, potato, cauliflower, tomato, herbs, onions, peppers, eggplant, cabbage and flowers too. Sold by the packet or kilo.