a big city in india has many bustling markets each with their own character. for today's post @hindavi and i are in one of the oldest traditional markets in kolhapur
a traditional market is likely to be a smaller marketplace open all week long with small specialty shops up and down the street.
like this chili shop selling all kinds of chili both wholesale and retail
but one day a week is market day and the real action is in the street itself. this market has attracted a crowd for many years. there is some modernization underway but no construction workers would ever consider trying to get things done on market day. hindavi (in the middle) is doing the shopping while i am doing the documentation
of course there's a fruit section and a vegetable section
with incredible variety and quantity of all sorts of produce
and plenty of photogenic vendors
but those can be found in any market. these old markets have another dimension. each area has their specialty products and on market day the villagers arrive with the fruits of their labor. one of the specialties in kolhapur is jaggery.
jaggery is made by boiling way all the liquid in sugar cane juice. the traditional way is to gather all the bagasse (the leftover dry stalks after the juice is extracted) and leaves of the cane plants and burn them as fuel in a dugout "furnace". gigantic vats with at least 500 liters and up to thousands of liters of juice are boiled dry. it is a process which requires both skill and dexterity. there are many different kinds of jaggery and molasses and that is what is hindavi is buying here.
the woman and her husband husband are part of the team that makes the jaggery and now it's time to sell. it's hard for me to communicate my respect of the woman and the culture she represents. when i showed her this photo her whole face lit up with joy and she starting telling all the other vendors. apart from her marriage perhaps nobody before has ever shown her how beautiful she looks.
the villages of india are full of hard working people like her whose skills and contribution to their culture are often overlooked and undervalued. if you want to find them go to the old markets.