Winter has finally descended upon Calcutta. Chilly dawns bathed in the soft, golden glow of the rising sun is inviting enough to drag ourselves out of warm blankets and head outdoors for a refreshing run or to the terrace for a stroll or at least to the balcony to sit and sip cups of steaming tea or coffee. For those of you who love to head to the bazaar to buy vegetables Bengali-style, with a “bajaarer bag” or “baajarer tholi” in hand and are delighted at the eye-soothing sight of rows and rows of openair stalls selling fresh, seasonal produce, here is some information if you didn’t already know it that is.
Not far from the city, there exists an organic bazaar which sells not just fertilizer-free vegetables but every other grocery item you can think of, all grown naturally without the use of pesticides or preservatives. From different daals (lentils); rice ranging from basmati to banskati to poultry (including eggs), dairy (including ghee, butter) and many kinds of condiments and spices….you name it and you are sure to find it.
Started two years and two months ago (it was inaugurated on October 17, 2023) it is situated in New Town. Yes, perhaps it is a little (or a lot) far for people who don’t live in the vicinity, but it is definitely worth a try, I think. The thought of fresh, fertilizer-free food sounds attractive enough for me to want to drag myself out of the comfort of settling for what’s close by.
Of course, there are those who would disagree. This includes members of my own dear family who don’t even want to take the trouble of stepping out to the corner store to buy provisions. They prefer the luxury of doing all shopping from home. In other words – yes you got it – order online. The trend has really caught on and a social divide has unwittingly crept up between the “online order-ers” and the “non-online order-ers”.
I, like my mother, am old-fashioned and like going out to the shops and stores for buying provisions which entails a certain degree scrutinizing the product I am going to purchase and therefore I am able to exercise a certain amount of control over what I buy. My sisters, especially my elder sister, on the other hand, are out and out online order-ers. As is my husband.
The typical “online orderer” loves to settle down comfortably on a chair, sofa or couch, log into their computers or phones, scroll down as a mindboggling variety of photoshopped photos of fruits and vegetable pop up at them. I have often seen smug, satisfied smiles, ever so faint, appear on the lips of online order-ers as they order. Yes, it is an addiction.
The thing is, the produce that gets eventually delivered (eventually, because what precedes it, is a lot of phoning back and forth that goes on between buyer and delivery boys and girls looking for the exact location to the house) never really looks quite like their computer or phone screen counterparts. The perfect pumpkins and for that matter the oranges, (so orange that they could give Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings of the fruit basket series a run for its palette) are never quite as delectably juicy on arrival as their promised versions online. The limes and lemons, on arrival seem a little smaller, less yellow or green than the promised pictures. Well, you get the picture (quite literally).
Anyway, the organic bazaar which is called “joibo haat” in Bengali (“haat” is the name for the charming moving markets of yore in the villages, where farmers would bring their produce, hawk and sell their fare during the day and wrap up by night.)
The “joibo haat” at New Town is open daily from 7 am to 7 pm. Started by the state government, the idea was to make fertilizer-free food accessible to the public while also making it easier for farmers to sell their produce. They come from far and wide (“From Kalimpong to Sunderban” says state Rajya Sabha member Dola Sen who is a coordinator). Their products are lab-tested for purity before being allowed out into the market.
Here is a little couplet I wrote:
At sunset, the winter light is pale gold,
“Do you have any potatoes left?” I ask the vendor.
“No, Didi….it is all sold”
The writer is Editor, Features, The Statesman