Simple Joys of the Vegetable Market
I lost my schoolteacher father this day three years ago. In his mature years, especially after his retirement, my father had a single addiction: his daily sojourn to the local vegetable market. It was a ritual that he never liked to miss.
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I often wondered what my father used to get from those daily visits. He needn’t go to the market every day. Had it been for buying vegetables and fish, one or two weekly visits would have sufficed. Moreover, in the summer months and during the rainy days, visiting the muddy and dirty vegetable market can’t be considered as a very pleasant exercise. In summer my father would bathe in sweat, during the rains he had to wash his dhoti and feet immediately after his return. I often offered to do the chore myself and in the last decade of his life, I didn’t let him carry weight. Yet, it seemed that my father couldn’t digest his food if one day he failed to visit the local market.
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I later realized that he wanted to go to the market not merely to buy provisions. My father enjoyed his interactions with the vegetable and fish sellers immensely. He was one of the most popular visitors there if simply for the reason that he knew each vegetable seller by name. Being a schoolteacher trained to remember the names of each of his pupils, my father could even remember the names of the family members of those village farmers and visited their homes. He could mingle easily with those simple, hard-working, barely educated village people more than he did with his peers and relatives. His daily tête-à-tête with those simple people would give him the necessary sustenance to carry on with his life. So he looked forward to that window of an hour or two each morning when he could go out of the house, stand in front of each of the shops and stalls on his way to the bazar, say his usual Joy Hok (May you be victorious!) to each proprietor or shop owner who wished him in return. He would then proceed to the next.
Even now when I go to the market, people take time to tell me how they remembered my father. Perhaps the simple goodness of heart with which he encountered them, dealt with them, expressed his concern or offered help to them make so many people keep him in their heart. Today, when I reminisce about my father, I know that his memory is still alive amidst those simple villagers.
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