But the next morning is a completely different veggie game.
The area outside Plaza theatre, at the foot of the Dadar Bridge is a blanket of green sprinkled with a few reds and bright yellows. By 4.30 amapproximately 20 trucks filled with greens rumble in from Navi Mumbai’s APMC market. As Mumbai’s first traffic jam starts, you know its time for business.
In half and hour, by 5 am, the maal is unloaded and as the smell of fresh vegetables acts as coffee, money is already exchanging hands. The place is swarming with hoteliers who want to pick a good bargain. “Half an hour’s business here is worth half a day’s at the regular market,” says Shankar handing out four kilos of palak to Mohan Rane, a bhajiawala at Matunga who claims office-goers swear by his palak pakodas for breakfast each morning.
It’s the same story with another restaurateur from Bandra who comes to Dadar each morning, not only because it’s cheaper but simply because when he started out with a small vada-pav shack, he formed a bond with Mohan, a 55-year-old bhajiwala who refuses to spare time to have a conversation. “Mohan is my lucky charm,” says the guy picking up bails of onions, coriander, a tokri of lime and fresh garlic.
Once the restaurateurs are done with their wholesale haggling, and as the sun brightens the scene by 5.45 am, it’s time for housewives, maids and butlers to make their way to the bridge. As smaller bargains of a couple of kilos are struck, most vendors are already shouting out rates so that they can start clearing off. Says Ritu Parekh, a Mahim resident, who comes here every alternate morning, “I jog at Shivaji Park from 5 am to 7 am. After a couple of rounds, I get bored. That’s why I drive over to pick up the fresh veggies and then go back and jog again.”
By 6 am, it’s time for the Mahiyar Adenwalas of Dadar to arrive. Adenwala buys only from Savitabai. She is the only one who will sell 50 gm ginger-garlic, ½ kg onions, Rs 12 worth methi. “I walk my dog Sassoon every morning, and buying vegetables is a good way getting exercise,” says Adenwala as Savitabai indulges her customer of five years.
For Lakshmi S, a Borivli resident who works at Parel, the Dadar market is reason for her to get some time to herself. “I come to the market every Friday pick up groceries for the week and drop them at my office by 7 am. For the next two hours before its office time, I am free to do what I want,” says Lakshmi who mostly spends the time catching up on the novel she has been trying unsuccessfully to complete for the last one week.
By 6.30 am almost all vendors have wrapped up, are sweeping the street, settling down for their first glass ofchai and maybe a samosa-pav. The chaos is now calm. “My day’s business is complete,” says Eravati, “Now, I can relax for the rest of the day.”
To me, the market brings fond memories. Of picking up friends at the Dadar Parsi Colony to go for picnics and trips out of town. And somehow the fragrance of fresh green shall always be entangled with the sweet, sticky, joyous smell hot jalebis being fried at the other end of the bridge.
But, it’s 7 am and the fantasy is over. The green-red-yellow carpet is replaced almost instantly by grey concrete.
Did the vegetable genies wave a magic wand or did a market really complete a day’s business in under one pre-dawn hour?
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