INDIA/ Mysore: To market, to market!

Since our first day in Mysore, Mariel and I have wanted to visit the ever-elusive “Market”. We had read about it online and heard of its beauty by word of mouth, but our search on our first day in Mysore city was fruitless. People pointed us in a few different directions, suggesting we visit the “clothing bazaar” and the “fruit and vegetables market”, but we had no idea what we were looking for. It was confusing and frustrating and all I wanted was to smell some incense and see some pretty things and just walk around while vendors yelled at me. Too much to ask?

Yesterday we took a rickshaw into town to visit the bookstore (“Mysore’s Largest Book Mall!”) and search once again for the market. We discovered that, yes, the fruit and vegetable market is the one that we were looking for, and yes, it’s lovely. As we walked through a small archway, accessed from the busy road, we entered a little maze of produce stands, the aisles covered with tarps, sunlight peeking sporadically through. Like stepping through a wardrobe to Narnia. The first words out of my mouth? “It smells like VEGETABLES!”

In order to avoid serious cases of Delhi Belly, travelers in India are advised to stay away from raw fruits and vegetables (unless they are peeled, like bananas or oranges). As somebody who loves salads, farmers’ markets, fresh produce, and generally anything that comes out of the ground, I have found this difficult. (Seriously. If anyone out there can figure out a way to FeDex me a fresh salad, that would be great.) So it was a bit bittersweet, walking through rows and rows of peppers, beans, carrots, greens, and tomatoes, not being able to give them all a good home. But I loved it anyway — the bushels and bushels full of veggies, the green beans laid out in little piles, the smell of cilantro, the piles of gourds like stone walls and that one strange vegetable that no translation or vendor could identify as familiar (it’s greyish-brown, hard, and I think they call it “Chinese”).

Confession: I’m a very self-conscious traveler. I hate the feeling of being an obvious tourist, and find myself uncomfortable when I’m so clearly an outsider, intruding into people’s everyday lives and treating them as a spectacle. I couldn’t resist snapping pictures of the beauty around me at the market, but I felt insecure, wanting to hide my camera not just to protect it from potential thieves but also to hide the telltale sign of a visitor, a spectator. Oh–there was also the slightly noticeable fact that I was the only white person there. And wearing a fanny pack.

But as we walked deeper into the maze of stalls and tarps, and found ourselves not just among fruits and vegetables but also colorful powders, fragrant oils, and even a bit of cookware, my shoulders began to un-shrug. When men yelled “miss! miss!” from their stalls, the urge to turn away, to ignore, left me and I began to listen, to smile, even to talk. Where am I from? America. What is my name? Marian. Very nice to meet you. Have a nice day.