Where the Streets Have No Name

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The hustle and bustle of street markets hold a special charm of its own. Monik Chawla in Ahmedabad, India is no different. Stalls outside the gate sell everything, from plastic buckets to shiny party decorations to brown basmati rice.

Inside the gate is even busier – people, autorickshaws, and scooters rushing to go somewhere. This is where many people living here shop –not the air-conditioned, fancy malls that line the streets and filled with cars and drivers waiting outside. Here, in the heat, vendors and shoppers haggle in a communal and familiar sort of way.

Candy vendors, spice vendors, snack vendors on push carts, their colors and smells compete with the smells of the heat. The larger vendors have little storefronts with packaged snackfoods and chests of ice cream.

Despite the fact that I stepped in cow poop (fresh) and it was about 110 degrees, these market streets with no names, only narrow alleyways flanked by shopkeepers selling foodstuffs and other necessities, are alive. Not unlike the Farmer’s Markets in the U.S. – though much larger, more variety in products, and more cows – the complex community of food vendors and shoppers give the local food movement another perspective.

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