Getting Vegetables from the Vegetable Market (sabzi mandi)

Turmoil, Rush, and sight and smell of fresh vegetables. All seasonal! You got to have atleast few bags. Especially if you have come to get potatoes. You won't taken them less than 5 kg. No body gives you a bag here. Lined up on 2 sides, in loose order, only separated by rolled up jute or plastic bags, you will find heaps of fresh vegetables straight from the farms, few hours ago. The vegetable hawkers would sit behind these array of heaps, each owning a particular vegetable, and would yell out quotes for the day. Some have small advanced scales, some have more traditional balances to weight them out. In between the lines you would find sitting on makeshift arrangements, lemon, lime, cilantro, mint, green chilly, and ginger sellers. Constantly spraying water on their heaps. This place is hella full not just by humans, but occasionally you would bump into a cow or bull lurking for some throw away rotten vegetable off the heaps. You gotta be careful or will meet the welcoming horns. The ground is littered with all kind of goodies for them. Mostly the place is open, except when you need to buy potatoes, you would need to enter a shed. You could hear the gritting sound of mud-laden potatoes against the iron balance pans here and there. Different kinds of potatoes. Hilly, Local, Small, Big. And only potatoes would have so much variety to confuse you. You can't really taste them raw. So making a choice is tough. People would haggle for prices to no end. The sellers are no less smart, they would keep the prices up to adjust for aggressive hagglers. So you gotta bargain, even if you don't want to. But it is fun. Where else you can bargain so purposefully than here? You'd be expert in a few trips to this place. The idea is to quote as low as you can, and then walk away. The seller seeing a potential buyer go away, would call you back now quoting the real price. This is the key idea. Apply it, and Save, and have fun. If you are here on a weekly grocery trip, you will have to make atleast 2/3 round of the place to be sure on the price. And then start filling up the bags. Buys tomatoes in the last. I had them crushed many times under potatoes. And never to forget some fresh cilantro and lemons.

Here are some pictures I took: