The Subji Market..!

   Evenings we go to the subji market.  It is the local vegetable market. The vegetables are sold at the make shift place, a decadent place where there is a lot of stagnant water and all kind of vegetable and other wastes heaped in places and being removed at time, don't know to where.

These huge vehicles like tractors and tippers or trucks and mini-trucks are all seen from time to time.  The stagnant water attracts the seasonal birds and little white storks which have lost their sheen and colour due to the filth and the filthy water.

Yet, near all that most of the poor people, and the general public reach for their vegetables which are seasonal crops brought from the wholesale market (mandi) which is also near by.

The whole3 sale mandi works in the early mornings where as the retail sellers work in the evenings to sell of their wares.  Once, the evening is around, people start pouring in after their daily work to buy a few vegetables for the day and the day next.  The market being a make shift one, work only on three days of the week and people also buy only on those three days generally.  Everything in the village is done generally.  The vendors are generally poor, less educated but good at the art of selling their wares.

They call out, shout out the prices, coax and cajole the buyers, give in to bargain, which they have a knack of doing with useful customers and ultimately settle for a mutually agreed price without being very offensive.  Even though they siit next to a lot of much, the vegetables are fresh always.  The same vegetables will be highly priced if we approach a mall, where going itself is tedious!  Here, the weekly or bi-weekly market offers the vegetables at you walking distance from the house and every body prefer it.

Mothers know which vegetables to be bought when, and they get a chance to select their requirements from the local vegetable market, which they keep as a great thing to have.  In the cold, when the man of the house and the children of the family arrive after a hard day's work and schools and colleges, it is the mother's wish to serve them with some hot food ! For that they need good vegetables which is available in the local market.

What ever that may be, the cleanliness of the market remains an eye sore all the while.  May be the Panchayat or the local self governments may change them in the years to come, as we are said to be making rapid progress in all fields!!

People in the market and those visiting for vegetables are quite unconcerned about all that. Mostly ladies go for the vegetables and rarely any of them make a complaint of the surroundings!  That is the greatness of our people.  The extent to which they suffer! They only look for the cheaper vegetables.  Olden times, vegetables were plenty and it was the prerogative of the ladies visiting to select most of the vegetables.  No more now.  The dealer or seller will take them random, weigh it and give it to you. But bargaining is still there.  There is a small  idea of keeping a scale on a slightly slanted position etc. is there, but hardly make much difference.

A new system which has slowly creep in is at times the sellers colouring the vegetables to resemble very fresh vegetables!  Another is putting green lights especially as CFL lights are available, most of them light up a cfl lamp in green !  You will be stupified by its green light which falls on the green vegetables and will give the impression the vegetable is green.  But all that can't  fool the seasoned buyers who are also knowledgeable and adept at these arts generally attempted by the vegetable sellers.

A day with tooth ache!

A cold day in Delhi is not one to be very good to be in if you have tooth ache.  When I landed up the other day it was foggy and cold and I was having the tooth ache on the left upper molars where the filling had fallen off a year back.  I had not cared to fill it up as the city town was a fair 15 miles away and the tooth was not giving any pain.

In our style of living, we do something when we have trouble with it, or else we leave it as such undisturbed.  I did not think that it will disturb me but now it has started disturbing.  The Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway Station was cold and was becoming colder by the minute on a cold evening at 8 pm.  A cold breeze was making things worse.   We scrambled into the nearest taxi and reached home to cry on the paining tooth and the spreading pain.  The shearing pain spread all over the left of the face bringing tears in the left eye!

The next day a visit to the nearest doctor brought a few medicines for pain and antibiotics for healing which gave allergy and my lips started to get swollen with a tongue paining at the beginning! A dentist specialist advised further antibiotic and not  chewing with the paining tooth, and asked to wait for the new medicine to take effect and the inflammation to subside and then to come for root canal etc.

I will go for it.  I am convinced!  When I was young, my mother, my father and other elders used to get tooth ache from time to time and when they complained I never understood the gravity of their pain..!  Now I do understand!  When it happens to oneself, one understands! Or understands the best!

The pain has receded for a bit, the inflammation is gone after five days of continued medication, but the procedure of root canal and restoration is to be done yet.  I have to get it fixed.  I spend time with google blogging and fb checking, two favorite of these days as one is getting more and more away from others and group activities are becoming lesser and lesser due to movement and non-movement.

After two days, II went to the Dentist and this time, she rubbed out a lot of decayed tooth parts and filled it up with some item which has relieved the pain.  The climate improvement has also given a good turn as the sun has started coming up during the day time.  Altogether, it is a welcome sign as the pain suffered so far was too harsh.  No body wants to take that kind of pain on a cold day!

The Dentist has assured that the in two more sittings, a permanent crown or something will be fixed and that will be that.  I agree as I have a tooth already capped earlier.  Once the climate improves things will be better!

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The climate improved.  Two weeks had gone by with a lot of anti-biotics and allergy and further anti-allergy medicines.  In between the Dentist saw me and rubbed out a lot of the tooth parts and suggested me not to eat with that side of the jaw till I was allowed later.  There was pain after the rubbing which was controlled by an occasional pain killer tablet.  The pain decreased now. By this time a stub of the tooth is left in the tooth area and a part is filled with some medication.  Now the wait is for a crown in ceramic.

The sunny days improve the condition of the teeth.  Until the tooth are worn out, they hold on what may come, hot or cold, but once they start wearing out, oh..the change in temperature sends shock waves to the brain to make a person to wish for a better condition.

Yesterday, I had been checked and a clay mould had been used in my mouth for take an impression of the area where I want the tooth.  Today, I am to get it redone as the earlier impression I am told is not properly decipherable by the laboratory man.  Did it! There is no other go. Once anybody is down with health problems, things slowly multiply and at times for no apparent reason.  However, a saving grace is theere, the climate is steadily improving with a cold climate slowly giving way to a lot of warmth and sunny days which brings up the temperature!   It is surprising, a sunny climate always go well with human beings!

A cold morning in Delhi

   I was happily  writing to my  friends it is 8 degrees Celsius here with a lot of fog!  Nay, when the newspaper came it was 5 degrees plus.  The present day climate is much beyond the olden times and many a times too below normal if it is cold and too high if it is hot.

The fog makes visibility very poor keeping everyone indoors and sipping at their hot cup of ginger tea! Families will be happy that all their inmates will be in place and there could be found some time to chit chat except for those who are on fb or google.

Still nearness is something.  It brings in talks of times which we went past, memories of times we lived and loved, times we got our first child, second child and times we grew them up and now sitting as early nesters!

There was a time I used to bargain with the next door auto rikshaw walla and neighbour for a sum of 250 Rupees to take 5 children from Mayur Vihar to New Delhi.  Money was hard to come by.  The only thing which went up in those days were the petrol prices and not salaries!

He agreed and started and at the end of the year we had to shift residence. On a second visit to the same place next year, our old neighbours brought up the subject of transporting children to the New Delhi school.  They said the present day rate for the auto rikshaw walla is 2500 Rupees and he has given ab ultimatum that if the rate is not revised to 3000 Rupees check for other modes!

Lived through all that, got school buses inside Delhi  where we shifted ! The children slogged at Schools and we slogged in Government offices and Schools and the timing was only on record as we worked all the time, went to office in the early mornings to reach before 9 am and never looked at the clock for coming home.  5 pm was tea time, 7 pm was officer's meetings end, and 7-9 was work times.  9.30 pm was pack up time thinking of the first thing of next day..!

Time much before was still curious and interesting to muse now. It was a time salary was too low and the jobbers at the lower end was provided with an ex gratia called overtime allowance, which was commonly referred as 'Overtime".  A posting in a seat which will want you to sit late after office hours was considered to be a gratis by those, who wanted some extra money due to extreme family needs, This could be got only if you had some good officers at the administration. Otherwise you got an exactly 5 pm out office and the month will pass by without any extra remuneration.

But the slate reversed after some time. After a long while in which several exams are passed, promotions are granted one became not entitled for any extra allowance, ie. overtime, then from day one, one got a  place where there was a lot of room where one had to sit late to complete the day's work! But then, all is in the game of life and work.  Those who were worldly wise and cunning kept away from such places!  The innocent accepted it in the name of all the good traditions and principles!

But still the climate was not this bad. During cold there was the fire place in each office to keep one warm and in summer there was surahis issued for pure drinking water! The plastic bottles were not needed in those days!

The day had passed by and the sun light never appeared. The slight drum beat can be heard to set the rythm of the Lori festival which suggests a change in the movement of the sun to the down south. Once it changes course, more sunny days will be ahead.  The festival is mainly celebrated in the north of India, mainly in Punjab, Haryana and nearby states. In other states various festivals known as Bihu, Makar Samkranti, Pongal etc. are celebrated.Generally, these festivals happen in a matter of three weeks after Christmas!

The sufferings of the poor will lessen with more warmth in coming months with the next festival of Holi.!

A tooth ache selected this time to show up!  He is a bad guest, indeed! Eating is affected straight away and the medicine allergies take you off your feet! Now grapple with it with anti allergants and come around to see the dentist!  Really  a pain! Will go away along with the cold! Lucky to get medicines, but when I think of the millions who do not get any treatment and medicines thoughts go to the local way side dentist who pulls out a tooth just putting his fingers into your mouth.  These days I see less of them in Delhi.  Years back, one or two used to sit near Central Secretariat and at other joints where people used to come a lot.  They sit on the road side with a few pictures and a few old teeth already plucked from other patients who had presented themselves to get their tooth or teeth plucked out!  They used to charge two Rupees in those days!

Now dental doctors are coming out in large numbers every year, still dental help is elusive or not easy! The best bet is to keep our oral hygiene and train children to do the same!

Now I have started to get one of my troubling teeth fixed and it has lessened the pain! And then, Lo..! The other tooth on the other side has taken up the pain.  It is not paining heavily.  But is starting to. That is how it start.  First it will be a jump when one drink a glass of normal water at room temperature. Then every now and then or one chews a piece of hard food. It will be followed up with a slight pain every now and then.  If you don't go to the Dentist still, then when you go to the Dentist your face will be contorted..!

Youth and children do not know of it! There is scant education regarding dental hygiene! The cold affects those who are elderly more readily!  The limbs will get it fast if one is not protected with good foot wear and socks.  Likewise, one has to be  well covered with woollen jackets or sweaters and a head gear or a muffler!

After four days, today, the third week of January is cold and rainy.  A mild breeze increases the effect !  In a cosy atmosphere in the in doors of houses with good heating, it will not affect any one.  It is when one goes out and all those poor people who do not have any where to go who really get it!