Status symbols

I suppose that has to be the theme of at least one post while I’m in Delhi! Well, here goes.

The market where I live has two vegetable shops. One’s a Safal vegetable shop, where there are usually only two kinds of vegetables per day, and the other, located in the main part of the market, has ‘imported’ veggies. So we usually do our vegetable shopping at a much more downmarket market, and stock up for the week.

Yesterday, however, was one of those days when there was nothing in the fridge and no time to spend at a subzi mandi. So off I went, to pick up something for MM to cook. Since there was nothing at the Safal shop as usual, down I trotted to the upmarket ‘mart’, feeling terribly underdressed among the pretty fireflies who come out with the Delhi dusk.

I found a couple of cook-able veggies and paid for them, and on my way out, saw three fireflies examining some trying-to-look-perky asparagus. Long straight hair, two inch heels, a woolen shawl over bare shoulders. “You can put this celery in a salad, it tastes so good, you know?” “Uss-pay-rug-uss hai madam, celery wahaan hai”

I smirked into the hood of my authentic-foreign-university-sweatshirt, as I carried my bhindi  and baigan out of the door with my head held high.