Azadpur Sabzi Mandi

Last evening Istling arrived in New Delhi to accompany me with the research for the next couple of weeks. Today morning, we decided to visit the Azadpur Sabzi Mandi (major vegetable market) at the northern end of New Delhi. It took us almost an hour-long Metro train ride to get there.

Vegetables and fruits from different states and cities are transported here. When we reached at around 7:30 am to get some pictures of fresh produce being loaded in and unloaded from trucks, we were quite surprised to find that most of the market was already empty. Passersby told us that the market is generally busier during the weekdays than the weekends. We got whatever pictures we could.

A little walking distance away we saw another part of the market where trucks were being repaired. There were roughly about a hundred to hundred and fifty trucks parked there. Some truck drivers were taking rest while some were getting repairs done to their trucks. We gladly went in there and walked out with some good interviews from drivers and mechanics who spoke to us about their rigorous work schedule.

From there, we took the metro ride back to Rajiv Chowk (Connaught Place) at around 10, to be able to make it for our meeting scheduled with Ashima Madan. A second year journalism student from Kamla Nehru College. She has been interested in the popular art culture and wanted meet us and help us in our research. We shared the same passion for popular culture preservation. Ashima gave me some leads to a design store in GK1 named ‘Rio Grandé’ known for selling merchandise inspired by Kitsch Art. She also mentioned a couple of places in Hauz Khas Village and Shahpur Jat.

DELHI-JAIPUR HIGHWAY

We then hired a car at around 5 pm to go to the Delhi-Jaipur Highway to get some video footage of trucks as well as talk to some of the truck drivers in the dhabas (roadside food stalls) along the way. Soon after we crossed the Gurgaon border, we could see the highway buzzing with trucks on the highway. Both of us were getting madly tempted to stop at every mile to get some pictures but we controlled our over-enthusiasm and decided to stick to the plan of getting the video footage of trucks moving along the highway. We did stopped over at a small shop selling little trinkets, stickers and decorative items used to ornate trucks. I was excited like a child would be at a candy store.

While we were on our way back to the city, we pulled over at a small dhaba to interview some truck drivers who were going towards Delhi from Rajasthan.

Later in the evening we went to meet Manik, a dear friend from my undergrad days. Manik mentioned about a family friend, Nirupama, who had traveled with the truck drivers for over two months, lived with them and then even wrote a book about them. We are trying to get in touch with her.