Bangalore

The clock over the main entrance has stopped and time also seems to stand still in the City Market of Bangalore. It is one of the city’s oldest markets: over 100 years old. The City Market is open every day and a visit is like travelling back in time to Old India – not comparable to the glittering shopping malls and streets with their brand shops from the western world.

Its official name is Krishnarajendra Market, after the former maharaja in Mysore, the royal city 130 kilometres away. The bustle begins before sunrise. Wholesalers, retailers, and daily customers do their business here, but you hardly see any tourists. During the night, the flower merchants come to Bangalore from elsewhere and begin their work very early, about the time that the morning editions of the newspapers are delivered. The market mainly offers very fresh fruits and vegetables, dried fruits and spices, which are delivered in large sacks and are lugged in on the heads or the backs of the market helpers. But, it also offers pans and pots, pails and tins, packaged noodles and legumes, textiles, toys, sweets – everything one could possibly need for everyday life.

The showpiece is the flower market inside the market hall. A sea of blossoms and small fruits in all imaginable colours is unfurled here and these blossoms are even fragrant. They are sold either separately or threaded on garlands. Everywhere women, men, and even many children sit with blossoms in front of them that they pin onto long needles fast as lightning and then thread onto a string. The Indian people are mad about floral ornaments and decorate their homes, their gardens, their cars, their devotional images, their prayer corners, and even themselves with them. Chains of flowers are pinned in the hair or worn about the neck for festive occasions. They say that this market offers the best prices for flowers and flower garlands in all of Bangalore. A two-metre-long garland of blossoms – hand made – was offered to me for 50 rupees, or about 80 cents.

The market is very lively, the goods are cried for loudly, but it is only the impression at first glance. Although the aisles are very narrow, the market helpers lug about their heavy loads, and I was often enough in the way with my video camera, the people all remained very relaxed and friendly. No one complained; on the contrary. I was repeatedly asked my name and where I am from. That I come from Germany spread like wildfire; everywhere I could hear the merchants calling out the word “Germany” to one another. I was given flowers and no one once attempted to force their goods on me. The only thing that the merchants wanted from me was to come to their stand and take their picture or film them.

Many people, even the guidebooks say that there are no special sights to see in Bangalore – but the City Market is a genuine discovery. Here, in the oldest and most labyrinthine part of Bangalore, life runs its course as it did one hundred years ago or more. The fact that Bangalore is the most booming and the fastest growing city in India, a city of universities, biotechnology, and IT industries is not perceptible in the least in the red market hall of the Krishnarajendra Market near the city wall and the large Jamija Masjid Mosque. This spot is almost 500 years old. When the southern Indian tribal prince Kempe Gowda discovered it, it is said that he travelled with his oxcart to every point of the compass. He had a little tower built at each of them to mark the city limits. The Kempegowda towers can still be seen here and the City Market is also located in the centre of this old town.