A Fruity Journey to Get Under the Skin of Things
“Explore the depths, don’t stay at the surface.”
A couple of years ago, I found myself walking down a residential street in the suburbs of south Kolkata. It was a street I knew well, a quiet one away from the rush of the main road.
By mid-morning the sun had begun to heat the road into a dusty shimmer, a bicycle rickshaw drunkenly limped past, its horn quacking sharply as the driver squeezed the modified water bottle strapped to his handlebars — a neat symbol of the city’s makeshift genius.
After five minutes, I reached my destination: a place of daily pilgrimage for my elderly landlord, Mr. Das — a place shifting with minute changes each day, and more dramatically through the seasons. My eyes were drawn everywhere at once, sounds crowded the air and a swarm of smells rushed forward in olfactory assault. This hallowed ground of daily life was nothing other than my local market, and I was there for my weekly shop.
The first time I came to this market, Mr. Das showed me around personally. Taking an age to reach the place, I spent most of the journey naively fearing for his life as he…
