To Market, To Market

by U Atreya Sarma



Earlier...going to the vegetable market was unpleasant Hardy, tiresome, for I had to be a heaving weightlifter! Now, a welcome change, it’s just a featherweight affair! Earlier, I used to hold my wallet in one hand And carry in the other an eighteen-by-fifteen-by-twelve Plastic lined jute bag with stick handles. After it was all over, I had to heavily plod back home Shifting the brimming bag in my right and left hands Halting every few yards, and in the process So many calories burnt. Oh, now it’s like flying in the air, and waltzing on a marble track. I go to market just with my four-pouched wallet The cash lying in the smallest one! I buy fifty grams each Of ladies fingers, carrots and beans; And the other vegetables at a hundred grams each; And greens and chillies, and coriander and curry leaves Of twenty rupees apiece! Shoving them all in two pouches of my wallet I pirouette and prance back home. I stop by, on the way, at the grocer’s And buy a hundred grams of red grams With a red face, and dump it in the fourth. The wallet is now full, As the purse is emptied of its two hundred bucks! Now time to do something, to fill the empty belly for dinner. Then suddenly I remember ... the virtues of regular fasting... We had just the previous day scanned the glaring mismatch Between our lean income and the fatty expenses, And decided to have only one meal a day, And begin to grow vegetables In the few pots of our apartment balcony Weeding out the flowering ones... Thanks to the prices that are doing a rumba In a galaxy somewhere beyond the Milky Way!

Image © GETTY IMAGES

01-Dec-2012

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Comments on this Poem

Thank you, Broca ji, for liking it, and for recalling that lilting number from an olden gold.

U Atreya Sarma
02-Dec-2012 22:59 PM

A realistic take on today's inflationary situation.It reminds me of a song titled MEHNGAI MAAR GAYI from Manoj Kumar's film Roti Kapda Aur Makan (1974) where Mehngai was explained by the now famous lines :" pahale muththii mein paise lekar thailaa bhar shakkar laate ththey,ab thaile mein paise jaate hain muththi mein shakkar aatii hai... " A good read.Kudos!!

J S BROCA
02-Dec-2012 21:36 PM