The morning had started without much of a plan.
I had gone to see a doctor in 10th Mile.
The clinic was closed.
So, instead of going home, the morning took a small detour through Matthilo Gate and into Haat Bazaar.
The Sunday Haat I remembered was usually a much quieter affair —
It wasn’t quite that anymore.
The market wasn’t busy. It wasn’t Wednesday or Saturday either. But it wasn’t closed.
Somewhere around two-fifths of the market was open: vegetables, shoes, clothes, condiments, food, tea and the usual assortment of things that have somehow found their way to Kalimpong.
Sunday, it seems, is not quite a day off anymore.
[VIDEO — 6 mins]
Sunday, inside Haat Bazaar.
The shoes are probably the clearest sign that Sunday is still a perfectly good day to sell things.
Flip-flops hang from ropes overhead, sandals are stacked in little towers, and rows of white sneakers occupy prime real estate, illuminating everything else around them.
The matkas are lined up around the counter.
There are enough of them to suggest that somebody is expecting customers.
Not a crowd. Just customers.
Further inside, the vegetable stalls are open.
Tomatoes, potatoes, radishes, beans, chillies and all the other things that make up the less glamorous but considerably more useful part of a market.
A woman walks down the aisle.
Someone is buying vegetables.
The market is getting on with it.
The momo stall is open too.
The moktu is steaming, the acharr is ready and a few customers are hungry.
There is no great Sunday rush.
There doesn’t seem to be any need for one.
The tarpaulins overhead have seen enough monsoons and summer heat to acquire colours of their own. Yellow, blue, green and whatever colour survived the last few monsoons. Underneath them, the market continues at its slower pace today.
No loud voices. Just leisurely working.
About ten years ago, Sundays at Haat Bazaar seemed different.
The place could be almost completely shut.
The dogs had the run of it. Children made use of the empty market space. And the occasional poor guy who’d still be sleeping off the previous night’s bad decisions wherever he had crashed.
That version of Haat may still exist somewhere, or perhaps sometime.
Just not quite as prominently as before.
Today, Sunday sits somewhere between a market day and a day off.
Funny how I wished to see the drunken guy again today.
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