The narrow street of less than 2 meters wide is lined on both sides with small stores of about 3 Tatami mats in size. There are vegetable shops, fruit shops selling bananas and coconuts, and even a clothing repair shop with a sewing machine in front of its storefront. There were children shopping for sweets,a old man carrying a bag of beans that must have weighed at least 50 kilograms, and he was shouting repeatedly, “Let me through! Let me through! " and strolled around with beesans on his thin, brown legs like branches. It was late afternoon on a Sunday, the busiest time of the week for the market streets.
As I moved deeper into the crowd, the smell of fresh creatures was carried by the wind and hits my nose. A butcher shop was close by. Well, but it was not a bad feeling to have the smell of raw meat and fish mixed in with the crowd. I would say it smelled bad, but not unbearable. When buying meat, the rawness of the smell of meat seemed to mirror the reality of the eating experience. Chickens, plucked of their hair and gutted, were laid out in a showcase. In the back yard of the chicken shop, several stacks of cages containing seven or eight still-moving chickens were stacked on top of each other. The owner kept his mouth moving, tapping the chicken on a log and placing it on a scale. There is no refrigerator here. The owner does not seem to need a refrigerator because he serves fresh meat from chickens that he squeezes on the spot that day. The butcher's job here is to squeeze, process, prepare, and sell the meat.
On this day, I and Rishi bought fish and shrimp. The fish was processed on the spot and the shrimp was shelled. The market in Coonoor is a collection of about 50 stores on a single street. It was the opposite of a large supermarket crowded with corporate tenants. It was a place where many small private businesses gathered and supported the lives of many times that number of people, making it a hub of daily life. It was exciting to shop while feeling the excitement of people. While waiting for the fish to be ready, many customer were asking the owner about the characteristics of the fish and how to cook it, and after some small talk, they raised their hands and said, “Thanks !” and they left the store.
Shopping in a local market is a fun experience. All stores are usually small and privately owned, so no matter what kind of shopping you do, you will always have a conversation with the shopkeeper. And since Indians talk a lot, I talk a lot too. I wonder how long the enthusiasm for shopping, which is filled with a human touch as a matter of course, has been a part of daily life in Japan.
There are still many important senses that have been buried under the modernization of convenience and comfort that still remain in the city of Coonoor. Of course, there are supermarkets in the neighborhood, but I am sure that these old-style markets are absolutely indispensable to them. Shopping at the local market was an exceptional experience, just as records shine brighter instead of rusting, even though their sound source has become data.
Some parts of the good old shopping scene have been chastely modernized. All payments were made with QR codes. Money was completely digitalized. All purchases, no matter how small, in even the smallest of stores, were now made online. When asked why, I was surprised to hear that during the period of the Corona disaster, they decided that bills were the best route of infection, and the new manner of paying with a smartphone, wearing a mask, became widespread.
By the way, every Indian can open an account for free and pay money without any fees. The fact that there are no fees when paying credit card companies or withdrawing cash is one of the reasons why this system has spread to all the people. If there were fees to begin with, it would not be popular among the majority of the population, which has a common awareness of wanting to bargain for even a penny, according to the company.
Incidentally, since the system requires an Indian phone number to use the system, my iPhone with an overseas SIM could not use the system, so I used mostly cash and occasionally a card.
It is still strange in Japan where you have to pay both the consumption tax plus the payment fee. It is too much to have to filter the money through a tax and then filter it again when you spend it. On the other hand, you have to pay to withdraw your deposited money. And the money is sucked into one company. Please don't take it without permission.
Streams gather to form rivers, rivers gather to form streams, rivers gather to form a great current, rivers return to the sea, clouds become rain, and so on. Then again, streams are created from the mountains. I wish money could turn around like that.
The town of Coonoor, where the local economy, where goods and money are exchanged among the locals, is functioning well, seemed to be running backwards from the times, but in fact, it seemed to be on the cutting edge. Just as a frog in a well only learns that he is a frog when he is outside the well, there is a Japan that can only be learned by stepping outside of Japan. A rural market in India taught me this.
