The Bazaar

I've never been a word economist. I figure less is less and more is more, you know? But last night, I went out to the large bazaar in our city with a dear Indian friend and her seventeen-year-old daughter. We set out to buy fabric to make proper clothes for me. I wanted to post about it. I wanted to try to capture the sights and smells and sounds of the place for my bloggy friends, but I just knew--I knew--it was too big a task. Not for Charles Dickens, of course, or Olive Ann Burns, or Rudyard Kipling, but too big for me.

I knew I'd have to use words, words, words, and more words. And you'd begin to despair and wither from boredom. You'd think, Wait a second. This isn't a post. This is an essay and I don't have time for this. She tricked me. And you'd be right.

So although I know I'm about to do an incomplete job, I'm going to take a stab at giving a thumbnail sketch. After all, (to quote my sister) a job worth doing is worth doing poorly...sometimes...So, an economy of words. Maybe:

The air was sweaty and packed with diesel fuel, smoke, fried food, perfume, and popcorn. There were people in front of me, behind me, at my right and left. Although there wasn't room for it, the strains of ardent worship overpowered emphatic car horns now and again. Beggars cried for roti and babies with kohl-lined eyes reached out to touch my hair.

Women and men turned full-around to stare at me as if I couldn't see them looking. I clutched my bag tightly to my middle and tried to make myself smaller. Once I looked into the eyes of a man pushing a handicapped boy (too old to be a child, yet not a man) on a makeshift cart, and my eyes stung. The air was hard to swallow, and all I could do was yell, God, help us here! in my own head.

The fabric store was dizzying. I felt like Mowgli staring into the dangerous eyes of Kaa. The shelves were stacked clear to the high ceiling with rainbows, and I felt it was hopeless to choose. Choose, I did, however, and after we left with bolt after bolt of loveliness, we entered the crowded streets again. I had to keep chanting--and I didn't realize it until I'd been doing it for quite some time--Don't notice. Just go. Don't notice. Just go. A man yelled to me, "Hello, lady." I didn't look at him.

There. Too long and too short after all. I told you I was no economist.