The Streets: Where Life Happens

In the United States, our shopping centers and market stalls occur away from the streets and are usually buffered by a sizeable parking lot or side streets. In India, there is no such comfortable buffer between the streets and the markets. The markets are right on the street, and the parking lot is usually a little indent in the street or right in the street itself. Street vendors are truly on the street and it’s not unusual to see a blanket with bowls of vegetables nestled in between parked vehicles. Many of the shops have doorways less than 3 feet away from the street (and that’s only to accommodate for foot traffic.

Here it makes sense, when there is such a high volume of traffic all day long, being able to drive right next to the market stalls keeps traffic moving and the flow smooth. Many of the shops sell the same thing, and its not that there a few blocks apart or even a few stalls for that matter, their right next to each other. I went to the old city yesterday and there were five women all right next to each other selling the exact same food, all nestled in between cars on the street. Any time you look into one shop and by something, the adjacent store owners get upset that you didn’t buy the same thing from their store.



Because the shops are right next to the streets, there’s always movement. Nothing ever stops and traffic move quickly, if only to quickly walk away from all the shop owners trying to get you to go to their store. Groups meet and congregate in the small spaces where there is room. Goat herders stop to talk to the street vendors while their goats munch on some greens from pruned shrubs. School children congregate after school outside their respective schools. It would be easy to think that these heavily trafficked streets were merely cul-de-sacs in the suburbs of large cities in the United States.