Rocketing to Rajouri

I am a very homely kind of person. I like keeping it near. And dear. 

Say, my eggs and bread are accessible in a shop I diagonally cross the park across my lane to get to (henna hair uncle ji even allows credit of macroeconomic proportions). A Mother Dairy (never liked that name) is next door to his shop. So in one jute bag which came free with Kayam Churan I can get my favourite breakfast, lunch and dinner all in one go. The vegetable carts come to my door step and announce their wares in various dialects I understand not but matters not. The beauty parlour is across the main road after walking down only two sets of yellowing buildings (and I always manage a discount there – say, not pay for threading when I have paid a month’s salary for the facial). Even my child’s school is three private-quarters away within my colony (so what if A-street does not get along with E-street. Education is education). And my favourite market (Rajouri, the name is Rajouri Market) is 15 minutes of battery-operated rickshaw ride away. Just 15 minutes! 

You see how my universe rests within a perimeter the diameter of which must be the smallest divisible number never happy to be multiplied and loving to remain single. 

So, when I was asked a big futuristic question as to where I would like to teleport to, I caught myself thinking. My Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets but why do the names of the planets seem so strange? I can’t possibly say I want to visit ‘Very’, now can I? The Moon sounds good but will out-shine me. The farthest planets are too far, the nearest hotter than me. Another Galaxy, never, for I can't turn traitor to the memory of this chocolate from childhood. So, no!

I think, if I could cut down on travel time and reach a destination in micro mini seconds, I will pick my Rajouri Market. No hailing battery-bhaiya, no tuk-tukking sitting amidst bells and button-down Akshay Kumar posters and no haggling for that Rs. 2 discount. Just teleporting. (whatever that means!) 

I don’t know why you smile. Perhaps, you think me an idiot to want to go to this Punjabi-like-me market rather than, say, Jupiter to meet Sabu or Marlowe the Moon Man keeping the moon dust falling for Noddy. Let me tell you why. Let me show you three pictures from my last visit to Rajouri Market, Wild West Delhi, only this Sunday just gone, to show you how unique and interesting this place is. 

Picture 1:

Steve Jobs could not have designed this one. Neither could have this apple orchard been grown any better by the genius who did it. The many colours, the net (‘Behenji, pure lace! Not net.’), the overall over-saturated image of this on a human shape with bitten apples on every angle and I swear on butter chicken this could not have been spotted in any other market. Such highly evolved brain synapses which could connect unrelated colours and textures and well, even symbols, with such passion for mixing-matching. Today, I am a proud owner of Apples iSuit, limited edition. (apart from a few cock-tail gowns from an over-flowing place called ‘Bangkok Mart’. Such colours you thought never existed!) 

Now, to figure out which is salwar and which the kameez. 

Picture 2:

What you say is important but how you say it is equally important. We should communicate with love, and passion too, why not. A toy set, imported from across the highest peaks of the Himalayas and found in 'Luckee Toys hee Toys', reads thus. How sweet, sweet as pure cheeni. I held this in my hand and a rush of inexplicable kindness for my next door neighbour (country, I mean) rose up my belly and into my heart (and then down). How the media buries under reams of source-papers the real relationship that the peoples of one country feel for the other. Why rake up controversies over seas, when all they desire is to be fondled admiringly. My son cannot understand the words, but when he learns to read, one day, I am sure he will start wearing a cap and a tee to proclaim his love back for this country (just like those NYC-returned ABCDs). Now, isn't this love letter on a toy unique to my Rajouri? 

PS – It has been opened and the manual instructions followed properly. 

Picture 3:

(Please stop staring. This is purely for showing you the dress material) 

And the people in Rajouri, so big and so big in heart that accommodating other’s language into their own moulds and styles is never a problem. I am sure if this lady has been shopping in Rajouri she knows the symbols of all things Chinese. They are printed behind toys and clips and candy and phone covers and Godly idols and now, on behinds too! So, in the very act of picking this pretty yellow with a foreign language dezign the woman has travelled miles in the Market of World Peace and donned a symbol of such inexplicable unity in diversity that she can quite be used as Mother World. (If only I could see the face I would have doodled it).

I have ordered a whole thaan of this piece. Some to get stitched, some to gift and some to send over for translation to the Institute of All Things Imported. It might help in understanding the print behind most objects in the market much better! 

Tell me! Do you still think me an idiot to want to go to this market rather than, say, Jupiter to meet Sabu or Marlowe the Moon Man who keeps the magic moon dust falling in Toyland?

Okay! Don’t answer that! 

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - Teleport - If you could travel to any location in the universe — where would you travel and why?]