A Vegetable Vendor and my story

Ah the feeling of getting back to writing after a long hiatus...
This one is a tribute to my dear vegetable vendor. The lady has been with us for God-knows-how-long now and my mother doesn't find her day complete unless she has first haggled with vendor lady over vegetables. Vendor lady is a middle aged, paan-chewing gossip monger who delivers a mixture of vegetables, paan and gossip to all doorsteps without discrimination. She divides her day so that the early mornings are spent with busy ladies who don't want to talk for long, and late mornings with customers who need at least half hour of gossip with vegetables. (In fact, I don't think the vegetables matter much) To my great happiness, my mother is an early morning customer.

Recently, the poor vendor has been finding that her business is being taken away by the Reliance Fresh opened around the corner, and that even her most loyal customers are capable of shifting loyalties. She is almost permanently in a bad mood these days, chewing paan more vigorously and leaving my mom in constant tension that she would spit on the car one day. Talk about not worrying that such behaviour will drive customers away faster.

This particular morning, she arrived at the window and bellowed through the bars, "Ammmaaaaaa".
I don't know if that is her way of announcing to the next customer to get ready or what, but I always take great pleasure in telling my mother to be happy she didn't give birth to children with such voices.
The vendor stopped short at seeing me sitting at the dining table, shovelling breakfast down my throat. She watched me in fascination, and then her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"Yes, yes." My mother said impatiently, walking in with a bowl full of dal and rice and mixing them expertly at the same time.
"Your daughter." The vendor began, baring a red mouth and looking at me in distaste. "Is she married? She wears a toe ring."
Amma turned to me wearily. "What new fad is this? Why do you do this to me?"
I was shocked. "It is a yellow thing that I wear on one toe. Which seriously married woman would wear something like that... and when has she seen my toes??"
My mother glared at me. "She is an idiot." She said, by way of explanation to the vendor, and then said even more impatiently, "What vegetables have you brought?"
The vendor didn't seem to want to end the topic so quickly, but my dad walked into the room just then to have his breakfast and vendor lady kept quiet. She decided to be ingratiatingly sweet. "I have kathirikkai today." She informed my mother. "Saar likes kathirikkai. SAAR. KATHIRIKKAI." She bellowed again for my dad's benefit, leaning past my mother.
"Saar", for the life of him, still doesn't know Tamil names for vegetables. Especially when they don't match the equivalent Telugu ones. He looked at me quizzically.
"Brinjal." I answered.
"Vankai!" He exclaimed. "Oh yes, yes, make some nice Vankai pachadi..." He trailed off, no doubt conjuring up pictures of the lovely vankai pachadi in question.
My mother was not appeased. "I have been asking for podalanga for the last one week." She snapped.
Vendor lady prepared herself to argue, breathing in deeply, but my mom suddenly saw something she liked and finally settled on the radishes. The argument was averted.
"How much?" Was my mother's next question.
The lady quoted the price for her beloved radishes.
"What?" My mom's highly practised shocked-expression-for-bargaining came on. "That is so high. In Reliance Fresh it is almost half that price!"
Vendor lady looked highly offended. Her customers were disappearing to that odious place in large numbers and here my mother was, having no qualms in mentioning "that place" to her. What about her value addition to the selling process, the time she had spent serving this neighbourhood, what would happen to her kids....?
My mother, sensing she had touched a sensitive spot, tried to change the topic, but vendor lady was not to be stopped. She took another deep breath, inhaling all the oxygen in the world (I swear she should take up teaching Pranayama and yoga instead of selling vegetables) and launched her tirade on the Ambani venture.
I was shaking with laughter as I left the room. For all the Reliance Freshes in the world, I would not trade this lovely specimen of a vegetable vendor - toe rings, paan, bellowing, kathirikkai, et all.