In the quest of dainty spinach

Retired Dads are a complete anti-thesis of what they were during their working days. Only they don't know that. They feel or pretend or have closed their mind to the fact that it's different. My father in law used to get up early in the morning, freshen up, wear a nice official looking shirt, put his pocket book into his breast pocket, shove a pen in beside and go off to get milk. Why milk? Milk can come home. But he needed to do that just to meet a couple of morning walkers and exchange some hellos and news. Mainly news. Mainly neighborhood news. Over that half an hour, he gleaned facts that surprised most of us. I didn't even know that kind of stuff existed. Oblivious working men that we are. Like, if you buy spinach from Garia market instead of the Bansdroni market, you get it Rs. 3 cheaper per bunch. Who keeps track of spinach. But they do. And that's how the household gets bigger bang for the buck. Yesterday, a friend came over. Her father who I know well has a problem with Bangalore markets. Everyone would have, if he is from Kolkata. The spinach looks insipid. The pumpkins look like faded parchment. The lauki looks like it had been hung out to dry. The snake gourd looks like someone has used it to beat a political drum. The parwal looks like pellets for a gobar cake stove. He takes a bag and goes off to the local market near Marathahalli. Now, Marathahalli is a misshapen nowhere town in the middle of concreate shanties of large sizes. Whitefield and it's towers, glass and grime on one side. Bellandur and it's towers, glass and smell on the other side. Marathahalli is like the guy in the middle seat of a local train. Smell on one side. Grime on the other side. He's trying to edge up front and keeping his nose right out there so as to avoid sight and smell. He's wacko. He just has to know he's sitting right there and he can't do anything about it. He can't get up and go too. He will be called a loser. Ask a guy in Marathahalli whether he knows a market nearby and he will ask, what market? As it is 86.84% of the people here stay in PGs. And they eat in the 654 joints that crowd around two sq km space on both sides of a wide road called very ably and enthusiastically, Outer ring road. So, they don't know where any market is. But he, my friend's father has found out. He goes there everyday. He gets increasingly dismayed. He announces the abysmality of the situation everyday after he's back. He even tears down orange peels to show how pathetic it all is. And then he goes back the next day. Uncles need to understand this part of Bangalore. It's like South Mumbai without the private planes and the French perfumes. Noses are up in the air. There's not much touch with reality. WhatsApp groups here discuss black dogs that have come into the complex. Big Basket does four rounds in a day in each tower. Two times with big vans. Sometimes, a service lift is stuck with the blue bins and the Big Basket delivery guy for over an hour. Then Amazon and Flipkart take over. Who knows what's the quality comparison of spinach or cauliflower. Cooks cook what they are given. For all tasteless cuds of worry, there's oil and ghee. Put more and watch fun. Uncle needs to reboot when in Bangalore next. He should do uber things. Like football coaching, chess games with the computer, astronomy or Bitcoin trading. Kaddoos are so can't do. Do be do. Do be do..