Busy markets have always fascinated me. I am, after all, a researcher of the informal economy! I took this photograph of KR Market from the flyover, looking down at flowers, people and vehicles competing for every bit of space.
Every Indian city seems to have its sabzi mandi. I wonder how many have a flower market on this scale. KR Market is Bangalore’s largest wholesale flower market, and looking at those rows of garlands stretching into the distance, you get a sense of just how much of the city’s everyday life involves flowers.
There is some order to this madness. Even from above, you can see the rows of sellers and the narrow passages between them, with people and vehicles finding their way through. I find myself wondering about the everyday arrangements that make it all work. Who occupies which spot? How is space negotiated? What happens when someone new arrives?
If I weren’t an ethnographer, I’d be a photojournalist.
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