The vegetable vendor

This is the story of a vegetable vendor. But mind you, he wasn’t just any ordinary vegetable vendor. There was indeed something queer about him that made people think about him and laugh at the same time.

The very first time I encountered this character is when I was staying a few days in my granny’s home. It was a bright sunny afternoon, a time when one would prefer to rest for a little while after a scrumptious south Indian meal. However, my granny and I preferred to play a game of kowdei shells. We were in the middle of this exciting game when out of the blue a distinct male voice of the highest decibel was heard by us. My granny and I looked up from the game at each other with the same funny look of curiosity evident on our faces. After a few seconds we heard him again. My granny was positive it was a man selling some or other article of oddity. To me, it really sounded a savage-like noise. So much that I had to go out to the balcony and find out for myself who was responsible for the production of a sound of such great vocal complication as I’d never heard before. On looking below, I was shocked to realize it was a vegetable vendor slowly making his way across the street. Neither of us expected it to be a vegetable vendor because the word that the man had pronounced was nothing close to the Kannada word for vegetable. What’s more unbelievable is that when I heard him do it a second time, I was sure the last sound I heard was very close to a loud burp. I summoned my granny to where I was at the same time the vendor made his strange shout again. My granny found that him a bit musical even. After every shout of the word vegetable in Kannada (tharakari) which lasted about 4 counts, it would be followed by a loud burp, a sheer replica of the ones made by old Brahmin men with pot bellies at wedding luncheons.

Soon this particular vegetable vendor became a favorite topic of discussion especially when my granny had guests to entertain. My cousins and I would readily supply the narration with the actual sound effects, the burping sound always being mine to make. A few lucky guests could actually experience the phenomenon if they came at noontime, which was the vegetable vendor’s usual time.

My granny, after much speculation came to the conclusion that the vendor made a loud burp after each shout because he would spend the morning’s earnings to buy a heavy mid-day meal at the restaurant located at the beginning of her street. This latest thesis was further supported by my grandfather who claimed to have spotted the vendor eating to his hearts content at the place a couple of times. Thus the reason for his queer shouts was justified and the legend of the burping vendor lives on.

Recently when I met with my cousins, we were attempting to make our first a capella to entertain our family members, when one of my sisters came up with the wild idea of having the vegetable vendors shout continuously playing in the background! Yes, we did this and it gave all the family many a hearty laugh.

It is interesting to note that the vegetable vendor remains oblivious to this day of his growing popularity.

I do not know exactly what became of the vegetable vendor for I haven’t laid eyes on him or heard him in months now. But I shall be ever grateful to him for the kind of humor he provided us with.