Supermarket for Our Family
Satoko CHATTERJEE (India)
The crossroads that are less than a one-minute walk from our house are our family’s“supermarket.” From around 7:30 to 11:00 in the morning, vegetable, fish and chicken
vendors sit on the ground to open their “shops.” There are about five vendors in all, andthe shoppers are all local neighborhood residents. There are also one or two permanent
shops where we can buy groceries such as eggs and sugar, as well as a teahouse. Here,
shopping is mainly men’s work, so this place is usually quite busy with fathers who shop
before going to work in the morning. We can, of course, go to larger markets by bicycle orby auto (three-wheeler type share ride compact vehicle), but I get our food here most ofthe time.
Everything is certainly different from Japanese supermarkets, where processed foods
such as freshly prepared deli items and cooked meals are packed in foam polystyrene
packages and sold in neat lines. Here all the food is sold as is, and fish and chicken iscooked on the spot. Vegetables are sold by weight, so price changes directly affectpeople’s lives. Price changes are caused by seasonal factors, natural disasters including
floods or droughts, festival seasons, as well as by transportation strikes caused bypolitical problems, which affect food deliveries. Currently vegetables are getting more
expensive due to signs of a late rainy season and a drought, which makes peoples’
financial situations more difficult. Yet, it may be easier than being vexed by the
mysterious phenomenon of the Japanese situation, where domestic produce and foods
are more expensive than imported ones. In addition, it is good that we have less waste
by not overwrapping goods as is done in Japan.
However, we cannot be optimistic about the safety of vegetables and fruits in India,either. I often find articles in the newspaper revealing that some produce is colored withchemicals to make it look fresher, and that other fruits and vegetables retain residual
agricultural chemicals. They say that agricultural chemicals exceeding the standard
level are found in more than 75% of the items studied, and what’s more, it is morecommon in green vegetables. I feel scared when reading an article titled, for instance,“Your soup has poison in it.” I hear some elderly housewives complaining thatvegetables sold nowadays do not smell as they used to, because they are grown withchemical fertilizers and agricultural chemicals. So they eat them after boiling them once
because they are not safe.

I have heard that mangos and tea leaves which are exported from India are grown in away that meets the standards of residual agricultural chemicals of Japan and othercountries. When we look at this reality from the opposite side, it means that local people
in India must eat mangos and tea that are rich in residual chemicals. Although there
are some NGOs in India, including our group, which are engaged in activities topromote organic farming and food safety, we still have a long way to go before consumerawareness is raised and a movement such as consumerism begins. This morning, I went
to the “supermarket” for our family to buy vegetables as usual. Every time I see, forexample, rosy red sweet potatoes, I wonder what specific steps I should take and what I
should do to stop this kind of behavior as a consumer.

▲ Vegetable vendors