misadventures in the market..

my friend, Rachel, and I just walked down to the market to pick up my kurta's from the tailor and to buy apples. my hindi is terrible, really. i mean, i know how to say "hello, how are you?" and a few other basic phrases and i can count to 5 but anything beyond that is "hindi" to me. literally.

i spotted an older lady dressed in a bright pink sari with apples on her cart, so i decided to buy from her. for no other reason than the fact that she looked so beautiful. she was well aged with leathery dark brown skin and there she was just squatting on top of an old wooden cart.

i rummaged through her apples looking for a kg worth of good ones when a random guy walked up and started talking to us in hindi. of course i had no clue what he was saying. then he turned around and started yelling out something to all the other vendors and they all started laughing. they were obviously having a good laugh at our expense. jokes on us. i was embarrassed, honestly. in my mind, i was thinking... "i just wanna buy some apples for cryin outloud, please don't make a spectacle of me." here i am... white, can't speak the language, white, clueless, and did i mention white?

every eye in the market was on us. i wanted to run away... but Rachel wouldn't let me :)

finally after a few more minutes of working up the crowd, i glared at the guy which seemed to calm him down a bit.

the old ladies apples were soft with a lot of brown spots, so i moved on to the next cart with a sweet old man who wanted to know where we were from. his smile and genuine kindness sure made up for the rudeness of the other rascal.