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Friday, February 24, 2006
The mall and the mandi
Going around Alkapuri in Baroda last evening, I passed several malls, and all of them looked the same. There was, at a lower level than the main road, a courtyard surrounded by stores on either sides, leading to a large U-shaped apartment complex at the end, with offices and stores on multiple levels. The courtyard had motorcycle parking in the middle, walking space along it, and two to four levels of shops on either side. It was like a design template, and many malls on that road, all of which would begin shutting down between 8.30 and 9 pm, looked just like that. Here's a pic of one such:
Two nights back, I had dinner with some friends in some another part of Baroda, and their house was in an apartment complex opposite a sabzi mandi (vegetable market). Although their flat faced the other direction, a fair bit of noise from the market filtered into their apartment. It sounded like people rioting. Given what this city has been through in the last few years, it was a disconcerting sound.
Two nights back, I had dinner with some friends in some another part of Baroda, and their house was in an apartment complex opposite a sabzi mandi (vegetable market). Although their flat faced the other direction, a fair bit of noise from the market filtered into their apartment. It sounded like people rioting. Given what this city has been through in the last few years, it was a disconcerting sound.
