Okhla Mandi

[aroy]

Mandi is Hindi word for whole sale market. Okhla Mandi is the nearest Fruit and Vegetable Mandi to our house. There are three major Mandi in Delhi and they deal in bulk, semi-bulk and retail.

I will break this up into parts so that it does not get too long.

Okhla Mandi 1 : General View


Platform scale


Fruit sellers at the entry


Tomato bulk sellers - baskets of around 30kg are auctioned here. Approximate price Rs.150/basket.


People milling around


Fruit carts


View through a stall


Watermelons - bulk sales, minimum quantity 100kg


Fruit sellers - bulk and semi retail


Overview


Fruit retailer


Fruit retailer


Fruit retailer

 

[aroy]

Okhla Mandi 2 : Vegetables

Individual vegetable lots are shown here. There are three types of lots
- Bulk : Sold in cartons or bags. Usually varies from 30kg for tomatoes to 100kg for potatoes.
- Semi-bulk : loose in 5kg or multiples of it
- Retail : minimum of 1kg for vegetables and 1/4 for spices


Tomatoes - bulk sale cartons


Tomato alley. Semi-bulk and retail sales


Close up of tomatoes




Tori - Sponge gourd


Round brinjals


Cauliflower


Pumpkin in fore ground and bottle gourd in back ground


Lauki - Bottle gourd


Bottle gourd - packaged in 10kg lots


Parwal - Pointed gourd


Bhindi - Ladies finger


Beans


Cucumber


Spice seller - Chillies, lemon, garlic and ginger


Shoppers selecting spices


Coriander leaves


lemons


Garlic


Sanjan - drum sticks

 

[aroy]

Okhla Mandi 3 : Fruits

Fruits are also sold in bulk or retails
- Bulk : units of 100kg
- Semi-bulk : units of 5kg
- Retails : 1kg or more


Bel - Bengal quince. Inner pulp made into cooling drink for summer.


Watermelon bulk seller


Oranges. These are quite small but juicy. Mostly bought by road side juice sellers.


Bulk orange seller - by cart loads. You can see his truck standing.


Pineapples - they come by truck from North Eastern India, a journey of 2000 kilometers.




Promenades


Fruit stall


Papaya


Semi ripe papaya are harvested and covered with newspaper to ripen.


Musk Mellon


Apricots - these come from hills


Plums in cartons


My wife buying coconuts

 

[aroy]

Okhla Mandi 4 : Portraits

Where ever you go with a camera, people want their photo taken, in the hope that it will be published some where. Here are some "models"


Helper to the fruit seller


Vegetable sellers


Odd job boy. Wanted to show his skills.


Potato whole sellers


Smile please!


Retail fruit sellers. That is the cart where they have arranged the mangoes bought in the Mandi. They will be hawking their wares on the streets of Delhi for the whole day.

 

[aroy]

Okhla Mandi 5 : Retailers

And now the buyers consolidating their purchases out side the Mandi. They either have their own carts, or they share a ride in the trucks to their shops.




Purchases lying all around.


Those who have carts are loading them up


General view


Fruit seller


Fruit seller on his way to the buyers

 

[Michael J.]

Wonderful photos. Thanks for sharing

 

[Daniel Aegerter]

Thank you for the insight into your world.
Even though I've been to Delhi (and some other Indian cities), it was always for business purposes and I did not have time to seen anything like that.

 

[aroy]

Thank you all.