From tricycle to shopping cart

In the day of supermarkets, hypermarkets, credit cards and Sodexo passes, a few neighbourhood provision stores have been able to hold on to their loyal customers. While more and more housewives and working couples stroll the aisles of supermarkets with their shopping carts, these provision stores and what were called “societies” and “ration depots” were the main source of provisions for families not so long ago.In the old localities, these were dingy establishments with articles falling off stone or cement shelves, overflowing gunny bags, leaking tins and glass jars. The shopkeeper’s assistant fords his way through the store looking for footholds on the floor strewn with his ware to fetch your requirement. The shop is packed with his supplies in every nook and corner and the air thick with the overpowering odour of tamarind, red chillies, grains and gingely oil.The household generally gets its provisions once a month after the head of family hands over the shopping list to the shop owner. Then, the delivery boy on his tricycle brings home the goods which he spreads on the red oxide floor in the hall. The members of the house then tally the goods on the list with those on the floor and pay the delivery boy.Any additional requirement during the month too is procured on credit by producing a little book in which the shop keeper enters the item and its price. The carry bags were yet to arrive on the scene and one had to visit the shop with one’s own cloth bag or wire basket or stainless steel carrier, depending on what one wanted to buy. There is invariably a “dispute” over the total in the book at the end of the month, which is settled after much argument after it is discovered that the little boy, who had been sent to buy oil earlier in the month, had also helped himself to a bar of chocolate without the father’s knowledge.It is because of this credit facility that households preferred these provision stores, though the ration depots and societies were cheaper. Moreover, one had to regularly scan the newspapers to know when the month’s quota of sugar had arrived at the ration depot before standing in line to buy it. Besides the provision store and the ration depot, there was the ubiquitous “Kaka” store, traditionally manned by a benevolent looking, pencil line moustached Moplah, to whom the housewife  generally despatched her little son for emergency supplies like green chillies or a bunch of coriander leaves, when an unexpected and uninvited guest needed to be entertained. Today, the long queues at the ration shops have been replaced by long lines at the counters of supermarkets as the sales girl gets down to counting coupons or tries to  coax the card swiper to respond.— [email protected]