Shopping as sport, Conscious by force
Laad Bazaar is in the Muslim section of Hyderabad and i s the preeminent marketplace for the city. Simply put, Laad Bazaar is alive. It is alive with the loud, raucous, bustling, smiling, busy, pushy, and pungent energy of life itself. Situated at a crossroads where a major city thorough fare lined with Nizam era crumbling buildings meets an important byway, Laad Bazaar is crowned by the Mecca Masjid and the Charminar (meaning ‘four minarets’). Along these streets surrounding the Charminar are jewelers (hundreds of them), clothing shops, bangle sellers, food emporiums, costume makers, bird sellers (a whole block of nothing but birds), booksellers, artisans, and whatever else you can imagine. Laad is alive and animated in a way that makes Western cities seem, at best, sleepy or dull. The second time I went to Laad, I was walking along and a boy pointed at me shouting “hero.” Is this his perception of the West? What future does our globalist consumerism world have in store for such a young, wild-eyed soul? I hope he sees the same inspiration in my culture that I see in his, not a debased, selfish world of plenty, ill mannered for centuries and bent over a win-at-all-costs mentality. I don’t mean to sound so harsh, but the contrast cannot help but force a recognizance of your own privileged position, no matter your social rung. We are fortunate.