Flea Markets and Coconut Candy

I have a lively bunch at work that I lunch together with. The Philadelphia Metro was running a full page on the last page on a local Flea Market in Philadelphia. This lead to a discussion about Flea Markets.

I have been to several of them in Pennsylvania and these markets could be a good pastime with a bunch of people selling their used wares and folks bargaining with them. One of my lunch mate is an intern doing her Master's at Drexel. I recommended her to go to the advertised flea market. The only other colleague at the table that day was a naturalized British who like me is also very fond of flea markets. That was one thing a British and an Indian could agree upon.

We were all sharing our experiences and teaching the newbie at what to expect and what not to. Flea markets bring out the entrepreneurial abilities of people in surprising ways. I am not talking about the junk that people sell on their tables. But here are some instances that might throw a better light.

One guy at a flea market had a van with electric generator. He would charge a small fee for testing any equipment that runs on electricity like a toaster or a blender. Personally this is a great idea. It is better to test your precious junk bought at the flea market than to go home and be disappointed when it doesn't work (like the all-in-one printer I bought). The guys surely had enough business to make his trip worthwhile. Remember that this is a big flea markets that spans multiple acres and close to 100 vendors.

One vendor would have a makeshift table with not so salable items on it. But he would be drinking a soda with a cooler under the table or next to him. The people coming to his table, seeing him drink soda and a cooler next to him inquire 'Where did you get that? Do you have more?'. He would then sneak out a bottle/can and take a buck or whatever he takes. The deal is that you are not allowed to sell eatables and drinks in some flea markets. This guy was catering to a demand with a sneaky supply of his own undermining the non-suspect authority.

What strikes me surprising about these eventful flea markets and yard sales are that they are unique to USA. At least they are not to be found in India. I assumed that this must be an American thing, but I was not sure if that existed in Europe since culturally America has a lot in common with Europe.

I have never seen anybody setup a yard sale or a flea market in my hometown. I mentioned this to my British friend and he was surprised to hear that. I explained to him that we rarely sell items to regular folks. Our junk are mostly donated to others in need down the social economic ladder. The junk are sometimes sold to or bartered with street hawkers. I narrated several commodities like paper(newspaper, books), iron(cooking utensils, old broken tools, left over iron rods from house construction), aluminum(cloth hangers, bulbs, wires) etc.

I narrate the same with detail below at the expense of risking my image. My narrative later could be misconstrued for having a childhood like the kids from the Christian Child Fund promotion that airs on TV regularly. The Christian Child Fund is rechristening to 'Child Fund International' to better market itself to a wider audience leading to an uproar(Video here) by the conservative media at Fox News. But perception is reality in most cases. 'The organization shed its religious teachings more than 30 years ago'. The organisation was perceived as a Christian Charity by having a Christian in it's name. In it's efforts to shed a religious image and reach a wider audience they are apparently losing their current Christian donors. Isn't that a irony. Shouldn't charity be done irrespective of the religion? But I digress

There used to be newspaper hawkers who bought used newspapers. English newspapers like The Hindu would fetch more(when sold by issues) than the native newspapers for whatever reasons. I think the English newspapers had more leaves in those days. The newspapers would fetch Rs.4 per Kilogram (little less than 4 cents/pound) in the late 80's. Then there are the used clothes that would be exchanged for Steel Utensils. The housewives of AP(Sree Lakshmi comes to mind immediately) were notorious for selling their old clothes in exchange for these vessels and were made fun of in several Telugu movies especially in movies by Late Mr.Jandhyala who was very famous for his subtle clean humor in Telugu movie industry.

My favorite vendor was the aluminum hawker who would exchange aluminum metal(anything aluminum) for a coconut candy (Kobbari Mithai). It definitely must be my pre-teen age, but I still remember it vividly. I would stash any item made of aluminum so I can exchange them ounce for ounce of the savory coconut candy. I would save the broken hangers(they used to be made of aluminum in those good old days). The metal end of light bulbs (both incandescent and tube light) were also a part to the cause. We would hang around the electric pole whenever there was work going on there. The crew from APSEB (Andhra Pradesh State Electricity Board) left behind some electric cable that contained aluminum in them. Luckily for us we had an electric pole right in front of our home and we had frequent maintenance requests by our neighbors. I thought the coconut candy exchanged for the aluminum was worth the trouble of collecting them. In retrospection, some of the stuff we did was highly hazardous. Breaking a bulb or a tube light is dangerous and accident prone. All this to extract out a few grams of aluminum to exchange them for a few grams of coconut candy to be shared by four(we were four siblings who had equal stake in the candy).

Some hawkers would barter onions and/or munchies like roasted chana (chick peas) for old iron and other metal items. Other than the above there are other means where one can buy and sell used items in India. Used book stores at Barracks in Vizag and Koti in Hyderabad comes to mind quickly. Then there was also an auction house of used items near Nehru Bazaar in Vizag where my dad bought a sewing machine. Well the sewing machine had no table where the sewing machine could sit and hence the sewing machine stayed unused for almost a decade until my sister got married and took it home with her (It was one of the several parting gifts that still continue to date). The story of the sewing machine is for another day.

My colleague doesn't recollect if there were any flea markets in Europe as he came to USA when he was very young. His cousin from Belgium is visiting him soon and he promised to ask him about it. But I could not wait for my colleague's cousin's story. So I used the help of our dear good friend Google to find some answers. From what I could find, flea markets might have started in Paris where they were called Le Marche aux Puces which literally means market of the fleas. The Parisian's those days were highly unoriginal - they named the market 'Le Marche aux Puces' as they used to find fleas in the wares sold at these places. If French were not so subtle, the English were not any better, the translation 'Flea Markets' appeared in English sometime in the 1920's. The history is not so good, but the continuation of the legacy is.