South Indian Rice Stall

For several days in the city of Trivandrum in South India, I hung out in the local market with two young brothers who ran their family’s rice and lentil stall. They’d agreed to teach me about rice, so I sat in a corner of their tiny stall, watching and listening as people came by and purchased rice: two kilos, five kilos, twenty kilos. Occasionally there were disputes—the price was too high, the rice was poor quality, the kilo wasn’t quite a kilo—but they were generally good humored. The brothers were exceptionally nice people, and I had the feeling that they had a very dedicated clientele.