Lakshmi in Imphal
(thomas;2023-June-25)
Imphal is the stone-ugly capital of Manipur, with more and deeper pot holes even than Basingstoke (not an easy feat but they managed it). 
The main attractions are a great fort and the so-called Ima Keithel or Women's Market. This is a huge market in three giant concrete buildings and only women are allowed to sell stuff there (everything from fruit and veg to clothing and household goods). There are around 5000 sellers though we did not count them. It's an impressive, colourful and lively site, open from 7am to 7pm. And one of those 5000 women is tiny Lakshmi (right): she sells shawls and scarves with her sister Indira (left) and is a very chatty and very friendly person.
The buyers are overwhelmingly Indian tourists from mainland India and because they don't speak Meitei (the local main language) and Lakshmi (like many if not most Manipuris) doesn't speak Hindi she has over time acquired a good command of English... frequently the only common language between sellers and buyers. (Foreigners find it often amazing that English -- after all, the language of Empire -- is still playing such an important role all over India, but with nearly 1.4 billion people, 100s of local languages in daily use and many people unable or indeed unwilling to speak Hindi... English is often the only common ground.) The two tourists in the photo are actually from Tamil Nadu -- and spoke English with Lakshmi.
It was our good luck that Lakshmi spoke such good English because that day, there was a great national holiday (Meitei New Year) and all restaurants in town (yes, all!) were closed for business (even the market was half empty). The only sources of food we found were in the market itself: women in a dozen makeshift stalls selling... interesting things. Some of the foodstuffs were unidentifiable but fish in all shapes and sizes was really a big (and smelly) thing -- in India we're careful though with fish as well as meat as we have seen too many markets where those are processed.
Enter Lakshmi who would walk us through a few of the stalls so that we could a) learn what all the strange bits were and b) tell the lady cook what we wanted or didn't want (no fish and meat and no other local delicacies). So she found us a very good lunch spot and made sure that we got refills of rice and lentils and even some fried bhajis.
Want to read more? Go back to The Dancing Queens of Agartala or go on to Ali in Kohima or go up to Meet the Locals
$updated from: Blog.htxt Mon 04 Mar 2024 16:04:39 trvl2 (By Vero and Thomas Lauer)$