The Nishatganj vegetable market in Lucknow has gone all out with Sanskrit as the sellers in the market have named the vegetables after Sanskrit words in a bid to popularise it.
Sonu, a vegetable seller in the market, explained this unique experiment and said, “We thought of popularising Sanskrit and though none of us are familiar with the language, we decided to go ahead. We got a local Sanskrit teacher to help us and when we put up the Sanskrit names of all vegetables, the customers were amused.”
While one does not need any Sanskrit classes to visit the market, they can be pretty much expected to come out with new words to add to their dictionary for free like ‘Alookam’ which is referred to Potato , ‘raktphalam’ for tomato, “karvelah’ for bitter gourd, ‘gunjanakkam’ for carrots, ‘lashuman’ for garlic, ‘Palanduh’ for onion and ‘adrakam’ for ginger.
While Asharam Agarwal, a general merchant store owner in the market termed the initiative as a publicity stunt and said, “The vegetable sellers themselves cannot understand or read or speak a word of Sanskrit but this is being done to get free publicity. It is not good for the market and we have decided to dissuade the practice which make a mockery of Sanskrit.”
On the other hand Ravindra Sharma, a regular buyer at the vegetable market, however, lauded the initiative and said, “It is a great effort to popularise the language which is a part of our history. I have learnt the Sanskrit names of a few vegetables too.”
The shopkeepers, however, do not insist on customers using Sanskrit to converse.
“We do not know how to speak Sanskrit either and we are also learning the names of various vegetables and fruits right now,” said Sonu and added, “We know that ‘Haritkani’ are leaf vegetables, ‘kandmulani’ refers to root vegetables, ‘shakvat’ is a vegetable garden and ‘shakras’ is vegetable juice.
With summer season at its peak, the vegetable sellers have bid goodbye to the placard which is made out of paper, as they need to water the vegetables to keep it fresh.
