Flower seller's stall

[Manfred M]

Yesterday was my daughter's birthday, so we decided that she might like some flowers; yellow is her favourite colour. We were headed to the Russell Market to pick up some other things and our last stop was the flower seller. He was offering us yellow roses for 15 Rupees a piece (I'm sure that the locals would have done better; but paying $Cdn 0.30 for a rose is cheap), so we asked for a two dozen roses.

Small bills are hard to come by, so making change in many developing countries is difficult to impossible. Here in this part of India, they seem to make change by giving you more product. By now, we were up to 30 roses, and he gave me and my wife one red rose each as well. I asked if i could take his picture, so here it is.







It's quite the opposite of what we would see at a Western florist's. The flower seller's helper is sitting under a shelf in the back, pulling flowers out of their wrappings. I couldn't see doing this in B&W. The mess and disorganization is so India...

[rpcrowe]

I love the expression on this man's face... The mess and disorganization of the stall places emphasis on the man...

[just me]

Mensch......Manfred.....another WOW image !!!!!!!

Griddi........

[Shadowman]

Nicely captured.

[pnodrog]

Nice shot nice story.

[NorthernFocus]

Sounds like coerced up-selling

[Manfred M]

Sounds like coerced up-selling

In other parts of the world, the people would just say "no change" and seemed figure I could afford to leave the money they owned me on the table. I have receive change in the form of chocolate bars as well. At the market, we tend to buy from the same vendors (assuming they have what we want) and they will make it up to us the next time in some way or other (lower price or extra pieces of fruit / vegetables).

The "no small bills" seems to be a universal problem in developing countries. One of the locals once told me that it costs about the same amount of money to print large denomination bills as to print small denomination ones, so the decision makers at the Central Bank will opt to print larger, rather than smaller ones to make the "best use" out of their money printing budget. I suspect India prints their own, but I do know smaller countries contract out minting of coins and printing paper money to other countries.

[Tronhard]

Looking at your photo I must admit that, until I read your explanation, I thought the fellow behind (under the shelf) was actually a picture of the one in the foreground - they look strikingly similar!

[Tronhard]

I just had a thought... your photo would make a killer jigsaw puzzle!

[Manfred M]

Looking at your photo I must admit that, until I read your explanation, I thought the fellow behind (under the shelf) was actually a picture of the one in the foreground - they look strikingly similar!

These are family businesses, so if you visit often enough you get to meet the whole family. That in part will help explain the resemblance.

[Tronhard]

These are family businesses, so if you visit often enough you get to meet the whole family. That in part will help explain the resemblance.

I think it was also a perspective thing. My eye was tricked by the fact that the gentleman in the foreground's shoulder is level with the shelf, and seems very close so it seemed that image of the second person must be very small - as in a picture. I am guessing the shelf is some way in front of the person behind and they are in a relatively lower level???

[IzzieK]

Sounds like coerced up-selling

Exactly my thought!!

Anyway, did anyone see the pinting (or what was left of it...) on the spray bottle at the back? I wonder which one of these men was it referring to?

[Dave A]

Nice image Manfred. I love his expression holding back his joy of making a sale. I almost missed the guy behind him.

Dave

[Manfred M]

Nice image Manfred. I love his expression holding back his joy of making a sale. I almost missed the guy behind him.

Dave

Actually, he was concentrating on the rose he was clipping, so far as I could tell.