Yes, We Have No Bananas!

India is a country of services.  This is sometimes good, in that everything you want and need can and will be delivered to you home at your convenience.   Even when I opened my HSBC Bank account, the bank Vice President came to my house to fill out the paper work. Now, that's service!

The down side of everything being so "convenient" is that convenience in India is sometimes borderline intrusive.  For instance, in India, every company believes that if they just send 100 text messages a day about a new, $1 million apartment 2 hours away, you will pack up and move without a thought.  This is not convenience, this is stupid.

So there is good and bad conveniences in India and then there are the ones that seemed good at first and later you realize they are not so good.  For instance, when I was looking for an apartment, one of the things I thought would be convenient was that in the mornings, every morning, we have fruit and vegetable guys that ply up and down the neighborhood streets on a sort of El-Camino type bike with their wares.  Now, we have perfectly good fruit and veggie stores in our local market, that will even deliver, but this being India, that is not convenient enough.  At first I thought, wow, what a convenience, but the main obstacle to selling anything from your bike is how to let the neighborhood know you have arrived.  This would be the downside.

Each morning, these denizens of the fruit and vegetable trade roll through the neighborhood announcing their arrival in a cacophony of chant and song that penetrates even the most bunker-like dwelling.  You can hear them coming minutes before they arrive on you block and although I have no clue what they are actually saying, I have to image it is something along the lines of "I am arriving with bananas.  Get them before they are completely covered in dirt, exhaust and spoiled by the sun." Round and round these guys go in all types of weather.  I hear them when it is 125 degrees and sunny and when it is 90 degrees and monsooning.  The note never changes.  Then, with no warning, they just disappear.  Gone until tomorrow morning when these sirens of vegetable hell awaken me to my own gastronomic, living nightmare.   

This is the banana guy

This would be the mellon-of-some-sort guy.

I have yet to figure out what type of mellon he sells.