Spices

Not long ago, I was walking down into Dharamsala and I passed a spice mill. My nutty Hare Krishna brother had previously introduced me to vegetarian Indian cooking, so I decided to have a buy-in of all the funky spices.

The shop was staffed by a sweet old Indian gentleman who presumably remembers the days when India was ruled by the British Raj.

I had a lot of fun trying to express which spices I wanted to buy. I would identify spices by pointing or smelling, and he also suggested unknown and exciting spices that I may like to try. Every time I would indicate that I only want a small amount of the spice, and he would load a bag with a whole kilo. But that was OK - he was old and slightly doolally. And it wasn't going to cost *that* much, was it?

I eventually left the spice mill with my backpack and two carrier bags loaded with spices. The total price was one-thousand one-hundred and eighty-three rupees.

In reterospect, the shopkeeper wasn't sweet and quaint at all. He was a capitalist vulture and saw me coming a mile away. I eventually gave 90% of the spices away to my classmates, as they would have gone mouldy in my kitchen.