KATHMANDU, MARCH 29

I asked one of the cart vendors from Sitamadhi why none of them had lemon stock in their sales inventory. There were seven or eight of them on the alley of a road that had recently graduated from a goreto, a walking trail.

All of them answered in one voice: '400 rupaiya wala nimbu koi khata hi nahin.' The land on which lemon and other vegetables grow costs 10 to 20 million rupees for one anna (342.25 sq ft), barely enough to put up a buffalo shack.

Consumers have no problem paying such exorbitant prices for land. They should not have a problem paying Rs 4,000 or 40,000 a kg for lemon whose benefits far exceeds that of autos, costing six million upwards.

Revellers pay Rs 400 for a beer, and they don't want to pay Rs 400 for one whole kilo of lemon? A fellow shopper laughed out loud at our ongoing conversation.

Around the time, a couple of cops sauntered and warned the cart vendors to vanish from the road. What surprised me was the road has become a parking lot for bikes and cars. Nearby the entire stretch of road from mouth to tail has become a private parking lot for noveau riche school directors, their teachers and their money banks – the students. Republican youths and taxi drivers drive at breakneck speed in the zigzag lane that will put Putin's hypersonic missiles to shame.

A few days earlier, I had gone hunting for lapsi. It is one vegetable or fruit whose English name has eluded me thus far. I found some in a shack in the vegetable market. It looked ugly and rotten. The vendor declared as if commanding to his subordinate: 'That's 300 a kilo.'

My wife was over the moon when I brought her favourite lapsi. But after a cursory glance, she poked at my intelligence: 'How can you be so stupid to buy these rotting lapsi?' I kept quiet.

A fortnight later, I found some more lapsi in the vegetable market, much prettier than the earlier ones. The inebriated vendor, a Newar, struggled to weigh the gems of a vegetable and announced that it was 500 rupees. I had to help him put the stuff into the bag. I was feeling embarrassed at the vendor's neighbours smiling wickedly at me. I asked another vendor: 'Grandma, I want a kilo of eggplant and ladyfinger.' I realised that it was the only way to turn the table on the vendors relishing my embarrassing moments.

She tried to intimidate me with her pricing, which she offered to sell to me for Rs 140 and Rs 200 rupees, respectively.

After this, I went to an aalu-pyaj vendor. How much are these jumbo packs now? I asked. Rs 170 for aalu and Rs 280 for pyaj, he announced benignly.

At home, my wife barked, 'Who asked you to bring the entire market?' I suffered silently, again.

A version of this article appears in the print on March 30, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.