Billing for your fruit and vegetable shop in Sikkim
Greens that wilt by evening and a family's udhaar: both kept on your phone, not in your head.
Lal Bazaar and Mangan: where Sikkim's produce is sold and grown
Fruit and vegetables move between districts every day, and a shop owner hears about the farm end and the market end from the people at the counter.
- Lal Bazaar in Gangtok sells fresh fruit, organic vegetables, cheese including chhurpi, and bamboo and cane baskets, and is liveliest on Sundays.
- North Sikkim depends mainly on farming, and Mangan grows the larger variety of cardamom, popularly called the Cardamom Capital of the world.
Why a Sikkim vegetable shop never has quite enough of its own greens
The hills grow a lot and still not enough
Sikkim grew about 80,000 tonnes of organic vegetables in 2016-17, and its horticulture secretary said it was still 1,000 tonnes short of what it needed. At a vegetable shop that shows on the shelf. Some tomatoes and beans come from farms near the town and some come from further away, each lot with its own rate and its own day of arrival. Keeping both rates in your head is where the mistakes begin.
Sold by the heap, the bunch, the kilo and the piece
In a hill market the same customer buys greens by the bunch, tomatoes by the heap, ginger by two hundred and fifty grams and kiwi by the piece. Each goes by its own measure, and the sum is worked out aloud while the customer holds out a cloth bag. When the bag is full, nobody is sure that every item was counted once. A kiwi is a piece, a bunch of spinach is a bunch, and neither fits the notebook column marked kilos.
The cafe's order comes at night, on a phone call
A cafe owner rings after closing: tomorrow, five kilos of spinach, three of tomatoes, one of ginger. You write it on whatever paper is near. By morning the scrap is under the scale. When the order is packed, you cannot say what was sent the last time, or whether the cafe has paid for it. The same cafe sends the next order a day late because it did not know whether yours had gone.
From the farmer's morning baskets to the evening count
The green chilli strung and sold red, one count handing over to the next
Chillies sold green in the first weeks are strung and sold red later, so green and red are two items. When you string a lot, take its kilos off the green and put the red kilos in, and the two counts never claim the same chilli. The bill shows which colour the customer took.
The cafe's Friday list, read aloud to a cook who cannot read
A cafe you have accepted to buy on credit settles on Friday. Open its page and read the week aloud, line by line, to the cook who cannot read. He hears each line and says yes or no, so the Friday is settled in one sitting.
Tomorrow's baskets planned from tonight's count
At dawn, when the farmer's baskets come, open his page first. It shows what you took from him last time, what stayed overnight and what you owe him. You settle with him at the basket and ask for tomorrow's baskets from that page in the same minute.
Tools for a counter of organic greens, ginger and mandarins
Sell to other businesses
The cafes and guest houses nearby apply to buy from you on credit, and each order they send is in front of you in the morning, before you pack. Orders to a cafe stay with the cafe, and the cafe's dues do not mix with a family's.
Credit book (khata)
A page in the name of each cafe or guest house, with every morning's greens dated, so Friday's settlement is a list you read aloud.
Daily reports
Kilos of ginger sold, week by week through the year, so the weeks the ginger moves are on your phone and not in your head.
Low stock warnings
A warning when the last of the spinach or the dried ginger falls to the line you set, so the cafe's order is not a surprise.
Farmer groups whose market stalls and online shop share one count
Questions Sikkim vegetable shops ask
What does the cafe order in the cold weeks? I need to read it out on Friday.
In the cold weeks the cafe's order is heavy with roots and greens that keep, for the soups and warm dishes. Read the week's lines on Friday in their dates, with the kilos, and then the total.
The farm's tomato stays steady and the far truck's swings with the hill road. How do I tell customers?
Keep the farm's rate steady for the weeks and say so at the stall. The far truck's rate moves with the hill road, so it is the one you change when the truck is dear.
The cafe takes a heap of tomatoes and a bunch of greens. What changes in the cold season?
Fewer tomatoes by the heap, and more roots and greens by the bunch. Look at the page before the week starts and set the cafe's heap against its bunches, so the Friday list is no surprise.
Organic farming and the vegetable shop in Sikkim
In 2017 the Sikkim chief minister said each assembly constituency would get a state vehicle to carry fresh organic produce to markets, with non-organic imports to be banned from 1 April 2018.
Crops grown in Sikkim's organic pilot include large cardamom, ginger, turmeric, buckwheat and Sikkim mandarin, plus cherry pepper (Dalley) and kiwi fruit.