Sunday Bazaar at Liverpool Street

So this Sunday morning, I was taking a random stroll down Bishopsgate. I would love to call it a morning jog, but self deception has its limits and in this particular activity, very precisely mathematical speed limits within which my locomotion did not qualify. Not to digress further (slightly ironic - that phrase - since I am about to describe its exact opposite), I spotted what looked like a motley cluster of stalls in the normally staid and dignified Middlesex Street. Strolling towards the stalls, my ears began to detect the intoxicating strains of regga combining with boisterous beats of Bhangra (I wonder if the mix has been tried at any nightclub yet). Intrigued, I delved further into a concentration of humanity (that motley cluster bit was just my foggy morning vision I suppose) comparable to the stifling crowds in the bylanes of Chandni Chowk. The cause for such dhakkam - dhukki soon became obvious - a temporary Sunday haat had magically sprouted on the same street which was the preserve of bored investment bankers in dark suits, downing pints in bars which lined the street, every other day of the week.

Strangely enough, the same dark suits were being sold for the price of those same pints in front of the same bars today! Okay, the bit about the same price as pints was my imagination - but you get the idea. Salesmen advertising consisted of nuggets like, "Suits for 10 pounds, suits for 10 pounds...This is not the stuff you get from India and China. This is designer stuff, straight from Bangladesh!". Moving further, I realised there were shirts, jeans, kurtis, skirts, shoes, belts, football jerseys, London memorabilia, jewellery, electronics, mobile phones, bed sheets - all up for sale at a small fraction of the loot which is branded 'Sale' at Marks & Spencer. Not to mention the atmosphere of this global marketplace - Rastafarian types exhibiting their eponymous hats under a huge cannabis poster, Egyptian movie DVDs being sold under the watchful gaze of a stern looking Nasser portrait, Jodhpuri chappals being haggled for alongside Italian shoes, Gujarati lehengas being sold cheek to jowl with bohemian skirts. If anything deserves that hackneyed term, 'free market', this was it. And I was loving it! (contrary to what perceptive readers might believe, that last bit is not an example of subliminal advertising for a certain food corporation which I will henceforth refer to as McShit).

At the end of a good two hours and 2 pounds spent in the Bazaar (for those wondering, I bought a shirt which said "When I read about the evils of drinking, I stopped ... reading!"). Realising that morning had glided into noon, I decided that it was high time I started my assignment from the spectacularly hair-raising subject of Econometrics. Bidding good-bye (a temporary one, that is - I'm sure I'll be there next week), I trudged off towards my Hall thinking about a potential correlation between jogging and shopping...