Bizarre sells at Chor Bazaar

Having a rich history of more than a decade, Jummeraat Bazaar, which is popularly known as Chor Bazaar is a flea market that is set up every Thursday in the Old City of Hyderabad. Its name “Jummeraat” is derived from the Urdu name for Thursday.

                                                                          The environment that surrounds the market clearly says that this is meant for the poor. But the spirit is rich in terms of re-usability and recycling. There is a misconception that the goods sold here are stolen. But to the contrary, the sellers in Jummeraat Bazaar get the goods from rag pickers, scrap yards and raddi waalaas, who buy used articles from house holds. Besides that, they also buy used goods from the customers. People often describe this bazaar as the place where anything from pins to planes are available!
                                                                                 Historically, it started more than a century ago, during the Nizam’s rule in Hyderabad, when goods used by Nizam used to be sold at “Ghode ki Khabar” (a place where a horse is buried) in Dhulpet near Hyderabad’s Old City. Slowly, it transformed into a place where a wide range of used articles are sold on a weekly basis, which is visited equally by the poor, who come for a good bargain, and by the rich, who come to buy rare antiques.

                                                            Now this market offers used spare parts of automobiles, equipment, furniture, decorative items, bicycles, rickshaws, carpets, antiques, tyres, clothes and even horses! That’s not all, you can even get computers mobile phones, TV sets and other electronic goods. The condition of the goods varies a lot. Some are repaired, some are shabby, some look like new and some are new.

Chor bazaar has a notorious reputation not for the chors (shoplifters, the only variety here) but because it has on sale, everything under the sun. “You could get your grandfather's old yashica, a pair of bongos, or even a miniature sewing machine with equal ease here”, brag some of the shopkeepers here. But amidst the jostling crowd and apparent chaos in this place, there is some semblance of organisation. Each street has its own speciality, so garam bazaar has woollies on sale and in chindi bazaar, the cloth market, those designer second hand collections are on display. But putting things in perspective, Anwar Khan, a resident since childhood, comments, “chor bazaar earlier used to be a place where thieves used to come and sell their wares. now the goods sold here are those which people have discarded from their homes and have found their way here on to the streets.” The streets of chor bazaar take on a different flavour on friday afternoons when the regular antique memorabilia and furniture shops shut and the lanes are thrown open for the juma bazaar. This juma bazaar attracts vendors from as far as Virar and gives them a chance to put up their stuff for sale. After all the hectic walking, a glass of cold, creamy lassi from the local vendor comes as a welcome relief. As you elbow your way through the jostling crowds, looking for that special something, do not despair, you might just find it at the next corner.