The fruit-seller glances across the street furtively and stuffs the bananas into my bag. He and I are in cahoots. My greengrocer is on the other side. He must not see me buying bananas here. Many months ago, he was dumping tomatoes and carrots and two sickly broccoli into my bag when he spied bananas I’d already bought from the fruit-seller.

“Arre, Seth Sir, my bananas are better. You should buy here.”

He calls me “Seth Sir”, probably because, to him, anyone north of the Deccan Plateau is a “Seth Sir”. I also call him “Seth Sir”, because we’ve never actually shared our names with each other.

“How can you have better fruit than the fruit-seller?”

“Oh yes, no contest. Here, try these.” He forces upon me a dozen white yelakki bananas—small, delicate and as sweet and fragrant as cardamom. Allegedly.

• Tags: India, Issue 40, Sudipto Sanyal