Ravi Agarwal, 2011

9.5 mins. looped

The 200 year old farmer’s flower market, is to be shifted out of the capital city of New Delhi, owing to the beautification drive. Set in the historic old city, farmers come from afar each morning, carrying bundles of freshly harvested flowers. Between 5 am and 11 am the market becomes a loud cacophony of bargaining voices, as the street and the indoor flower hall teems with buyers for the flowers, which are to be used for weddings, temples, or adornment garlands.

The flowers are grown along the banks on the river, not too far away. Hundreds of acres of fertile mustard yellow fields are cultivated by farming families, without using fertilizer or pesticides. Now, both the flower fields on the river, as well as the flower market are being diverted to other commercial uses, as land prices sour. The city, as it expands and becomes ‘global,’ is changing the land use of the river bank, even as the flower market itself is being shifted. Edged out from both ends, the age old economy of the flowers and its ecological marketplace will soon be replaced by parks, shopping malls and tourist spots.

As the connection to the land is lost, the “economy of flowers” is transformed into an “economy of capital.” The ‘market’ is changing from being a critical link to sustain ecology, to becoming an end in itself.