The wholesale fruit market in Coimbatore is a warren of tiny offices and warehouse rooms full of all kinds of fruit, sweaty workers, tiny desks and ancient telephones. This city of 3 million is in the extreme south of India, very close to the tip of the sub continent. The city is small for India, but seems very densely populated and tropical, it rained off and on all day but the heat was so extreme that the wet roads quickly dried when the sun came out. We had neither coats nor umbrellas, as the heat dried us off as we walked from shop to shop. We trudged in mud and garbage, passing goats, cows and beggars. These people stare at us, rare to see a white face in this place. I watched an "untouchable" woman digging into a dumpster to try to salvage some rotten fruit. Her face shows the saddest most hopeless expression I have ever seen. I felt guilty taking her photo.
We met many fascinating people and saw very few calculators and fewer computers. One old father and son team proudly explained they have continued the fruit business established by the now deceased grandfather, over 85 years ago. They sell over 500 boxes of Washington apples a day and earn about $1.50 per box in profit. They take no risks, they are commission merchants, just a middle man between the big importers in Chennai and the local street cart vendors in Coimbatore. They have several nearly naked young men, sitting on the filthy cement floor, repacking the apples and tossing into a juice bin the ones that have gone bad. The place is buzzing with motion, hand carts moving apples from China (fujis that look very nice and sell for 60-80 Rupees per kilogram) and Red Delicious (from Evans Fruit and First Fruits (Broetje) that look good and sell for 95 Rupees per K) but the Indian apples all looked very poor. These were picked last fall and are now tired, many of them with rotten spots, bruises so large people sort through the entire box, repacking apples from the Himalayan foothills that have been trucked over 1000 kilometers of potholed and winding roads leading south.
We are delighted to listen to the old man tell us about the business. There is no bank credit. He knows all his customers and they have to pay cash on delivery, or if they have been his customers for 30 or 40 years he may give them a few days credit, but he had no written accounts. He keeps all the knowlege in his head. There is no legal process to collect bills from bad customers who don't pay him so the system is very basic. If you want fruit, bring cash, buy from the middleman for $26 per box and sell on the streets hoping to gain a 10% profit. Chilean fruit costs $21 and Chinese only $12. He could rattle off his statistics and he was very sharp, asking us why we could not drop our prices just a bit. Last year he paid $21 per box for Washington apples and he said he is barely making a profit at this years $26 price. Of course our Washington growers do not make those prices, as the government of India charges a 50% tariff and when the shipping cost is figured in, it means we only get about $14 a box for Washington premium #2 apples.
All day long we went from office to office, sitting on plastic chairs, talking and learning about their apple business. Many of them had their workers wearing Apple Commission tee shirts and hats. All had their walls covered with our beautiful apple posters. They were gracious, offering us Pepsi, or fresh watermelon juice and cookies or Ritz crackers. They all wanted more fruit as our is the best in the market, but they are pleading for "a little bit lower prices next year." Late in the afternoon, we drove back to the airport , passing through a few modern buildings but even those look bedragled with chipped paint and cracked windows. Poor people are everywhere. It is sensory overload, the smells are overpowering. We arrived at the airport and cleared security, they hand frisk every passenger as they are worried about terrorists as in some parts of India religious zealots have been tossing bombs.
Our flight was delayed 45 minutes, but we finally flew on to Mumbai, the city of 15 million people on the Western coastline. Flying in low, over the Indian Ocean, we saw the vast tin shanty slums that surround the modern airport. The streets are so crowded with cars, mopeds, people and beggers, it took us an hour to drive 3 kilometers to the hotel. Now I sit at The Leela Kempinski Hotel, a five star marble and gold palace. It is the most beautiful hotel I have ever seen, a garden oasis surrounded by high walls. The staff all wear uniforms and they outnumber the guests. The guards and security make us feel very safe. I have high speed internet. We ate at a lovely Chinese-Indian restaurant and the entire bill for 6 people was $150. And yet, as I am writing this tears are welling up in my eyes and all I can think of is the woman I watched this morning digging in the dumpster for rotten bits of fruit.
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