No maza in this bazaar

I am the person Instagram ads are hunting Because I am that person who hates malls and loves bazaars Bazaars are a buffet for the senses full of snacks knickknacks trinkets and a variety of unnecessary but irresistible pleasures stopping points as you strollBut now many of us donrsquot stroll we scroll and so Instagram has been a place for happening upon all manner of artisanal funmdashfood and clothes and earrings and shoes sold by a host of what are now called small business ownersA crucial quality of the bazaar besides its intense variety was that it was cheap Small pleasures for a small price Thatrsquos not really true of the goods that fill our feedsmdashand often therersquos not all that much pleasure eitherI recently ordered a pair of highly overpriced sneakers with soles that light up from an online brand It was a peculiar experience No follow through on the order for a few days and after some back and forth a couple of mistakes on their part and so on an argument between us where rather than say we are sorry we arenrsquot able to get this to you on time would you like to cancel or wait they went to convoluted lengths to say it was my fault and when our argument escalated informed me that they would cancel the order because they did not want customers like me I complained to a friend that surely they must be millennials because who else would rather lose a customer than own up to a mistake Because stereotypes can sometimes be true especially when you are mad I did a quick search to check if this brand had been on that famous television show for startups in an aquarium and indeed it hadThat same week I had ordered a bunch of homemade masalas from another sitemdashAazolmdashand received it pronto no fuss The delightful online store iTokri sells all manner of handicrafts which make their way from Gwalior as promised with a handwritten thank you note If there is an issue someone calls you with polite regret and an effort to find a solutionItrsquos not that the customer is always right But as the longheld relationships with local stores have taught us the bazaar is a place of exchange and treating the process of exchange with a certain attentiveness and love for your workBut a slew of brands which call themselves artisanal or quirky have derivative lehenga and kala chashma branding thatrsquos hardly hatke anymore tellingly favour colonialist and feudal names featuring words like nani nomad zevar hatheli native earthenness sola topi or whatever They perform artisanal blackface and also take on the postures of the capitalist market Yaniki charges you a lot but with an uppity attitude Yet they have neither the artisanrsquos skill nor love of the bazaarYou can buy a necklace for a few thousands from such a place and spend the whole evening tightening the drawstring which the man who sits outside your neighbourhood goldsmithrsquos will make with perfection and durability for a hundred rupees Or wait a month for an order Like the platform they advertise on so much of this trade is about how things look over how things actually aremdashthe marketing not the market or the mazaaParomita Vohra is an awardwinning Mumbaibased filmmaker writer and curator working with fiction and nonfiction Reach her at paromitavohramiddaycom