M for Spice

by The Balloon

There's something about Indian markets that always looks a bit funny to the foreigner's eye: the peculiar way competition is approached.

In western cities, with the exception of food markets, two shops selling exactly the same things standing one next to the other would be quite uncommon, let alone entire markets dedicated to specific types of goods.

But here there's nothing weird about a market in which all the stores sell more or less the same things, with very slight variations in quality or price.

Textile markets, hardware markets, glass markets, shoe markets, leather markets, silver markets, light fixture markets (and more, more, more...) are, in every big city, areas dedicated to a particular commerce, zones where competition isn't based on scarcity, but on the vendor's ability, or loyalty, maybe on luck.

For instance, when you enter the Old City in Jodhpur,  right under the Clock Tower, there's a busy market with one area is dedicated to shops selling something Jodhpur is quite famous for: spices.

As in every spice market, walking through it is a pleasure of smells and colours: big jute bags full of cardamom, red chillies, cinnamon, and any spice you can possibly think of. Even precious Kashmiri Saffron, here, easily comes in 10 or 20 kg quantities.

But one thing that's different from every other spice market are the names of the shops. They all are surprisingly similar. M.M. Spices. M.B. Spices. M.C. Spices. M.V. Spices.

What's the coincidence? Is there a secret rule that forbids anyone whose name doesn't begin with "M" to open a spice shop in Jodhpur? Probably not.

After a bit of research, we elaborated our theory on what started the M-dot-Something-dot wave.

Since an indeterminate amount of years, all major international guide books seem to have recommended one of the spice shops on Jodhpur's market: M.V. Spices. M. V. Spices is supposed to be the oldest spice shop in Jodhpur. We aren't exactly spice connoisseurs, and we don't know if it is really the best shop, and for the purpose of this story it doesn't really matter, but what's funny is the creative competition this recommendation generated.

We imagine that hordes of western tourist suddenly only began buying from Mr. M.V. and then recommending his shop back home, increasing his business even more. The shop made profits, rose prices, and the competitors had to think of something.

So they decided to go with the philosophy: "if you can't conquer them, confuse them". Playing "confuse the tourist" is anyway almost a national sport in small touristy town, and this guys thought of the perfect way to let confusion be.

They changed their names to be as similar to M.V. Spices as possible.

You read in your book to buy from M.V. Spices, but once at the market can you really be sure it wasn't M.B.? Or M.C.? Maybe M.M.?

We're sure the technique had some success. It's certainly entertaining, and to support the initiative we bought our cardamom from M.C. Or was it M.B?