Subzi Mandi, the Ladies’ First Choice

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My mom and mother-in-law to-be returned from the Indian grocery store this weekend with their purchases in these bags. I guess desi men don’t frequent Subzi Mandi?

At least they put the apostrophe in the right place

43 thoughts on “Subzi Mandi, the Ladies’ First Choice”

  1. At leat they put the Apostrophe in the right place

    That’s because they’re desis 🙂 U.S. natives would more likely have gotten it wrong.

  4. 1] my dad goes indian grocery shopping…which is funny b/c my mom is always yelling at him b/c he over-buys dhal and subji. and he goes so often he’ll come back with a 1/2 lb. of bindi and there’ll still be another 1/2 lb. from the last time he went. hehe.

    2] jane of all trades, that website is hilarious! i just want to go up to those stores with a giant red marker and correct the signs! [a sign of my dorkiness]

  5. Ah! So that explains my sense of liberation when I go to the Subzi Mandi. Shout out to Jackson Heights!

  8. What does “Subzi Mandi” mean?
    It pretty much means an Indian grocery store.

    Sonia, not nitpicking you, but to be precise literally it means “Vegetable(sabzi) market (mandi)”

    Mandis are mostly open-air kinda markets. Typically hawkers and vendors occupy space in front of shops. Here’s a photo from such a market.

    When you say a Indian grocery store, someone like Emma(who I presume is not an Indian?) might misunderstand it to be Indian grocery stores as they come here in US, which isn’t quite right. A not-so-close American approximation in terms of sights-sounds-smells of a Sabzi Mandi would be flea markets.

  12. 1] my dad goes indian grocery shopping…which is funny b/c my mom is always yelling at him b/c he over-buys dhal and subji. Its pronounced as sub-zee and not sub-jee 🙂

    Al_Mujahid_for_debauchery, my entire family must have a speech defect…they all say subji… but then again.. my mom likes to mix up her z and js… so maybe its that?

  13. Al_Mujahid_for_debauchery, All Mixed Up,

    We also say ‘sub-jee’. (And ‘dur-vaa-jaa’, not ‘dur-va-zaa’ for door.) Probably a regional variation, although not incorrect.

  16. Many folks pronounce and spell it sabji

    Kind of like how some people say ‘Jero’ instead of ‘Zero’. It could be a dialect thing or just a pronounciation mishap.

    We have the beloved ‘Mama Mboga’ in Kenya. It’s so cool to listen to them shout out at the women in the neighborhood, announcing their wares in a sing song sound. Ahh…I’m nostalgic again. 🙂

  17. Well, why is the market itself called sub-zi mandi and not sub-ji mandi? Just because a lot of people pronouce ‘why’ as ‘vy’ doesnt make it right 🙂

    Al_Mujahid_for_debauchery, my entire family must have a speech defect…they all say subji… but then again.. my mom likes to mix up her z and js… so maybe its that?

    I dont think its a speech defect. Your family has a different pronouciation and thats cool.

  19. I know how to spell pronounce 😉

    Yeah but do you know how to, er, pronounce it properly ?

    { joking 😉 }

  20. FWIW, my hindi teacher pronounces it ‘sabji’ as well. I think it is probably a regional thing. Some people do (can?) pronounce the persian z, others don’t. I think of it like the Mexican/South American ways of pronouncing the word “llamar” (either yamar or zhamar, respectively) and leave it at that. I understand people when they say sabji or sabzi, and that’s what matters to me – at least I’m understanding something 😉

    My statistics teacher in college, Dr. Jaiswal, always pronounced the term Z-variable as “G-variable.” now THAT was confusing.

  21. Thanks Michael. Should check out if there’s one near Austin (DesiDudeinAustin, you know any?).

    Many Maharashtrians too pronounce it as ‘J’ instead of ‘Z’. It’s just a regional accent thing. Infact some of them will even call it as ‘jhero’ or ‘sabjhee’. It might not be so pleasing to hear all the time, but agree with AMfD, it’s cool nonetheless.

  23. Seeing this wonderfully pedantic thread, I had to add to the discussion 🙂 . Michael, in terms of sights you are right – sabzi mandi resembles a farmer’s market. However in terms of sounds and smells the images I associate with it is definitely of fleas or to be more precise fly’s – at least thats how it is in Karachi.

    One of the more bizarre sensations I’ve experienced was walking through ‘Empress’ Market (Admittedly it is more of a wholesale market than simply being a sabzi mandi but the point still applies) where walking down the narrow path you had the horrid smell of cooped up chickens emanating from one side and the delightful scent of fresh mangoes from the other. It was quite horrid. You couldn’t just accept the chicken smell and bear it because the mangoes were teasing just sitting there – teasing my sense of smell. Thankfully, it only lasted for a few seconds.

  24. There is a reason why many Hindi speakers cannot pronounce the “z” sound: it isn’t originally a sound in Hindi. Look at how it is spelled in devanagari: a j with a dot under it (comment number 15 – subzi mandi in devanagari). It is a borrowing from Urdu. Also, there was no “f” in Hindi as well.

    So if you see a name with a “z” or an “f” that isn’t Christian, you know immediately that that person has Muslim ancestors (Razib will insist though that he is an atheist).

  25. (Admittedly it is more of a wholesale market than simply being a sabzi mandi but the point still applies

    Actually mandi does mean wholesale market. A mandi is the place your local bazaar would get its supplies from.

  26. Talking of Indians – Yesterday, I saw the product list of a major Indian wholesale merchant in the US y’day. Fasting items like Sabudana and Samo were under the categeory “Feasting items”… Ya ,, We Indians get it right always..

  27. Michael H. – “So if you see a name with a “z” or an “f” that isn’t Christian, you know immediately that that person has Muslim ancestors (Razib will insist though that he is an atheist).”

    Unless the name is Zail, Zorawar, Zoramal, Azad, Wafa, Zareena, Zeenat, Zena, Zubair, Wazir, Fateh, Fatehpal, Fatehbir, Fakeer, Hazara, Hazoor, Gulzara, Falgun, Falak, Farid, Furmaan, Fal, Phoola, Zaildar, etcÂ… then you could be dealing with a Non-Muslim Punjabi or someone who just happens like Muslim/Persian names.

  28. while it’s hard to romanize hindi/urdu, the sound we’re discussing in “sabji/sabzi” is usually pronounced the same, it’s just a product of romanization that some say J and some say Z. It’s still the same sound, like when we say Tar-jzhay to talk about the store with the red & white bullseye logo.

  29. Don’t forget all the Uncles and Aunties, especially back in India, who insist on saying “Jee TV” instead of Zee TV 😉

  30. I love when I do hit up the Subzi Mandis in Edison or elsewhere and see their various spellings of Jalapeno. Insignificant, yes, but funny? Definitely. I’m easily amused, what can I say? I’ve seen “Hello-pino”, “Hallopeeno”, and the like. 😛

  31. Guys,

    Just it happens that yesterday, Jinal Shah – a New Yorker from Mumbai wrote an excellent post about Bazaars, vendors, Sabji Mandi. Do read her writeup. It is very well written.

    Abhi, Anna, Manish et al.

    Metroblogging Mumbai is up. You might do some friendly collaboration with them in future. They are full of life, and seem to have pulse on thing called “India”. Some friendly cross-posting. Just an idea. Arzan blogs for Metroblogging Mumbai.

  32. In the south, particularly in Tamil Nadu, we pronounce sub-zee/jee as “Kai-karigal”

  33. They are full of life, and seem to have pulse on thing called “India”.

    Aw Kush, you sounded just like an uncle trying to be cool then!

    Guys, do a bit of travelling in India – the j for z is the norm across Bihar/UP/MP – the cow belt. Michael H is spot on, the Z never existed in ye olde Hindie (although your point about non-Christians with f or z is easy to fault).

    DD, who says tar-jzhay?

  34. Don’t forget all the Uncles and Aunties, especially back in India, who insist on saying “Jee TV” instead of Zee TV 😉

    I love the family parties where the Aunties make pee-ja and jee-ti for the kids. 😛

  35. who says tar-jzhay

    I think people started saying that to glamourize the store. It started off as a joke. Tar-jzhay sounds european and exotic, instead of what it really is : Not European and not exotic.

    Ha! The pee-ja is hilarious. How about ‘pashta’ and ‘sapringrolls’?

  36. Tar-jzhay sounds european and exotic, instead of what it really is : Not European and not exotic.

    guffaw and titter Sacré bleu, you Americans, so quaint.

    Sincerely, Exotic European.

    (yes yes I know Britain doesn’t count as exotic nor European proper)

  37. In the south, particularly in Tamil Nadu, we pronounce sub-zee/jee as “Kai-karigal”

    Southie-Dadi, not to nitpick, but I guess that should read “Kaai-karigal”. Guess that’s the right way to tpy it in TaNglish (Tamil + English, i.e. Tamil written in English). Some people call subzi/jee as “kari-gaai” too.

  38. Also, there was no “f” in Hindi as well.

    sorry Michael, look for the character ‘ja’ and ‘pha’ in this Devnagiri script page. There are dotted versions of both charcaters, which are pronounced as ‘za’ and ‘fa’ (z & f respectively, in english). You can learn more about such characters and their sounds from this tutorial. (click on extras and look for dotted consonants. It’s a flash, so can’t link directly).

    Fuerza said : “Hello-pino”, “Hallopeeno”

    haha! how long before it becomes a “Hello-Latino” 😀

  39. Hey Suhail!

    No, I’m not Indian. I’m Bangladeshi, but JUST recently living in Jackson Hts- totally different from where I grew up (AZ) and lived before (IN & MI).

    —EMMA

  41. aNTi,

    I stand corrected, it is indeed “kaai-karigal”. In the spirit of being pedantic, I thought Tanglish was a mixture of Tamil and English, as in colloquial Tamil spoken with loaned English words, rather than romanized Tamil as you suggested.

  43. My cousin had a Malayali teacher who’d pronounce “quantum” as “condom,” much to the delight of the English speaking students. These things happen when you’ve got people speaking languages that they’re not used to speaking from a young age. When I speak Hindi, I tend to Urdu-ise the words a fair bit, and use the z or the f, but don’t really look down on someone who’s using the original Hindi, which didn’t used to be a bastardisation of Arabic, Persian, and Urdu, along with random English thrown in. But meanwhile, that’s what makes Hindi so much fun–it’s sheer and utter chaos when it comes to its use in Delhi vs Bihar or Assam or Maharashtra.

    I just moved to Roosevelt Island recently, and am definitely looking into heading out to Subzi Mandi, on the recommendation of my mother, who swears by them. She’s been furious at the ridiculous prices I’ve been paying in Manhattan at Kalustyan’s (or however you spell that bloody store). Will definitely look forward to sharing my experiences there.