Oberoi Fruits

If you’ve ever been to the N.S.M Azadpur market, you know how chaotic it is. We are located at B-170, right in the middle of all that noise and movement. Oberoi Fruits has been operating out of this spot for quite some time now. Our day usually begins in the middle of the night when the trucks start rolling in from the farms. It is a lot of heavy lifting, moving crates of apples, oranges, or whatever is in season. The floor is usually covered in stray bits of straw and cardboard, and there is always a crowd of people looking to get the best price. It isn’t a clean or quiet job, but it’s what we do. We spend hours sorting through the fruit to make sure we aren’t sending out anything bruised. My clothes usually smell like citrus or ripe mangoes by the time I head home. We don’t have a website or anything like that; we just deal with the people standing right in front of us. It’s a lot of shouting and haggling, which can be tiring, but it’s the life of the mandi. When the sun comes up, things start to slow down a bit, and we finally get a chance to sit down on a crate and have some breakfast. It’s a tough business, but seeing the trucks leave full makes it worth the effort at the end of the day.