Visiting the indian grocery store, with the Chaat house, was like being in a completely different country. I saw groceries in different languages and plenty of foods that I had never heard of before. My initial reaction was to see everything, but I was promptly taken to the Chaat house to have some food. Sadly, I was just getting better from an illness so I decided to stray from something too different from my typical diet and chose to have some somosas. The samosas, of course, were incredible, and many of the foods everyone else got looked amazing too. The aroma in the Chaat house just made you want to get something, anything, because it would instantly hit you as you walked in. The amazing strong scent of spices just increased your appetite in such a distinct way, its hard to describe.

After the Chaat house, we then explored around the grocery store to see what different items were sold here. Although there were many familiar things, there were many different variations of items I had seen and used before. For example, the flour came in a wide assortment of varieties. I had no idea there were more than one kind of flour and each flour was used to make different meals, not really used interchangeably. This was fascinating to see how many things were familiar yet so different. It really exemplifies how India really is the melting pot of the world, combining many different cultures to make their own, unique, culture.

Something that struck me very deeply was the labeling and advertising at the grocery store. For a second, think about buying face moisturizer. If you’re a female, you would expect to see a pink bottle saying something along the lines of “Rose Garden: For Women” and if you’re male you expect to see a gray or blue bottle saying something along the lines of “Electric Chainsaw: For Men.” However here at the grocery store, many items were not gender labeled. There were some products that advertised themselves as just products to be used by either gender. Some were skin lighteners, I believe to be a version of fair and lovely, and others were just shampoos. They came in generic colors such as green and featured images of both men and women on the boxes. This was very interesting because I know of the dichotomy that exists between the genders in India, however, it was not very clearly portrayed in the advertising the way that it is shown in the United States form of advertising. This definitely is not a comprehensive example to make any conclusions, I just now that gendered marketing is so huge in the United States that there are aisles for men and aisles for women and this was missing at the indian grocery store.

It was amazing to be able to see how many different things are used in Indian culture and to see that even though everything was very different, many fundamental elements remained unchanged.