Not a very good photo but here's another bike shop. Look how much stuff he's got balanced on it! Totally bonkers. He's selling rugs and mats.
Bike shop number ... um ... 15? The milk man.
I think this counts as a bike shop, even though it's got three wheels. And selling palm trees on the back of a bike - that's pretty funny, right?
Another day, another bike shop: incense sellers in Meher Chand market.
Bike shop #13. This one encapsulates what I love about India. This guy has set up a little business riding around residential areas with an urn full of hot chai on the back of his bike, selling cups of tea to the guards who sit around all day outside people's houses. Totally genius.
This photo gets two labels: it's a bike shop (knife sharpening) but it also qualifies under Ed's mini-series of cool people doing cool stuff - he took it. Notice it's a chef who is having his knives sharpened ...
This is bike shop #12, taken around the corner from our flat. This man was very keen for me to take his photo, and in fact posed with another bike that was standing nearby with his chick blind making kit on it (see Day 410)... but I thought this one of the furniture was more interesting. I've promised to deliver him a copy of the photo.
This man has been selling bananas from his bike in Khan Market for as long as I can remember - it could be as much as 20 years since I first saw him standing in the same place. One day I will interview him but for now he is bike shop #11.
I think this is bike shop #10: the mini-florist.
Bike shop #...6? Selling packets of paan.
Bike shop #8: the milkman. See Day 150 for a close up.
It doesn't look like it, but technically this is bike shop #7. This man works as a cobbler and rides around the residential colonies with his box on the back, calling out his services so people can stop him if they need any shoes mending.
Another mini restaurant on wheels.
Bike shop # 5. As we drove to the place that we are staying for the weekend in Rajasthan, we passed a few of these bikes ... and one motorbike that was similarly set up for business. Then they disappeared. I'm not sure why they were only in one area, or whether the garlands are for Diwali or just for general adornment. I've noticed that lots of the tractors and trucks around here have these sorts of decorations so maybe they're their drivers are the target market.
Bike shop number 4: a mini hardware store. Might be one of the best bike shop photos yet (slightly annoyingly as it was taken by Ed).
#3 in my series of shops on bikes. This is a roadside food stall on a bike. There's channa masala (chick pea curry) in the big brass drum and the little stove attached to the gas bottle is for cooking the parathas (I think - some kind of bread anyway) to go with it. Note the little bit sticking out on the left that serves as a board for rolling out the dough. Possibly my favourite so far.
Continuing with my 'things on bikes' theme, this is a mobile shop specialising in items for children and women: toys, balloons, nail polish, bindis... doing the rounds of the neighbourhoods in Noida (see Day 83).
Someone should do a book with just photos of the things people carry on their bikes in Delhi.
