A village market sits in an open place of the village. It generally sits by the side of a road or on the bank of a river or a canal so that the villagers can come and go.
Village markets are of two kinds-hats and bazars. Bazars sit everyday in the morning and breaks up at noon. Hats sit in the afternoon once or twice a week and continues from mid day to the early part of the night.
Usually a village market is divided into three sections-open space, temporary shops and permanent shops. Vegetables, milk, fish, fruit, betel nut etc are sold in the open space. This place is always crowded. People buy their daily necessaries here. The grocers sit in the temporary shops. From the grocers people can buy oil, salt, onion, garlic, ginger. pulse, etc. In the permanent shops cloth, shoes, wheat, rice, flour, ghee, spices and different stationary items are sold. There are also sweetmeat sellers. They do not cover the sweetmeats properly. There are the tailors' shops and the tailors are busy in cutting and sewing. On hat days one or two cows and goats are slaughtered and people buy meat. People can also have fowls, hens, ducks etc. Cattle are sold in some big markets. There are also tea-stalls and the shops of barbers.
A village market has demerits also. There is no fixed price for any of the items. A customer may be cheated at any time. A village market is not clean. There is no public sweeper to clean the rubbish and filth. Besides. sometimes higgling leads to quarrel. Sometimes, shopkeepers are also oppressed by the local mastans and criminals.
In spite of the demerits a village market is very useful and important in the life of the villagers. Here they meet their kith and kin and variety of people. The villagers sell their surplus products and buy their daily necessaries. It saves time and money of the villagers.
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