KARACHI: “Can you sell me only half terbooz?” The man roaming around the fruit vendors at Empress Market asked one of them. But the fruit vendor very rudely told him to go away.

“Don’t come to us if you are so cheap that you expect me to sell you half a watermelon,” he yelled before turning to a female customer.

Despite being unhappy about the prices of fruit skyrocketing, customers are still seen doing the rounds of fruit markets during Ramazan.

“It is because they have checkmated us. It is Ramazan, we have got to buy some fruit,” said Mohammad Imtiaz, a customer bargaining with a vendor over plums and peaches at Burnes Road.

“He is selling the plums for Rs400 a kilogramme and peaches at Rs180 and is being pretty stubborn about it. I asked him to at least show me his price list that he is issued from the government but he says he doesn’t have it,” the customer complained.

The fruit vendor than jumped in. “Look Baji, I have the list,” he said pulling it out from under a basket. “But it doesn’t mention plums,” he explained.

“That does not mean that you can sell it at such astronomical rates,” the customer said to him before noticing that even though it didn’t mention plums it did have the price of peaches, and it was Rs130 a kilogramme. “What is this? You are selling them at Rs180,” he pointed out.

At this the fruit vendor pointed to a separate basket where he had collected the rotting pieces of fruit from his cart. “I will sell you peaches for even less from this lot. For Rs100 a kilo, just for you,” he said but the customer glancing at the basket muttered that it was good enough to be thrown away.

‘Catch the big thieves’

“We don’t pluck the fruit off trees. We also have to get it from the fruit market for a price and it is not according to the rates set by the government. Our own profit is only Rs5 or 10 here,” said Duniya Khan, the fruit vendor. “Go catch the big thieves.”

“Watermelon was Rs20 to 25 per kilo before Ramazan and now it is Rs35 to Rs40. Mangoes are Rs200 per kg and the soft and rotting ones are for Rs150 per kg. This time the vendors expect us to buy their rotting fruit, too,” said Shahid Yusuf, another customer who had specially come to Saddar from Mehmoodabad to buy fruit for his family.

“I came here hoping to find reasonable prices and better quality, but here they are also offering us rotting fruit. Unbeliev­able!” He said while shaking his head.

“With the spotting of the Ramazan moon the price of fruit goes up to the moon,” said Farhan Ahmed, another shocked customer. “Only three days ago, banana was selling at Rs60 or 70 per dozen and now they are selling at Rs150 per dozen. I have even seen one fruit vendor asking Rs300 for just 12 bananas,” he informed before buying only six bananas.

“We are told every year during Ramazan that we are being charged the best and most reasonable prices, but that is never the case,” said Haseeb Butt, who had come to Empress Market from Gulshan-i-Iqbal. “The prices are like this because our leaders are like this. They don’t care,” he said.

“We would have quietly accepted these rates had the fruit been imported from somewhere, from India or Bangladesh maybe. Sadly, we are paying through the nose for fruit grown in our own country, that too an agricultural country,” said Ms Rasheed, buying half kilogramme cherry boxes for Rs130 each.

Published in Dawn, May 19th, 2018