Sunday Bazaar in the old town of Bangalore between K R Market and K G Road is the City’s answer to popular flea markets across the world. The bazaar spreads across Sultanpet, Cottonpet, Chickpet, A S Achar street, Akkipet, Avenue Road, Old Taragupet, Gundopanth Street and parts of B V K Iyengar Road. The most crowded part is the road leading down from Chickpet police station and bylanes running off it.

Every Sunday the bazaar vendors and hawkers of every kind of goods set up their ware around 7 pm with people trickling in and by 8 pm the bazaar warms up for a long day. Toys and trinkets, tools and hardware, electronic goods and computers, garments, textiles and hoisery are all found here.

Saying that you can find anything here from a ‘pin to a plane’ and ‘cradle to a coffin’ would be taking things a bit too far. But local legend has it that what you don’t find here, you wouldn’t find anywhere else in the world.

For the householder there are utensils, clothes, stoves, mixies, hot plates, Kitchen racks among other things and the prices are a fraction of what one would pay at one of the trendy shops. Besides you can bargain. Old and new garments and clothes - T-Shirts, jeans, trousers, leather jackets, wind cheaters, sweaters, innerwear, hoisery and children’s wear.

This is a good place for hobbyist do-it-yourself types. One can get everything from bolts, screw drivers, electric drills, bicycle parts, bike batteries, chains, motherboards, CD roms, CD writers, monitors, mini TVs, DVDs, watches, car stereos and speakers, disk man, laptops, LCD screens, kitchen appliances, bulbs, tubes, computer speakers and so on.

Many of the things available here are old items to which value is added by washing, ironing, cleaning, oiling, painting, polishing, varnishing and refurbishing, thus adding value to the recycled goods. Of course, there are new items too.

Santhe’s (or shandies) are a popular tradition in the rural areas. The genesis of the Sunday Bazaar may go back to as far as 400 years to the times of Kempe Gowda, when this place comprised the old town of Bangalore. However, in its present format, it is said to be 30 years old.

Apparently, a few traders used to sell second hand stuff in one of the bylanes of Sultanpet on Sunday mornings, when the doors of ther regular shops and traders are shut and there is very little vehicular traffic.

Slowly, this trade grew and spilled  on to other parts of the area. Today many of the traders here are from the surrounding areas of Kolar, Tumkur, Chikballapur, Doddaballapur, Sarjapur and even Mysore.

Despite the big retailers and malls which are mushrooming, the Sunday Bazaar is thriving year after year.