Colors are big and vivid in Mexico City. The home team’s jersey is bright green, the Aztecs turn into a giant green monster with a thousand arms on match days. Food stalls that flow endlessly from one street to another like train carriages, splashes of fluorescence, oversized fonts and quirky designs attract attention.
The brighter the better, says Martina, who runs a Tortus stall near the stadium. “The store has to be different. Every food store in Mexico City sells the same snacks and food, but you have to show that you’re different,” she says.
The name of this shop is Stadium at present. The nameplate features a picture of Pele and Diego Maradona facing each other, as if they are coming out of the tunnel for a game. The menu at the storefront features tarts named after famous footballers. Pele, Maradona, Alfredo Di Stefano, Franz Beckenbauer and local kingpin Hugo Sánchez occupy prime real estate on her showcase and feature prominently. The rest, Zinedine Zidane, Mario Kempes and Iker Casillas are in a different division and cost less.
Mexico City has no shortage of hand-painted ones. On every wall, even in the more local ones, there is a mural or graffiti. Locals believe that every graffiti is a story. (Photo courtesy of Sandip Ji)
The theme was an idea from her football tragedy husband.
“He told me, ‘Most of them come here to watch matches’. So if we name them after famous footballers, people will be interested and business will improve. Of course, our turds are the tastiest around, but you need to sell them and attract more customers,” she says.
Business is booming and the half-dispersed queue consists of foreigners.
Also read | Mexico’s ‘cathedral of football’, Maradona never left the stadium
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It’s not just the menu, but the graffiti below the showcase that catches the eye. She just did. “Computer generated,” she shouts.
It is a melange of Mexican footballers from both sides. In the center is a young, chubby chef. She says she would have preferred hand-painted paintings, but there is a shortage of painters and the ones that are there, the prices are high.
There is no dearth of hand dyers in the city. On every wall, even in the more local ones, there is a mural or graffiti. Locals believe that every graffiti is a story. The walls of the grand buildings issue a stern warning: “Graffiti is strictly prohibited; those found will be shot!”
A world in a city
A giant fish adorns many walls in the center of the city. Locals call it an axolotl, a type of salamander native to Mexico City’s ancient waterways that dates back to Aztec times. “The size is just in the painting, it’s actually smaller than your palm. Big taco,” says Federico, who runs a taco shop called Taco de Enorme.
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All the stalls prominently display the cuisine. It’s not just a taco, torta, or quesadilla, but a “giant taco,” “super taco,” or “monster tortilla.”
In some, animals become characters. A hoarding of a chicken shack is a chicken slaughtering another chicken with a large axe. There were more than that, but signs on nearly 2,000 stalls were erased as per orders of the previous mayor.
Every street in Mexico City leads to markers of colorful clothes swaying in the gentle breeze from thick racks. Grilled corn vendors ride around on their rusty bicycles, whistling loudly.
“She wanted to beautify the city, she just destroyed its charm,” says Federico. Many are exposed to their metallic bones. And what does its successor do: paint most of the walls with axolotls. “Just to scare the kids!”
On either side of the Avenida de los Insurgentes, one of the longest avenues in the world at 30 kilometers, the roads from Paris to Berlin, Berlin to Vienna run along the street. There are also Zurich and London. They have turned street naming into a heartfelt business, crossing cultures and continents and professions.
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For music: Bach and Beethoven; For literature: Shakespeare and Victor Hugo; For Geography: Himalayas and Alps; For Medicine: Cardiology and Orthodontists; Animals: Shrimp and squid. As many as 24 Peace Streets are named. Not far from this is High Tension Street (though it’s quieter than many of the quieter streets, bustling with locals). It helps give Mexico City its 70,000-odd streets name.
Colorful clothes swaying in the gentle breeze from thick racks on each street are carried to markers. Grilled corn vendors ride around in their rusty bicycles, whistling loudly. Grocers have a different approach: playing popular jingles from their phones. Some even have ancient tape recorders, which are far from extinct in the country.
Everything, of course, is wrapped in colors that first sting the eyes and then fill the stomach. These are vivid and loud colors that also take away from Mexico.