Dhai and Papaya

One of the special little treats here in India is the local Dhai. Home made, whole-milk, live- culture yogurt. There is no fancy brand names and selection of flavors. Many families make their own at home, and you can find it at the local sweet shops. Every sweet shop sells Dhai and Paneer (white soft cheese blocks, the consistency of tofu, but much yummier). Small family owned shops are (so far...) the way it goes here. There are very few chain shops in India, and most shopping of any kind happens in tiny shops that surprisingly have more in them then you can imagine. When I first arrived, I scanned my area for all sweet shops in sight, bought Dhai and Paneer from each, and selected my favorite one for continuous supply of this delicious creamy Yogurt. (I thought I'll have it with honey, but it is naturally so perfect in flavors of sweet-tangy-creamy mix that no honey is needed). It is stored in big clay containers, and you buy it by weight. You can bring your own container or they put it in plastic beg. (By the way, they put EVERYTHING in plastic begs here. In the small local restaurants, if you order your food to go, the soup will be placed in a plastic bag too!)
I use the Dhai for making Raita (let me know if you want the recipe:), and one of my favorites is Dhai with Papaya. The papayas are delicious too, however, I'm not sure how it happened, but the papayas lost their seeds ??? Does anyone knows what happened to the Papaya seeds? They use to always be packed with these black shiny-slimy bitter seeds that suppose to help stomach problems, and now most of them are empty in the middle...but still delicious.

I've been visiting in India since 1991, and despite the huge leaps of modernization I've seen here over the years, (In 1991, along with the fall of Communism, India opened its market to import, soon after .com discovered India or maybe India discovered .com and the rest is history), I'm thankful to the still intact natural way of sustainable markets in local neighborhoods. I'm also thankful for fresh Dhai and Paneer, and fresh Papayas picked today!