It was rain that introduced it to us. We; the two high school girls too “girly” to carry an umbrella, that one day found ourselves seeking refuge in a small panipuri stall barely overlaid with thin plastic sheets. The stall was just the frontman; it extended to a whole room hidden behind itself, beyond which was yet another room veiled with a thin curtain. This small shop that remained unknown to us for almost a year of daily walks embedded itself into our daily routine quite quickly. It basically became the thing to look forward to after each tiring school day.
The couple who ran it took turns in making panipuri and chatpate as per the customers’ wants while their two kids would be often seen doing homework on one of the tables or clinging to their mother. For the time being, we were their spectators while they juggled their jugs and swiveled the ladle. Or when they cut ingredients sounding the little chop-chop and the woman shouting at her kids when they messed something up. At times, we switched turns, and they were our audiences too.
While we chomped up our orders, small gossip made their way through each bite and there they were with their attentive ears, often laughing along with us or cursing the teachers when we complained about them. And it wasn’t just us; they seemed to know some specific details about everyone who went there, what to ask. Apart from the obvious tell-tales we shared, the food (if you can call panipuri a food) there was good enough to keep us wanting to return to it after the whole day of reminiscing about the lingering taste.
We found out a great deal about the other customers too during the visits. Just like us, the place influenced them to talk about every minor and major going-ons in their life. That little space confined in it the experiences shared by all sorts of people. From school students to grads, nine to fivers to the construction workers working nearby, it served them in each of their different wants. Oftentimes, my friend and I were subject to the new items the owners prepared which opened us to possibilities of the direction the shop would be heading towards.
By the end of our school year, the shop had already started making more items and we’d succeeded in bringing some of our classmates to the place too. Today, it stands right where it always was. The thin sheet covering is there no more but the stall part remains, just with more things being prepared inside, so many more people crowding around it that the stall goes back to being hidden and with the ever familiar tangy and spicy aroma.