panipuri stall

During those days panipuri was my favorite. I and my sister used to relish on yummy panipuri almost daily as kids. There was a panipuri gaadi near my house. Yeah, a roadside stall. As kids we used to be promptly present at this roadside stall by evening. It was run by two brothers. Till today I had thought there were dad-son duo. But actually they were brothers! The younger one was very handsome. He was a very jovial fellow, full of smiles . Sometimes our whole gang used to hit his stall and have loads of fun filling our tummies with panipuri. We used to get extra puri and extra servings per plate!! My sister being the youngest was his favorite. She loved panipuri more than anyone of us. For a long time she was his permanent customer. They used to talk non stop about earth, sky, school…..During holidays it was our adda in the evening. We were in awe with his vegetable cutting speed. He would be looking at us and casually talking to us while cutting onions with such speed and great precision. All the onion pieces would be of equal size. There would be so much symmetry. His elder brother would be mostly washing plates. Giving out the plates to people. He never let his younger brother do these work. He would always smile at us. He hardly talked to us those days. For a very long time we used to go to their panipuri stall. Then we changed house, our gang disintegrated, friends moved out of town or shifted their house too. Our visit to panipuri stall became less frequent. During those days we came to know much more about him than just his culinary skills. My aunt used to work as a part-time lecturer in MCA dept. He had just taken up the course. And one day he told mom that one of his lecturers resemble my mom so much. It was then that we came to know he was a very bright student and had got medal in Degree. And that he had taken up loan to pay his college fee. He would work at the panipuri stall from 4.30 in the evening till 10 at night. Later go home and study!!
Mom helped him get some books from his lecturers. He thanked mom so sweetly for that on our next visit. After a while I no longer enjoyed eating panipuri and stopped going to his place altogether. Somehow we were not in touch with them for a long time. After a couple of years we got to know from somebody that the guy had landed in a good job and was earning well now. Somehow he had gone out of our mind all these years.

As I and mom were walking in Residency road today, a well dressed young man who was walking along with another fellow(his colleague) stops infront of us and says, “ Hi aunty” and beams with a smile. For a second I couldn’t recognize him at all. Suddenly it brought back heap of memories. This was our young ‘panipuri uncle’. As kids we used to call both him and his bro as uncle only. We were so happy to see him. It was pretty evident from his appearance that he was doing well in life. I had always seen him in the same blue coat, a smile on his face, and a specs. He talked to mom about his work and said he married a girl whom he met at his previous workplace and that they also have a kid now!!!! Time flies so fast!!!! He looked at me and asked,” Hey, where is my friend? What is she doing now?” (He was referring to my sister). We exchanged phone numbers and invited him home. This would be one visit I would be looking forward to. what struck me most is that he stopped to talk us. I wouldn’t have recognized him at all. He wasn’t intimidated by the fact that he was with his colleague and that we could have mentioned about his past. Of course I would have never mentioned it. He is one of the nicest persons I have me till date.