The room is filled with a thick aromatic cloud of smoke. Our windpipes are choked, mouths have stopped munching and our nostrils are searching for a fresh whiff of air.
We aren’t dying. We are eating at Bunty’s one-room restaurant, which is filled with Indian-masala-fragrant smoke. Eating here means being prepared to face this harsh treatment, and many years of practice has grown us accustomed to it. For bachelors like us, Bunty is a God sent man, an owner of a round belly that comes erupting even outside his loose shirt and an ever-present cheerful grin over his face, showcasing his nice set of frontal teeth and making his small beady eyes grow even smaller.
His restaurant is one of its kind. A steel made shutter, which overlooks into a narrow, crowded gully, acts both as a door and a window. Just attached to the narrow gully, a set of staircase transports you to the shutter. As you move to the last stair, you can smell a whiff of exotic Indian masala and find sweat-drenched Bunty working diligently near the gas stove—either leveling paranthas or making alu fry or omellete. Some lazy people don’t climb in. They shout from the gully itself and place their order and smoke a cigarette or two till their order is ready.
**
Outside, sky is overcast with fluffy white clouds, and Sun is playing hide and seek behind them.
The paranthas look luscious with melted butter spread over. Suddenly, Sun appears and soon hides, not behind clouds this time, but behind a tall and grim human figure moving inside.
Penetrating the thick layer of smoke, Choudhary Jagdish Singh, a Jat and the owner of the building, enters the room, moves over to the refrigerator, takes out a small bottle of Thumps Up, removes the crown with a popping sound, and settling over a nearby chair gulps down half of it. Then putting the bottle down with a light thud, throwing a cursory glance from his plastic-framed glasses over the colored version of Dainik Jagran, and after a moment of inspection, he mutters complainingly, “What names, behenchod? Apartment, Hostel, Biwi No. 1 – what are these? Are these movies names or what?”
Bittu chuckles and so do we, giving encouragement to the JAT, to continue his verbal attack.
“Rajnigandha, Sholay, Anamika. These were the movies. Great actors then. Now, it’s all timepass, behenchod,” he continued.
We don’t chuckle. Feeling demotivated, he stops his monologue, orders an egg parantha, uncorks another bottle of Thumps up and digs himself in the newspaper.
Soon, with electricity back, smoke starts to find way out through the aid of a noisy exhaust fan rotating above Bunty’s head.
Sun is hidden again, behind clouds this time.
**
Bittu’s restaurant sits over a basement where an Internet Café runs, where kids from Government School after bunking their classes spend time watching porn. Sitting and eating paranthas in the restaurant, you can witness the different moods of various types of earthly creatures sashaying on the narrow, cramped gully.
In this April month, Sun is at its tyrannical best, getting insensitive with each passing year. But it is still not so powerful enough to dissuade peaceful, sleepy cows motivelessly ambling in the narrow gully; their meditative eyes reflecting disinterest toward the world and its inhabitants. A dispersed group of mangy dogs—with their salivating tongues gaping outside as if drained of all their vital energy—stealthily loiter around in some desperate search, suddenly stopping, raising their ears in rapt attention the moment they spot any thrown away food item. And often there is a fight, starting from a ‘grrr…grrr’, and resulting into “kayn kayn kayn kayn.”
Survival is for the fittest.
A small open area called Parak, which inhabits a marriage hall and a car-parking cum vegetable shopping area along with a small playground where children play cricket, football, volleyball all at the same time— there under the shadow of a Eucalyptus tree a JAT aunty is busy giving bath to her “constantly-munching-something” and white-teethed buffalo, the force of the cold water from the MCD pipe giving the silent buffalo a feel of heaven and wave her tail in extreme joy. And a little far away, under the shade of a small Neem tree, some JAT uncles resting their hips over a broken sofa and with their hunched backs are playing cards, loudly shouting “O Behenchod” at each other after every few minutes before concentrating again over their cards.
Litting his Navy Cut from a Chinese-made lighter, Dhiru breaks the ice, “Don’t you think we’ve wasted our precious youth in Katwaria Sarai?” in his south accented English. Dhiru is a long time friend who is Bengali by caste, Bihari by birth, and a keralite by education. He was one guy who immediately impressed me by his English when I first met him. With a stylish bag hung over his back, I remember he had asked something in fluent English, which I couldn’t understand in the first attempt. Being a guy from village, I had never spoken in English so I was immediately at awe.
“This is going to be our 10th year. We should settle down in some good place. Now, we are earning, man,” he said.
Saying so, he threw the small smoke balls one after another and took another deep drag. This time he let all the smoke out from a small opening of the right side of his lips. He is the only guy who plays with smoke in different ways. Being a non-smoker, I take all the fun by watching him.
My usual jolly friend certainly seemed in some serious mood. His serious demeanor of the last few hours had suggested that something serious had been cooking up in his head.
A man gets serious at a certain age—mostly either at the approaching age of marriage when he is unsuccessful at getting the right partner or after a few years of marriage after getting the wrong partner. The former case applied to him.
But I pondered over what he said. I felt he was right up to an extent. The world is so big. In fact, let’s not talk about the world. Delhi is in itself so big. What kept me in Katwaria Sarai—a place, I am sure, not even many Delhites know about? It’s very different from the rest of its surrounding areas. In fact, it’s a village in the middle of a city. Buffalo, cows, and Jat. Doesn’t that give you an idea? If not, you’ll get to know soon.
And with the fading clouds of smoke, wafting out of the room slowly and slowly, past memories unearthed: of my entry in Katwaria Sarai, friendship and acquaintances made and unrestrained fun. A world which was different from its neighboring posh localities, yet so unique in its own respect. And for the sake of telling these other worldly creatures—who often zipped outside Katwaria Sarai in their cars oblivious of many stories forming and dying in this Village in the Middle of a City— I am writing this story.
