Oottupura

It gets quite humid here in Ernakulam, especially along Shanmugham Road during the middle of the day. We spend most of our mornings just getting things ready before the Menaka junction crowd starts moving in. The building is right there where the road gets busy, and you can hear the buses honking from outside even when the doors are shut. It isn't a quiet place, but it's where we are. We've got these tables that have seen a lot of use over time and a floor that needs sweeping way more often than we actually get to it. People come in from the sun looking for a bit of shade and something to eat, and we just do what we can to keep things moving. There is nothing fancy about how we run things. It’s mostly just us making sure the chairs are straight and the water jugs are filled up before the lunch rush hits. You see the same faces every day, mostly office workers from around the junction or people catching a bus. The fans hum all day long to keep the air moving, though sometimes it feels like they’re just pushing the heat around. We don’t have any big speeches to give about why we are here. It’s a job and a place on a busy street. We open the doors, we set the places, and we wait for the first person to walk in. That is how it goes.