Aswad Zunka Bhakar Kendra

You can find us at Nariman Point, right across from the big Air India Building. Being on 6th Main, 2nd Stage, we see a lot of office workers in their formal suits every day. Aswad Zunka Bhakar Kendra is a bit different from the tall glass towers you see around this part of town. We have a very simple setup. The wooden benches are a bit worn down from years of use. We spend most of the early morning prepping the flour and chopping up sacks of onions. The smell of the cooking fire stays on our clothes even after we go home. It gets really busy around 1 PM when everyone comes out of the offices for their lunch break. People often have to stand around waiting because there isn't always enough room for everyone to sit at once. We hand out the plates as fast as we can. The wind from the sea sometimes blows through the street and makes the napkins fly away. It’s a lot of hard work in a relatively small space. We keep the water jars filled at the end of the tables. Sometimes the birds try to land on the empty plates if we don't clear them fast enough. We don't have a menu with photos or fancy descriptions. Just the usual things we make every single day. By late afternoon, the crowd thins out and we can finally sit down for a few minutes. The street lights come on and the big buildings across the road start to glow. We scrub the surfaces and prepare for tomorrow.