Raju Chaat Bhandar

If you walk down Bhaarat Nagar Road, you’ll find us at number 76 in Srinagar Colony. Raju Chaat Bhandar has been on this corner for years now. The road outside is always torn up or being fixed, so there’s a lot of dust flying around. We spend a lot of time wiping down the stainless steel counters. Making everything is mostly about the rhythm of it. You hear the spoon hitting the metal bowl over and over. We start boiling the potatoes early when the air is still a bit cool. The tamarind chutney takes a long time to get right, and we usually have a big pot of it simmering in the back. It’s not a quiet place. There are bikes honking and people shouting for their turn. We try to keep things moving as fast as we can. Our aprons get stained with turmeric pretty quickly, and they never really look white again after the first week. The benches outside are old wood and they've been rained on plenty of times. Sometimes we sit out there for five minutes when it’s slow, just to watch the cars go by. It’s a small operation, mostly just a few of us doing the same things every day. We know most of the people who live in the neighborhood. They stop by for a quick bite on their way home from work. It’s just how the days go for us here.