Jay Ganesh Bhel & Panipuri

If you walk down Sinhagad Road in the evenings, you’ll see us getting things ready at Jay Ganesh Bhel & Panipuri. We start the prep work in the afternoon, mostly chopping a lot of onions and coriander. We also have to boil the potatoes and mash them up just right. The tamarind chutney takes time to cook down so it’s thick enough. It’s a small space, mostly just the counter and the areas where we keep the big bowls of puffed rice. We don't have fancy air conditioning, just a couple of fans that stay on all the time. People start showing up around five or six when the weather cools down a bit. It’s a lot of standing on your feet and moving fast to keep up with the orders. We use small steel plates and paper bowls. The sound of the puris cracking is constant once the rush starts. We’ve been on this road for quite some time, watching the buildings go up around us. My hands are usually stained with spices by the end of the night. We don't really have a menu card, most people just know what they want anyway. We keep a large jar of drinking water at the side for whoever needs it. It gets loud with the traffic passing by, but we’re used to it. After we close, we spend an hour scrubbing the counters to get ready for the next day's work. We usually finish up around eleven and head home for sleep.