Sawariya Bhel Center

Our place is in Gulve Wasti, over in the Chinchwad area. It’s just a simple bhel center. We start getting everything ready in the late afternoon, chopping up onions and tomatoes and making sure the spicy and sweet chutneys are ready. The big plastic bags of puffed rice take up a lot of the storage space in the back. It’s mostly an evening thing here. Once the sun starts going down and the air cools a bit, people start showing up. Some take it away in plastic bags or paper cones, and others just stand around the small counter and eat. We don't have much of a seating area, maybe just a couple of plastic stools if they aren't already taken or broken. It gets a bit chaotic when five or six people are all asking for different levels of spice or extra onions at the same time. I just try to keep track and remember who asked for what. The sounds of the metal scrapers hitting the bowls go on all evening. Chinchwad is a busy place, so there’s always people walking by and cars honking. We use a lot of old newspapers for packing the parcels, and the scrap pile grows pretty fast as the night goes on. It’s not a fancy place to eat, just a local spot to get a quick snack on the way home. We close up once the containers are finally empty. Sometimes that’s early, sometimes it’s quite late at night.