Sunil Bhel & Farsan House

Sunil Bhel & Farsan House has been sitting here on Tradeo Rosa Road 8 in Shivaji Nagar for as long as I can remember. The shop is filled with big plastic containers and steel bins full of different kinds of snacks. In the afternoons, the smell of the spices and the fried dough usually drifts out onto the street. It gets really crowded around five o’clock when everyone is finishing work and looking for something to eat on their way home. We spend most of the day pre-packing bags or mixing the tamarind water in the back. The fans in here are old and they make a clicking sound, but they keep the air moving when it gets humid. Shivaji Nagar is always moving, and being right on Road 8 means we see a lot of people just passing through. My hands are usually stained a bit yellow from the turmeric, and no matter how much I wash them, the smell of garlic stays there. We don’t have much room for people to sit, so most customers just stand on the pavement or take their packets to go. The wooden counter is worn down in the middle from all the years of sliding bags across it. It’s a simple setup and we don’t really change much because the way we do things seems to work well enough for the people around here. We just keep the bins full and the floor swept.