Pooja Namkeen

Pooja Namkeen is right here at C-30 in Pratap Nagar. It’s a busy little area and we have been frying up snacks for the neighborhood for a while now. The smell of oil and spices is always in the air around our door. We make all the usual stuff like sev and different mixtures that people like to eat with their tea in the evening. It gets really crowded around five o'clock when everyone is finished with work. We don’t have a big fancy showroom or anything like that. It’s just a counter and the kitchen in the back where the work happens. Sometimes we run out of the popular items before the day is over, which can be a bit of a headache for the regulars. We use a lot of gram flour and spices that we get from the local market. My hands always smell like turmeric no matter how much I wash them. It is hard work standing by the hot vats all day, especially in the summer heat, but it’s what we do. We know most of the people who come in by their first names. They don't even have to tell us what they want half the time, we just grab their usual bag. It’s a simple business and we just try to keep the snacks fresh every day. There is always someone cleaning or packing bags in the back.