panaecea

This is in response to Esther’s Weekly Word Prompt.

This week’s word : Board

***

The Signal

It changed to red.

He stopped the vehicle just a few inches from the zebra crossing. Impatiently.

This traffic signal was long. He was trying so much to avoid the forced stop. Praying silently that it would be “go-ahead-green” so that he could just pass by.

Today the Company’s Board of Directors Meeting was to be held.

He was getting late.

But nothing could be done now.

He looked around.

This locality was known to him having spent his entire childhood and the most part of youth here.

To the left the road turned into a gully.

He knew that gully so well.

There was a mithai (sweet) shop in the corner right at the entrance where he and his friends savoured lassi for just a few paise per glass – a tall one made of steel shining in the sun.

In fact, there were two sweet shops next to each other owned by two brothers. But the one siding the gully did more business. The walls of the shop and the footpath on which it stood had blackened with soot, ash and lack of attention. However, the look of the shop did not matter much. What it sold did.

In front a few wooden benches would be  occupied by bulky bodies in shalwar kameez, the scrawny in lungi and dhoti, the better placed in churidar kurta or pyjama or shirt and trouser – the regular customers –  enjoying a cool drink before the start of the day or middle of work or in the evenings before going back home.

And that huge black kadhai (wok) in which simmered milk – its upper layer condensing slowly and thickening to a hard crust as the day progressed. It’s inviting freshness in the air! The wok was placed on a traditional earthen chulha (wood and coal stove) –  temperature well adjusted. At times a ladel with a long handle would be  dug in to give the milk a gentle swerve so as not to let it get burnt and the lower layers stuck at the bottom.

The curd was home made kept in an oval shaped utensil half covered. The lassi was handmade – a scoop of curd churned with ice and sugar in a stainless steel lota (pot) with a short, wooden baton, wet and slippery,  in constant touch with milk and curd and malai. After every churn the man wiped the baton with a well worn towel and whirled the liquid from the lota to the glass and back a number of times to give the lassi a frothy texture. He loved to watch the whirl and the swirl – like pure white waves cascading alternately from a high crest to a low trough and so forth  – the motion so well coordinated that not a single drop spilled out. Before serving, the mithaiwallah (sweet seller) would cut a small part of the malai (thick hard crust of milk) to top the lassi before placing the glass in the hands of the customers with a flourish.

In hot summer days the shopkeeper brandished a pankha (handheld small bamboo fan) like a wand to ward off the ubiquitous mosquitoes and flies hovering over the milk and mithais (sweets). Sometimes he covered half the milk wok too with a matching lid which opened and closed like a shutter. The sweets displayed on trays were covered with cloth covers. In winters the shop sold glasses of warm, malaidar (crusted) milk.

He suddenly realised that his mouth was watering and stomach growling. He had skipped his breakfast in a hurry to get to office on time.

On a spur of the moment he decided to step out and drink a glass of lassi with some hot, crunchy jalebis.

He manoeuvred his car slowly to the left and stopped right in front of the sweet shop.

The facade had changed. So had the owner – a young man with a dour face – the second or third generation most probably – the smiling, welcoming faces of his forefathers now replaced by furrowed brows and drooping lips.

On the outside a big neon signboard announced the presence of the “joint”. He couldn’t remember whether the one he remembered from his childhood days had a name. It was known by the quality of its products – the owner being the identifier – Bondey ki dukan (Bondey’s shop)!!

The interior now modernized was all shiny glass and aluminium. Tiled walls, artificially controlled temperature, refrigerated stuff, sweets and namkeens (tangy salty mixtures) attractively displayed in glass cases and formal, no-nonsense transactions. A digital  weighing machine sat in the middle of the counter top for the benefit of both the seller and the buyer.

The iron kadhai, in which boiled the milk in the open, was gone. Gone was the whirly- swirly cascade of  froth, the wooden bench, the informal air, the slurps forming creamy lines of moustaches on the upper lips, the tangy gossips, the loud guffaws, the exchange of coins, the jangle of the makeshift galla (where day’s earnings were stashed), the milk and curd smell mixed with hard earned sweat, the buzzing flies and the inadequate swish of the pankha.

He ordered a glass of  lassi.

The man presented him a digitised bill with hurried efficiency before getting him his order.

He couldn’t even remember the number of times he had drank lassi from the shop without paying. The shopkeeper kept an account in the name of the family. Baba paid the money and later when in college he cleared his outstandings at the end of the month.

He looked at the slip of paper in his hand now – ₹150/- per glass! He was not surprised. With the passage of time, the rising cost of production and maintaining a shop with uniformed  staff  in a prime location the inflated rate was a given.

He paid and waited. The staff went to a freezer kept on the right hand side opened it and took out a glass which resembled a miniature earthen pot but it was not. This was an era ruled by plastic and it’s variants.

And the lassi was not freshly prepared in front of the customer. It was “pre-manufactured”.

Jalebis were only available early mornings or evenings. So he did without them.

He took the first sip. The watery liquid coursed down his throat.

It was too light.

Too thin.

Too sweet.

And no malai.

He grimaced, gulped down the rest and dashed out of the shop.

The signal had turned green.