E-Paper
Delhiwale: Because rajma chawal must go on
A lunch stall picking up the pieces of its former life in the new normal.
Impatient, hungry customers. Some wanting kadhi. Others going for rajma, or chhole, or both. One person demanding more achaar. Another one needing extra raita please. Now one more man blocks the counter, asking for a takeaway.
Amid all this humdrum, Neeraj’s hands are a constant blur, as he serves his rajma/kadhi/chhole, standing behind the counter, here at Raju Palwalwale—a small but well-known roadside landmark in Gurugram’s atmospheric Sadar Bazaar.
This is the way things were (obviously).
And now, how desperately Neeraj yearns to get back to this same madness, “when it was impossible to take a break for even a second.” At 40, he is feeling nostalgic for a life that existed until March, before the coronavirus pandemic upset the chaotic harmony of his modestly-staged establishment. “It is no longer as it used to be,” says the masked Neeraj, talking on WhatsApp video. “Many of the people who used to come regularly for lunch have stopped showing up... perhaps they are scared of eating out.”
Raju Palwalwale is a thriving legacy that Neeraj nurtures with care, and whose earnings, he hopes, will help him offer his young daughter a bright future. He inherited it from his late father, Raju, a Palwal native, who founded the eatery a decade ago after settling down in the Millennium City.
The lunch stall stayed closed during the lockdown, and finally opened a few weeks back.
It was a great relief for Neeraj and his family, he says, to reclaim the patterns of the pre-corona life even as the virus continues to affect their daily living. His mother, Pushpa Rani, gets up early in the morning at 4.30am in their Devilal Colony house and quickly cuts and chops the ingredients for the three dishes, with the help of his wife, Priya. But it’s Neeraj who actually cooks the gravies—he points this out as a significant detail.
He leaves for the shop at about half past 10. “My days are no longer as hectic.... the peak lunch time is no longer a peak.” Here, Neeraj emphasises that “yes, things are bad in the business, but not so bad that we cannot live comfortably.” He isn’t sure if he can say the same thing about the young man who used to assist him in the shop. “Deva went back to his village in Bihar during the lockdown, and I don’t think he is coming back.”
Which means that Neeraj is obliged to run the shop alone these days. “I cannot hire a new boy right now.... not as long as the business is as it is.”
Recalling the pre-pandemic time, he expresses optimism. “Those days will be back again, if not this year, then next year.... I have full faith in God and in the blessings of my father.”
Neeraj must now put down the phone. He opened the shop some minutes ago and just decked up the counter with pots, pans and plates. It’s a new, slow-moving normal but he is getting busy, to some extent. “And look,” exclaims Neeraj turning the phone screen to show the scene outside the counter—a customer is already digging into a plate full of rajma chawal. The eatery serves daily from 11am to 3pm.
