The Love Cart — SAMOSA & BIRYANI
The hot, dry wind blew on the Indo-Gangetic plain, making the season dry, bare, and unbearable during summers. At 47 degrees Celsius, the sun’s stroke lit temperatures parching the soil of its moisture, squandering to let it loose that blustered dust everywhere. The drip of water would release into steam if a speck were to fall onto the land of Lucknow City, India.
It did not bother him.
“You scoundrel get out of my shop,” hollered a shop owner. “किसी काम का नहीं!” Infuriated, he adds to the strum of his cry and heave of swear with hurling a few other sharp innuendos of insults into the mix to annoy and belittle Ramoo, while deciding to end his employment as a helper in a snack shop with another utter of “get out!”
Ramoo, a round face zest’s setting, expressed the sunniness in his soul and youth, sparked a euphoria at 17. He heeded for the better in life. His darker eyebrows expression intrigued, eyes exuberance reflected his quest into unbridling possibilities that awaited in the canvas of life’s future. His mood was muted by the lonely and disorderly circumstances of events in which he had found himself tangled. However, he did not concede to his condition but questioned the bitterness of its flavor?
As a helper, his sharp mind learned to cook snacks and foods that could be easily prepared and sold onto the street carts that were observant in the plenty to service the crowds of the city Lucknow.
He perfected SAMOSAS, a snack made up of savory spices mixed with fried potatoes mashed together and sautéed, filled in a pocket of all-purpose flour and deep-fried, served with sweet and sour chutneys extracted from tamarind and dates.
One day it occurred to him — that he could be better off by owning and running his own shop selling samosas part-time while he looked for another opportunity to work. He applied savings setting snack cart in the lower part of the town next to a cobbler and at the market’s crossroads. Furthermore, planning his week, he decided to spend each day of the week at different locations up till the other side of the town and allowing himself rest on Sundays.
In Lucknow City — his six spots were prime areas that covered the entire town. He would spend an evening at the lower market one day next to a cobbler. The next day he would move up to the river Gomti; upon its banks near a temple he set up his cart to serve people who were to spend their evening by the banks to cool off. The following day, he would move into the main bazaar of the town. There he would sell most of his Samosas. And, a day later, get to the main doors of the city Zoo, there he tapped into the traffic of visiting children. The theater district followed to cover people who would prefer his snacks before a play at a location called Hazratganj. On the sixth day, he set himself up at the train station serving the transit passengers’ market.
The city’s main road connected his trading spots, making it easier for him to move around and rest for the Sundays.
He started. Labored…soon to realize that he needed to grow his business.
“Your samosas are the best I have had so far,” tee-heed Salma. She chomped a bite of the snack and nibbled the roasted peas and the potatoes standing by the shopping center’s cart. The hot in the spice, her eyes fogged with a twinkle, the whirling aroma of cumin and cilantro twirled her belly’s appetite, releasing her sinus’s tension, her mouth send a tempting smile.
Salma was a young girl of appealing features with a gleaming complexion, fluttered lashes, and longtail eyebrows, raking her long hair auburn behind her ears. She, a wealthy restaurateur daughter from the city, enjoyed shopping in the city bazaars during the evening hours. Her father’s fame arose franchising biryani, a flavored pilaf dish, parlors across the city.
On her way to the playhouse, she stopped to snack on samosas one evening by Ramoo’s cart.
Ramoo offered her another treat of helping with a smile, “आपको अच्छा लगा, कृपया दूसरा लें|”
Excitingly he found himself smitten from the flit and gilt of her lovely complexion, and her eyes flirt.
He shared, “I come here every Thursday and would love to see you at the next visit.”
Salma said, “I will come if you promise to taper the spice with the sweet.”
Their body language pleasingly nodded their acquaintance, and the episode repeated for a few weeks, progressing into a date.
Lucknow, a beautiful city, features monuments from the offset of the Turk-Moguls and the British Raj that turned into parks, venues where visitors rejoiced, nostalgically, and the new together progressing their acquaintance took it to date. Ramoo and Salma toured the city, prattling the gossip and learning to like and know each other.
Salma’s dad found disapproved of the attention her daughter gave to her new friend. He did not measure good to his expectations. Ramoo realized that thinking through, he decided to increase his cart’s assortments to sell Samosa and Biryani.
His income doubled. And soon, he hired people to work for him. His business grew and he opened his first franchise selling Biryani and Samosa, which instantly succeeded.
Salma’s father regarded the stroke of the inspiration of Ramoo’s mind.
His fortune turned.
He found Salma again, he said, “you are a chutney to my SAMOSA and BIRYANI,” this time as love in his life.
A food town, Lucknow, found another aspiring mind’s creativity realized into a craft where love and food rejoice together like SAMOSA and BIRYANI in the mix of the heat and dust.
