“Kya khaana hai?” The girl asked.
The boy, a customer at my Pani Puri stall, answered her before I could. “This is Pani Puri. Are you new to this place?”. She nodded, her confusion palpable. “I know this is Pani Puri; I asked how it is eaten.”
The boy apologized for misinterpreting her question.
The girl said she was from interior South India and was new to Mumbai. She had never eaten Pani Puris.
The boy gestured for me to serve him and coaxed the girl to watch him eat. Her eyes widened in awe as she watched the boy open his mouth big enough to gobble the Puri filled with mashed potatoes, cooked green moong, sweet chutney, and dipped in the tamarind spicy mixture. She couldn’t help but chuckle at his enthusiastic eating style.
“Hmmmm, heavenly,” he said as she pointed to his chin. The juicy chutney was dripping. He cleaned it with the tissue and asked me to give her a plate. I served the Pani Puri, but she was embarrassed to open her mouth wide and could take only a tiny piece. The rest broke and fell onto the plate. She refused to have more. Sensing her discomfort, the boy took it upon himself to pay for her Puri by reducing one from his quota.
The following week, the two came to have Pani Puris from the same plate, confirming my intuition that love had blossomed between the two strangers who met at my stall.
