Shack

Early evening is not a very good time to visit Panditji's tea stall...not if you don't like being surrounded by a swarm of overwrought bankers, choking on their samosas and deadlines... in afternoons, when the bankers are safely chasing targets in their airconditioned cubicles, a cloud of melancholy hovers about the shack... a drain trickles by (carrying with it its drainy smell)... mongrels curl up at the foot of the rickety bench... Panditji scrapes the aluminum mug clean, pours some water in it, sprinkles some tea dust and places it on the embers of his chulha...