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The night we crossed 1,00,000 cups, rain leaked near the stove, coins barely added up, and yet something about Munshi Puliya quietly told me not to shut the tapri.
By November 2023, after years of adjusting the flame and the recipe, we crossed 1,00,000 cups served from that same Munshi Puliya corner. It happened on an ordinary evening: coaching students leaning on the steel counter with backpacks still on, office staff in ID cards warming their hands around hot kulhads, and a soft cloud of steam hanging over the footpath as autos honked in the background.
Behind the counter, the struggle was still real. Stretching milk on tight days, working through sudden rain with water splashing near the stove, and counting coins at night to see if rent, gas, and utilities would survive another month. The hopeful note was simple but powerful: one lakh times, people had chosen this tapri, in this noisy crossing, as their five-minute break.
Anil Kumar Sahu