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From a shaky plywood counter and borrowed utensils at Munshi Puliya to my first real regular.
In September 2019, I opened a very simple chai counter at Prime Plaza in Munshi Puliya. A plywood shelf for a counter, a single stove, a dented dekchi, a stack of clay kulhads, and a nervous teenager watching the steam rise into the traffic noise. On many early days, I stood behind that steel edge for hours, wiping the counter just to look busy while buses, autos, and people passed without stopping.
The struggle then was basic and brutal: slow days, almost no customers, and the quiet fear that I had misread this lane completely. The hopeful part came in small pieces: an office worker who returned for the same elaichi kulhad, a coaching student who said “chai achhi hai” before rushing to class. Those tiny moments at the tapri told me the stall and I might actually belong in Munshi Puliya.
Anil Kumar Sahu