Dreaming in the Times of Covid 10

Just outside the school gate stood the bora walla. Loosely named. Because the seasons dictated what he had for sale. The school authorities knew that his hygiene standards were questionable. As were the sources of his supply. Or maybe they were just caving to the canteen operator who wanted his monopoly maintained. Monopoly on the forever hungry stomachs of a whole school.

The borawalla had a pile of multihued boras. Which he sold by the cone. He’d show  up with paper cones ready. Filled and capped to prevent accidental slippage. Also to hide a few rotten boras. Discerning cutomers had no time to protest. Everything had to be transacted thru a locked grille gate. Quickly. A few hundred boys clamouring at the gates like lions at feeding time in the zoo. It was a fifteen minute short break. You had to have the correct change at the ready. He took the money before parting with his boras. 

That was SOP with whatever was on his cart. Though with different products the customization changed. The guava tranactions were more intense. Selection. Slicing. Then the decision wheter you wanted salt or salt and chilli powder, or just chilli powder. His pricing for gauvas was more random. Only because of the randomness of a ripe gauvas size. The same applied to Kairis. Raw green mango whose sourness made you close your eyes and wince. But not as wince worthy as his Bimlees or Imlees. Groundnuts were standardized. A cone of ground nuts is a cone of groundnuts. Or water chestnuts split in half. Which for some unfathomable reason was always accompanied by smoking aggarbattis. If it was to keep the flies away, they did’nt.  Come the monsoon he had butta. Pre roasted for quick dispensation. But lime , chilly powder, salt? . A given  Which self respecting school boy would even think of having a butta  which hadn’t been rubbed down with all of the above. 

Did call him the butta walla, or the kairi wala or the tamrind walla ? It was always the borawalla. Whom we were warned against by home and state to have no truck with. On pain of a slow lingering death.