Guddu uncle : our local Magician

..."crazy how life is so insignificant without such small significant personalities"...

This story revolves around Aaru and Manu, the brother sister duo who lovee bhel and Gupchup soo much that multilayered plans were involved to achieve that. Dive in for the rest!!!

"Wake up! " Wake up!" It's 5:30 already, said, my sister. I shrugged the alarming voice and suddenly a push shoved me down the bed and there she was standing and laughing like its some sort of joke.

With an annoyed tone, I shouted "what the hell Aaru"? "

It's 5:30 and you promised me gupchup no" Aaru screamedin excitement.

Dizzy with the noon long sleep I said, "yes give me 5 minutes"

5:30 is not a normal time though, factually it's the safest and perfect time of all to have gupchup, It took us 1 whole year to strictly analyse this particular fact.

Every other day Aaru and I used to visit 'Guddu uncle's thela', uncle's bhel and gupchup was our favourite not because it was just outside our street; its because there's no one like him in our town who makes it like that.

 You can say that we were very blessed because of him for running his business next to our street and not the other way around.

The transitioning phase of noon to evening, where the sun soaks in the dark shade of the sky and leave behind the rays to refract on Guddu uncles crystal specs was our go-to scene, but his face seemed to be much shinier when the customers would come in for his bhel and gupchup.

Guddu uncle will smile and greet you with a nod of the head, he had this marble eye; left or right I can't seem to recall because his smile overshadowed everything, it was his go-to attire. The very first task Guddu uncle will do was to pray with liting a 'Dhoop' in honour of goddess Lakshmi, then came the peeling of steamy boiled potatoes for the preparation of gupchup filler. Every particular step and ritual will run in both of our heads in sync with uncle's motion. 

We knew it all 

After finishing up his setup he will ask " kya banau gudiya?" With a smile topped on his voice. He knew our usual, the spice range and our particular taste of ours. Yet he will ask that question politely every time.

" Paanch ka bhel aur Das ka gupchup uncle" our saliva filled mouth with a tender voice will reply in unison

Many years in the same successful business he didn't have the fancy case for spices and other materials still the old steel and wooden base of thela was his permanent stall. No irritation and No frustration his smile was his attire all way along.

He had this wavey routine of mixing up bhel's ingredients, fresh chopped tomatoes along with spices, potatoes and bhel. To add to his style the gourmet touched garnish of Dhaniya, Dahi, sour chutney and fine sev used to be such a cinematic scene. As soon as he used to extend his arms to give my plate, my lightning-fast hands used to telepath and grab them in a spec

The first and last bites were the slowest, I will enjoy each flavour and within 2 minutes it'll be finished without a trace.

He did that magic! Never hiked his price, would speak politely and freerolls were our reward for being the first customers.  He enjoyed doing what he did and his face displayed every bit of the same story. For his help he had two sons, the elder one was a watchman and the younger son will accompany him after 7 in the evening. His sons were his exact opposites, easily agitated and lack of smile. They made the items with the same taste as Guddu uncle but I and Aaru were not fans of them making our orders

That's why 5:30 was the safest and perfect time for us to attack and feast.

Our school will end at 1:30 and after having lunch at home my eyes will shut immediately. My sister had the job to wake me up from my deep sleep so that we don't miss our window. Our schedule and master plan used to be designed on our way back home, how we will manage Homework and other tasks so that Maa will not scold us at our magic time.

We left our rental home some 7-8 years ago and between all these years we would periodically visit Guddu uncle to have our favourite. As we grew up the demand for that taste and childish energy faded a bit. Weeks became months and our bhel and gupchup joint visit lowered drastically.

Aaru was still a big fan of uncle's gupchup so I will take her to our spot for that and in the meantime, uncle will make a bhel for me without even ordering it. He still greeted us with a smile and all those years apart felt the same as our day one.

Last year when the pandemic happened and everything went south, local business owners and vendors were the most affected group of people. Many discontinued and disappeared.

After things became normal for a while Aaru asked me to take her to our gupchup place, we travelled almost half of our town to reach there and found him to be absent

It was not surprising as we expected it to be that way, restrictions were still in order and a gupchup place was not supposed to be open.

3-4 months after that I would weekly go past uncle's place and there was no sign of him. After so many collective disappointments of not having my favourite, I had enough if it. I stopped and asked the next door lady about him, she was busy chatting with her neighbour and didn't bother to notice my presence until I uttered Guddu uncle's name twice. Her face went still from wide open to plain as a board, with a huge gasp she replied " that he passed away beta, some 3-4 months ago"

Suddenly the blissful taste was gone and my search was over. I never realised that a trivial personality of my past life will affect me that much. Since that day I haven't had the strong urge to eat bhel. 

I tried all the recommendations and found myself to be disappointed not because the others were not good, it's cause of the sweet memories I had with that taste.

I will never forget the magic he used to do, the way he treated every kid and his smile above all 

My selfish gut will always long for that taste but my heart knows that I'll not find it anywhere else.

His sons never reopened the thela and Guddu uncle's beautiful taste of the and gupchup is a part of past now

"Crazy how life works, you're insignificant without these significant personalities in your life"

Here's to our sweet childhood memories and Guddu uncle, our local magician!

Some important words and their meanings:-

Gudiya- small girl

Paanch and Das- 5&10

Dhoop- moldable incense stick

Thela- stall

Gupchup- golgappe/panipuri/puchka

Bhel- jhalmudi or bhelpuri