“Forty-three… no….” I did the math again on my fingers. “Forty-five!”

Yes, two plates of daal, six naans and a cucumber for salad would cost forty-five rupees. Five rupees to squander! I secretly grinned as I made sure that the fifty rupee note was still in the pocket of my shalwar kameez. So what would it be today? Samosas, ice cream… no, dahi bhallay it is! My mouth watered at the prospect of a bowlful of spicy potato salad covered with yogurt and topped with that special sweet-and-sour chutney which I loved.

It had been a while since I had eaten at the Tandoor, and I felt a guilty pleasure at the prospect of not having a home-cooked lunch today. It wasn’t that Mom was a bad cook; it was just that she was the only cook. She wasn’t feeling well today; her blood pressure had shot out of control and she wasn’t cooking. I made sure not to bang the front door on my way out; even little slip-ups would make her angry on such days.

The Tandoor was in the “back side”—or that’s what my dad would call it. We lived at the farthest end of the University housing colony. Our house was separated from the rest of the world—the “back side”—by a twenty-foot wall, which was often scaled by marauding children looking to steal a mango or guava from our backyard. My parents made a point to instill enough fear in us that we would never dare cross the wall. For us, the world beyond it was a throng of potential murderers and kidnappers. What lay over that wall, I did not know for a long time. Stepping into the “back side” was a rite of passage; I was thirteen when I first crossed the wall to the other side.

It was a strange world, so familiar yet so different at the same time. The broken streets were lined on both sides with small shops stuffed with goods. As I walked through the bazaar, I could see the shopkeepers working, going through the daily activities of life with an almost addictive nonchalance. On one side the Samosa seller stood beside his large pan, frying spring rolls, samosas, over a makeshift stove. The air reeked of overcooked oil. Every now and then he would pump air into the small butane cylinder at his side to keep the fire raging. A bit farther ahead, the fruit vendor aimlessly sat on empty mango crates, ogling the women passing by while picking his teeth with a matchstick. An old man with a large box hanging around his neck tried selling spindles of cheap thread to passers-by, but no one paid attention. A sympathetic bystander handed him a penny, but he angrily gave it back—too proud to accept charity. Slick youths with oiled hair crowded the corners, spattering the ground around them with red betel juice; veiled women walked past hurriedly, seeking refuge from invasive eyes; and little barefooted children ran around in tattered clothes, too young to go to school but young enough to find a crevice in the street and play marbles. This was the back side, repugnant yet captivating.

Going to the Tandoor had now become a habit. I had actually become friendly with the owner. His real name was Irfan Khan but, for some reason, everyone called him Lala Ji. “Lala Ji! Six naans and two plates of daal!” I shouted to him over the racket of clattering pans and blaring TV. He looked up, nodded, and then went back to serving the customers with mechanical swiftness, clearly not in a mood to talk today. We usually had interesting conversations: he would ask about school; I would ask about his family. I even knew his brother-in-law’s wife’s name, the one who ran away with a neighbor’s son, a scandal he recapped frequently with added details. Occasionally we would discuss politics, and he would abuse the politician involved while I would laugh and thoroughly enjoy his colorful language.

Lala Ji had never made it through middle school, and whenever we talked I could sense the resentment in his tone. He used to call me “Bao Jee” out of an ambivalent combination of respect and sarcasm. “How are you doing, Bao Jee?!” he would ask with a leering side smile. It was a complex relationship. He liked me for who I was, but resented me for what I represented—“the privileged spoiled brat.” My Urdu was too cultured for the street Punjabi that he spoke. He would unconsciously try to converse in Urdu but soon running out of words, he would switch back to Punjabi. Every now and then he would throw in an English word, often pronounced wrongly, and then beam with satisfaction. I would let him bask in his glory while holding back my smile.

The Tandoor would become a completely different place at rush hour. As workers and laborers thronged to the Tandoor, the atmosphere would become intense, and Lala Ji more austere than ever. He would sit cross-legged over a low stool with an assortment of small and big pots of food on one side and a wooden money box on the other. His efficiency was astounding; as he filled plates with daal, bhindi masala, and other dishes, every now and then, he would wipe his hands against a filthy apron tied around his bulging belly and then use a corner of it to swipe the counter, leaving it dirtier than before. I hated his habit of using the same ladle for all the pots; it would ruin the taste of the dish. Whenever I complained, he would dismiss it by saying, “No time, Bao Jee!”

Lala Ji was at the head of an assembly line that went deep into the narrow shop. As customers shouted their orders, he would shout them back even more loudly to the workers behind.

The communication system in the Tandoor was one way, with Lala Ji barking away orders and everyone else complying. A worker would take a small sphere of dough, flatten it skillfully with a few quick motions of his rolling pin, and flip it halfway across the shop to the baker who would catch it on his glove and dispatch it into the glowing oven. As the piping hot naans came out, Lala Ji would pack them in pieces of old newspaper and serve them to the customers. It was a dictatorship that worked.

“Six naans and two daals done!” Lala Ji shouted. Clank . He handed me my five-rupee change. I was about to leave when there was a sudden roar from a group of laborers sitting inside the shop. Turning around, I heard it before I could see it—the sweetly sickening melody of “Kal ho na ho” blared from the TV, and the smiling boyish looks of Shahrukh Khan appeared. The song was all over the place. One of the greatest Bollywood hits. The laborers’ exuberance was contagious; even I couldn’t help smiling. I looked at them from the corner of my eye: hunched backs covered in patched grayish, brownish robes, huddled over plates of daal and smoking cigarettes with big smiles on their faces. I saw an elegance in their poverty that money could never buy. For a moment I wished I could join them, but an unseen wall stopped me. It was higher than the twenty-five foot wall in my backyard, and I knew I could never get to the other side. Dahi Bhallay! Spicy Dahi Bhallay!” the street vendor cried. I had lost my appetite. Some other day maybe. I pocketed the five-rupee coin and walked away.