November 4, 2015.

Niranjan Sadashiv cleaning vegetables, grinning to self, hailed  'Good morning'. His daughter taught him, claims Sadashiv. Today, is in rhyme; Ram ratan dhan payo re; hawks vegetables with their English names. Aloo has become potato; kanta, onion; seekh raha hoon saheb (learning), he says. Bhelpuri India; a nuanced Bhelpuri India; a Bahurupi street production of dusts, drums, desires, dreams. Over months and years, between tending to customers, has unloaded me an autobiography; a Benarasi; you have seen Masaan in Hindi on screens; come with me to Benares for Ganga Mayya and Harishchandra Ghat; me strong wish, a walk down stone steps of ghats, a dip in Ganges, a puri-bhaji in whirling lanes. Patha hai saab, mera janam kaise hua? Sadashiv asks. Mother, carrying Niranjan, was resting in a charpoy in her hut; from an overhead beam hung a snake; the lady was scared; promised to name the child, Niranjan, if a boy; snake slipped away. Boy Niranjan Sadashiv came alive in Benares; some 40 years ago on a morning when a snake came and went. Swimming the Ganges, boating the Ganges, tending to farms with waters from the Ganges ... living Ganges; her flow marks on Niranjan; twice a year is with her flowing the ghats.... Niranjan has two daughters and one son ...aur abhi nahin, he states decidedly. Two daughters are in the primary of Maculate school (Lady Immaculate School); son in St. Francis Assisi opposite the Lady Immaculate Church at the far end of LIC Colony; they take the school bus; wife, an eighth class, is learning English from her daughters. Today she wished her husband, 'Good morning', reveals a shy Niranjan. When he goes home, elder daughter rushes with a glass of cold, matka water, mentions Niranjan with a tear marbling eyes. "Hamare mein ladki ko koi padatha nahin hai (they dont school girls)," he says and adds: Mere bachche college jayenge (My children will go to college). By 9 he is at the street corner till about one in the afternoon; back again at 4 till 9 and more; in the mango season, hours are more as fruits have to be delivered at homes in Yogi Nagar; is in business relations with most Gujarathi families and their business politics. Lives in Dongri-Eksar, deposits cash in Dena Bank, never taken a bank loan. In recent times, is into mobile orders ....some six years ago, there were at least four mall-type supermarkets; today they are not; shops alter bill-boards regularly in Yogi Nagar; Niranjan is.