Season’s “timepass.”.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

If the re-surfacing of sattu ghol drink in city streets herald the arrival of Delhi’s long summer, then the re-surfacing of freshly-roasted warm peanuts herald the return of the city’s short winter.

The Monday marked Sharad Purnima, commemorating the end of monsoon, and the start of cold season. But signs of the looming winter had infiltrated weeks ago into the streets. Such as the fresh sightings of stalls hawking the tasty crisp gajak, which acts like a natural heater to the body. The garma-garam peanuts too have returned to our lanes, purported to provide warmth, and a comforting flavour, to the palate.

Late last week, the peanuts sellers were sighted underneath a pedestrian overpass in Noida’s poetically named Pari Chowk, on a Janpath lane in central Delhi, outside the Apna Bazar complex in Gurugram, and also in Purani Dilli’s Gali Shankar Wali.

During the cold season of another year, vendor Ajay Mohan in Jia Sarai had memorably explained the journey of the peanuts from the provinces to the capital. Instead of resorting to prose, the playful young man did so in the disguise of his instantly improvised ballad, which he crooned after the tunes of a song from his native Bihar. The ballad was basically about how the city vendors acquire their stock of peanuts from the wholesale grain market of Khari Baoli in the Walled City, where the warehouses apparently spill over with sacks of peanuts during the peak winter. The peanuts being driven in trucks to these warehouses from distant Gujarat and Rajasthan.

Librarian Bushra Begum, who works in a literary academy, likes to consume the “moongphaliya” during the winter afternoons—“they are such a tasty timepass.” She believes that peanuts are high in calories, and is strategizing to reduce her “calorie intake” during the breakfast and lunch, so that she can treat herself guilt-free to peanuts daily.

Most peanut street-sellers follow a similar process of preparation. The cart has a coal-fired stove called bhatti, which supports a karahi in which the peanuts are roasted in heaps of salt. The salt tends to be reused multiple times, so much so that it ends up as muddy brown as mitti. After roasting, the vendor ladles the peanuts onto a metal strainer. The salt immediately escapes through the holes, falling back into the karahi. The peanuts are scooped into small packs made of newspapers (thank you, print edition!).

One night two week ago, a young man had parked his cart beside the underground subway on Kasturba Gandhi Marg. He had just finished roasting a pile of peanuts; the cart was also stacked with popcorn and namkeen. Minutes passed, the vendor stood idle, waiting for customers. But the footpath stayed free of feet. See photo.