SUNDAY, JULY 28, 2024
Pradeep V Kamat
The thing that struck my mind over the breakfast the other day was how does the guy who brings freshly baked pao at my doorsteps, look like?
I had been eating and savouring delicacies prepared by my wife from his bread for years, and yet I hadn’t given any thought to see the face of this quintessential figure. To me, he was always a sequence of sounds (of course that too if I happened to be awake at those early hours), …..the hoarsely sounding horns, the rustling sound of my gates slowly opening, then the muffled sound of the bread laden bag rubbing the wooden door outside and finally the soft sound of his feet as he padded his way out.
Many a times it had occurred to me that I should have a glimpse of this man who provides me the facility of this home delivery (even when swiggy, zomato.. were non-existent) for decades. In fact my attempts to open the door and have a good look of this man has proved futile.
Before I could wipe away the cobwebs of sleep and shed off my overnight inertia and run for the latch to open the door; this swift footed creature had done the vanishing act .!
Paowallas all over India if not the world, belong to the same breed. Their day starts before dawn at the local bakery. After collecting hot, freshly baked, aromatic bread from the furnace, they fan out in different directions, each one having a fixed course.
If you happen to go for a morning walk, it is a common sight to see these ‘early birds’ riding precariously on their rickety bicycles with oversized baskets (of different varieties of bread, ..soft, katreache, poi, kakon…,) slowly, weaving through quite lanes, hoarsely sounding horns intermittently which signals their arrival from a distant! Their bicycles creak and groan rhythmically under the weight of overload.
Braving through merciless rains, hot punishing summer and chilly winds of winter, our humble paowallas have survived the test of time.
That night, I resolved to see my paowalla. So I woke up at predawn hours and opened the door after hearing familiar sound of his horn. He came with lightning speed, handed me bread laden bag with one hand his head turned back at some clattering noise . Yes, his parked bicycle had turned topsy turvy with weight. With agility, he ran and after some manoeuvres , he was atop his bicycle. I couldn’t visualise his face amidst thick fog. Besides he was wearing hooded winter overcoat (Anorak) which covered more than half of his face.
Back on my bed, as I wallowed lazily under the cover of warm blanket, I tried to imagine what life would be without these paowallas. The first task in the morning would be to run helter skelter to buy a bread amidst all the morning blues which would further compound the confusion.
To buy a bread at shop or a bakery when grey cells are still groggy with sleep is not an ideal solution. But it will be the house wife who would be really put to test when her school going children and the office goer husband demand an instant breakfast.
Despite all this, a paowalla is hardly taken note of…
