Ram dipped the marinated fish fillet in the whisked egg and put crumbs over it. There were ten more pieces to go and he had to get them ready before Bhawani Mohan got up from his afternoon nap. The kitchen walls had become dark with layers of soot and the calendar showed a date from three years ago. The food, however, was untouched by the ambience, ensuring a steady flow of customers into the eatery. They never got to see the kitchen anyway. They were served food from across the counter in steel plates or had it packed in paper bags, as they wished. Ram seldom got to taste the food he had become an expert in preparing, not that the flowing aroma never threatened to erode the barriers of self control, but the walls of resistance were made of stronger needs – the need to keep this job till he found something better and save enough money to build a small home.
Once done, he put a cover on the ready-to-make fish fries and washed his hands at the tap. The deserted look of the streets indicated it was still afternoon and there was some time left before the customers would come pouring in for tea and snacks. Ram sat down on the empty bench and turned the pages of the newspaper his employer had left lying about. Because he could barely make out the alphabets, the only thing in it that drew his interest was pictures of skimpily clad actresses