You might have seen him every time you shopped at Punjagutta, busy baking coin-sized biscuits. A hit with most shoppers, these melt-in-your-mouth cookies sell like hot cakes, especially in the evenings. And Sudhish Kumar knows just how to bake them to perfection – with the right bite and a little brown on the top without singeing the biscuit.
The 18-year-old Bareilly lad has been in the city for only a month now. “I ran away from home because I had a fight with my parents. As of now they do not know that I am here. I’ll probably go back home in a couple of months. But for now I just want to stay here and work hard,” he says with a grim resolve.
“This stall has been here for the last four years. My seth used to have someone handle it. Now I take care of the business here,” he says, adding that he begins his day around 11 a.m. each day. “I first go to the place where the dough for the biscuits is prepared. I pick up the stock and load my push cart and then come here by around 12p.m. While afternoons are a little dull on weekdays it picks up in the evening. I bake and sell biscuits here till 9p.m. But I have the most sales on Sundays and public holidays when there are more shoppers,” he says, while cautiously turning the tray of biscuits in his makeshift wood fired oven.
The high school pass out, earns just enough to make ends meet at the moment. “But I hope to go back to U.P. and complete my education,” he says hopefully.
