Jay Prakash Road

The long-anticipated renovation of Khar station (west) is finally complete and it's still a shithole. The approach to the ticket office as well as the long walk to the foot-over bridge remain pocked and rutted, and after a drizzle navigable only by hanging onto neighboring fences and trees. None of this deters, of couse, the many families of plaster-pourers from turning out scores of Ganpatis or Durga Matas (season depending) amid their far-flung domestic detritus.

Khar station (east), on the other hand, is in bloom.

But, you may protest, there's no such thing. Not at the end of platform no. 4, anyway. Only if you take the pedestrian path over the tracks will you land in a zone alternately described as Naupada, Nirmal Nagar, or, as it's home to my school, Kherwadi. I'll be sure to consult Mr. and Mrs. Kher on the precise designation.

Opposite the staircase down is a Chinese fast food stand ("specializing in fish") and the first Rs. 2 cane juice stands. The kids who run it are affable but quiet. Slightly further up the road and across is the second stand, more like a table. This guy is more of a hawker: "thanda-meetha!" he cries at passers-by into your ear. His claims notwithstanding, the juice is both less cold and less sweet than the other guy's, if a touch creamier. He knocks excess foam off with his finger. Next to him a couple squat on a platform piled with printed sheets. Next to them is the pièce de résistance, also meetha but decidedly on the garam side.

Jalebi-making resembles cooking less than legerdemain. Observe: an innocent-looking bag of dough. I wave my hands and, poof, we have these circular enigmae bubbling in the cauldron below. They are every bit the color of crispy dough. Flip them – here it's less rabbits from hats than card tricks – and, presto change-o, they disappear under the fry-basket but in a separate tub, a mystery liquid. Hold that newspaper out in front of you, young man, and voilà, three perfect specimens, glowing orange like glass.

Some part of us knows this confection unmistakably to be candy.

In fact the wala ladled the jalebis onto his scale to confirm I'd be getting my 100 grams' (Rs. 5) worth. But like all good magicians he knew in advance. They were hot. They were sweet. And unlike the spiral jalebis you often see idling on counters, insectoid in their fragility, these were braided into a perfect balance of density and delicacy.

I desperately wanted him to repeat the trick but with the story from Maximum City lodged firmly in my head – you know, the one about the sweetmeat interrogation procedure – I resolved to take it slow. Perhaps next time he will let slip his secret. Or perhaps the confectioner, like a conjurer, has already disappeared into the station night.