The Story of Chindi Chor

This blog is written to let you all know about the story behind the concept of “Chindi Chor".

Chindi Chor is one who eats all the low budget snacks usually present in mobile stores or small Kirana shops present in the narrow streets of an underdeveloped town. These snacks usually consist of nuts (vatani) which come in various colours like red, green & yellow. I even don't know the English names of these snacks so let me put there Desi(Indian, more specifically North Karnataka) names: Papdi, Kurbaani(Habib brand), Maharaja Badaang, Chakli etc. These usually came at a price of 1 to 2 Rupees when Chindi Chor(The main protagonist of this article) first started eating them. At present their costs have risen up to 5 Rs.

Did you all know why he fell in love with such products and ended up practically endorsing them and being their brand ambassador?

Well, let me tell you how it began and how it became his obsession and how still he continues to eat them whenever and wherever possible.

Part 1:

It was during the first year of the new millennium (2000) when CC was attending Sainik School entrance exams. His parents had sent him to Ukali coaching classes which was located in the inner streets of Gyang Boudi. Gyang Boudi was a semi slum area where small Kirana shops used to do business at a lesser scale. CC used to walk around one kilometre from the bus stop to his coaching class and on his path lay these shops. His dad used to give him 5 rupees daily for his transportation. Bus fare during those days was just one rupee from his home to his classes. Therefore CC always ended up saving 2 to 3 rupees in his pocket almost every day. On one fine day he went to his tuition as usual at right time, but the tutor (Late Mr Ukali) was busy in some work so he couldn’t start the class at right time. The classes were postponed by an hour. Pupils had a free time, a rare occasion, they came out on streets to play and have some fun. CC too came outside along with his friends, he suddenly had a temptation to eat something. He checked his pockets and found a 2 rupee coin then went to a nearest shop and asked the shopkeeper what all he could buy from the money he had. The shopkeeper seeing an innocent kid gave him few peppermints and what is probably the most favourite CC’s snack of all time RED VATANI (dried and fried green peas with salt and spicy flavours). The red vatani were wrapped in a packet of paper and given to him. This was the first time when CC ate his favourite red vatani and instantly fell in love with it. Once the taste of the red vatani was registered by his tongue, it made its mark permanent so then on whenever he used to have few coins left in his pocket he used to purchase and enjoy eating them. This was the beginning.


Part 2:

After one year (once the entrance exams were over) the Ukali coaching classes ended. No more venturing into dirt covered lanes of Gyang Boudi, no more visits to small Kirana shops. CC had cleared the entrance exam and got admission into SSBJ (Sainik School Bijapur). He was now confined to SSBJ campus, though he was a day scholar and could go out easily but in his life became hectic and he never got a chance to visit those locales again. Slowly his habit was lost; he forgot all his peculiarities and the taste of Red Vatani slowly vanished from his taste buds.

Then on one fine day his two very close associates (Pinto and Moinu) told him their well-kept secret. They revealed to him that they smoke cigarettes and did it often. They were just 9^th graders then. CC was furious after knowing this; he told them it was a bad habit but they didn’t bother. He too got tired persuading them to quit smoking and got adjusted with them. Seeing CC’s changed behaviour they used to call him to come along with them to such small shops, where the shopkeeper used to give cigarettes to these kids. Now such shops did not exist in SSBJ’s campus. SSBJ’s campus was adjacent to Gyang Boudi and was separated by a long compound wall. There was a small hole in this compound wall from where these three musketeers used to evade and get themselves some fresh air of Gyang Boudi ( though the only smell that came around was that of broken sewage system ) but these guys smelled the air of freedom. Since CC was never tempted to smoke cigarettes his friends started bringing to him vatani, papdi, baddang and many such low cost desi snacks. CC once again started enjoying them. His taste buds were reignited and the old taste was restored; he fell in love for the second time. Only one thing was amiss, he never got those red vatani, they were replaced by green ones. His quest for finding those ultimate red bullets was on. He managed with green ones for a while.


Part 3:

Well now let’s walk a bit fast on the time line and reach a stage where CC is in his engineering days. He joined the college with lot of zeal to do something great. There he met a group of friends from PDJ college (Regarded as the best PU college in Bijapur city, though faced a stiff competition from VB Darbar college ). For CC it was always SSBJ that was the best school in whole country. Keeping this aside, now CC grew fond of this new found group and soon he became a part of it. There he met people like kallu, giddya, hucchar, bhatnyar and motya. Now this guy famously known as motya was a big fat boy with curly hairs always immersed in layers of thick oil and a face that was imprinted with an everlasting smile. This guy and CC lived close to each other and coincidentally motya lived with his grandpa whose house was located in Gyang Boudi. Every time CC visited motya’ s  house he came across those small  kirana shops, Now since he was in engineering college he had sufficient pocket money, he could easily afford purchasing his favourite desi snacks now in higher quantities and more often. Motya soon started observing this trend of CC. He was truly amazed and he wondered how could such a guy having high IQ level had such shoddy likings. This fact always kept motya in amusement and soon he named his friend Saty with lot of love and probably with little respect as Chindi Chor.

Well, I have spilled the beans now; Chindi chor is none other than me.
This name (CC) is kept by one of my closest and beloved friend Vinod Muchchandi out of his pure love and amazement on my habits. He is the sole reason to make this name a super hit. I used to hate it; I still don’t like it in any particular way. But this is the way I am.

Now I am in Bangalore, the red vatanis seem to me like a distant dream. So every time I visit my home, I make sure I spend some bucks on such stuff and enjoy eating them (I earn now).

Some of the brands that I endorses for free are:

·         Habib Kurbaani

·         Maharaaj Baddaang

·         Tofo

·         Special Kolhapuri Baddaang

Most of the snacks that you get in such shops don’t even have a brand name. They come in tawdry transparent plastic wrappings or given to you in a paper pack. Recently the branding is happening in this sector too. Lot of these snacks now come in flashy silver wrappings with usually misspelt brand names. I only hope that the taste remains the same and as long as consumed in less quantities they don’t harm anyone.

With love

Saty

Below are some pics that will help you to get aligned with some aspects used in the above blog.

Kirana Stores

The Green Vatani