Author: Sahana Singh
Publication: Medium.com
Date: November 30, 2019
URL:   https://medium.com/@sahana.singh/tewaris-where-faith-meets-food-c65ba8b4fdfa

Our flight to Bengaluru was in the evening and we had half a day before us, so we decided to have lunch at Tewaris, an eatery in Borivali. I had tasted the samosas and paneer jalebi from the same place once, so there were great expectations. Tewaris turned out to be a swanky, squeaky-clean fast-food joint similar to Haldirams with an attractive display of sweets and snacks.

As we were placing our orders for chaat, parathas and stuff, I saw an incongruous sight. There was a person sitting near the refrigerator behind the counter in an inconspicuous corner reading what clearly looked like the Ramcharitmanas. He was oblivious to the world and reading out softly. This made no sense to me. Did he happen to visit and then decide to settle down to read out the epic poem? No one was taking notice of him.

“Who is he?” I asked.

“Mango Shake, Badam Milk, Mango Lassi,” said the man behind the counter thinking I was pointing at the refrigerator.

When I finally got my question across, the answer from the servers took my breath away. Apparently, the owner of this chain of restaurants has pressed into service some 8–10 sadhus and other volunteers who read the Ramcharitmanas in all the joints and they do it some 4–5 times in a day! When I tried to ask why and how, all the servers could tell me was “yeh aastha ki baat hai” [It is a matter of faith].

And now it becomes so clear why Hinduism refuses to die. Hindu temples have been destroyed time and again, their murtis have got trampled, their holy sites have been occupied, but the aastha (loosely translatable to faith) just grows out of the soil again and again even in the unlikeliest of places!