View behind the juice counter

CHENNAI: They might have dreamt of a lavish kitchen with massive refrigerators and blenders like in a star hotel, but all they have is a matchbox workspace behind a dingy juice counter on a crowded street. Most often than not, it is a one man show that draws little applause.For Manohar, the juice maker at the Fountain Fruit Shop, it is all about blending the fruits in the mixer and serving it into glass mugs without making too much of a mess. Though he has been doing it for eight years, the hordes of customers swarming in and out of the shop put that experience to test every day. The only aid Baskaran has is a 16-year-old boy, who serves the juice to the customers. What pushes him to work from 9 am to 9 pm in the Chennai heat? Apart from the occasional complimentary juice he makes for himself and the group of school-going children who frequent the shop and tell him how good the juice is, he says, “I am waiting for the summer to end, so that I can go back to my village near Trichy and spend one month with my family.”In the case of Das, the juice maker at Abhiramapuram Juice World, it is all about team work and coordination. The shop is one of the busiest juice shops in the city and serves close to 450 cups of juice every day. Das, who has been in this field for more than 15 years, knows no other career. The set up behind this counter might come across as an ‘ant-hill-like-setup’ – with a queue of workmen standing between the “juice master” as they call Das and one person delivering the juice at the counter. The portions of juice are so huge here that one juice fills up two tall glasses to its brim, which are later washed by the helper, who is permanently stationed near the sink washing mixers, glasses and strainers indefatigably. “I work here from 7.30 in the morning to 10.30 at night and I think I am good at what I do. Why else will so many people visit the shop? This is my incentive and I don’t see another life for me,” says Das with a smile that reflects contentment. Shareef of Coronet Cool Biz attached to the decades old Coronet hotel in Adyar, sometimes serves his juice in a manner that reminds one of the Nair kadai tea maker. This young man sheepishly agrees that he is tired of juices and wants to shift to tea-making. “Tea shops are more fun because people who stop for tea have more fun than the ones who just feel the heat piercing through and want something cold,” justifies Shareef.