15. The popcorn seller

A popcorn street seller was passing by the house. I was curious to understand how he was making it, cooking the grains in hot salt. It is very simple. The maize is put into the very hot salt heated by a fire under the iron plate.

When the popcorn starts to explode and to jump up, the pot is covered with a cloth.

When it is all cooked and stops exploding the seller uses a sieve to separate the salt and he retrieves the popcorn.

In order to thank the seller for allowing me photograph his work I bought 2 bags of popcorn that I then give to some children who were there watching him and waiting for some popcorn to jump out of the pot to pick it up and eat it.

When I went back to the house, I showed the pictures to Badjee Nasseem.
“These children are very bad!” she exclaimed, “they always break my flowers, I told them so many times and I also talked to their parents but they pay no heed”.

To cheer her up I told her “I shall write it on the internet”. And we laughed.

My small daughters, be careful to always behave well and not to do mistaken things. One never knows, maybe somebody will come and take your picture, puts it on the internet and then write that you are bad child.