In the middle of Bhendi Bazaar, where trucks honked like geese and wires hung like sleeping snakes above tea stalls, there lived a man named Altaf Bhai, who had run a nimbu-mirchi stall for 31 years without once missing a Saturday.
Every Saturday before sunrise, Altaf Bhai would cut one lemon, seven green chillies, and string them together with a worn-out needle passed down from his grandfather. He would hang it over the shutter of his paan shop—before even the pigeons stirred.
Not for fashion. Not for fun. But for fear.
"Never forget it," his mother had warned once, back when the city still smelled like wet stone. "The charm doesn’t ward off bad luck. It feeds it. You hang it so it doesn't come inside."
Most people had long stopped believing. But Altaf Bhai was different. Because he had seen what happened the one time his father forgot.
---
He never told anyone the whole story. Not even his wife, Raziya, who found the entire ritual absurd. She called it medieval nonsense. That Saturday she fell ill—violently ill. She vomited cloves and marigold petals. The doctor said it was food poisoning. Altaf Bhai quietly replaced the charm the next morning and never argued again.
His son Aarif, however, wasn’t as obedient.
Fresh out of college, full of ideas, Aarif believed in data, not daayans. “Why are we still doing this, Abbu? Nimbu-mirchi? It’s 2025, not 1925. Superstition is inherited fear.”
Altaf Bhai smiled. He had learned not to explain fear to those who hadn’t earned it.
One Saturday, Aarif offered to open the shop. Altaf had a dentist appointment. “Don’t forget the charm,” he reminded.
Aarif didn’t.
He refused.
That day, the shop ran just fine. Better than usual, in fact. By noon, they sold out of paan masala and two tins of imported zarda. Aarif smirked all evening. “See? Fear sells better than belief.”
But the next morning, the first thing Altaf noticed was the nimbu on the road. Blackened. Petrified. Shriveled.
No one had hung it.
No one had dropped it.
But there it was. Just below the shutter.
---
That week, strange things began.
First, a man came to the shop and asked for a cigarette brand that didn’t exist.
"Panther 99," he said.
When Aarif said they didn't stock it, the man just smiled, dropped a silver coin on the counter, and said, "You used to. In the other version."
Next day, the water in the kettle boiled in reverse. Bubbles began at the top, then sank.
On Wednesday, the local dog who always napped in front of the shop barked at the charm that wasn’t there.
And on Thursday, their neighbour Shireen Aunty came to complain about the music Aarif had been playing at 3:03 a.m.
"What music?" he asked.
"Children’s lullabies. In Gujarati. Backwards."
They didn’t even own speakers.
---
Altaf Bhai went to the dargah, tied a thread, and whispered his worry into the tomb’s air.
But it was too late.
That Saturday, the charm rotted before it was made. The lemon, fresh in the morning, had turned black by the time it reached the chilli string.
Aarif laughed. "This is fungus, Abbu. Humidity. Don’t give it a personality."
But Altaf noticed something else.
Every day since that forgotten Saturday, the same customer had returned.
Different shirt. Different accent. But the same man.
He always asked for the same thing: Panther 99.
He always paid with the same coin: a coin that didn’t exist.
And every day, he would leave something behind.
Once, a fingernail.
Once, a strand of white hair with the root still bleeding.
Once, a whisper folded in paper.
It read: "What you starved has found another door."
---
Altaf tried to burn the lemon. It wouldn’t catch. He buried it. The soil stayed damp for days.
Then came the final sign.
Aarif opened the shop one morning and found the shutters already unlocked.
Inside, everything was perfect. Except every single packet of supari, zarda, cigarette, and betel leaf was facing backwards.
When he blinked, they turned forward again.
He ran home.
---
Altaf knew what to do.
He didn’t call a priest. He didn’t light a havan. He took Aarif to the back alley, made him pluck seven fresh green chillies and a ripe lemon. He handed him the needle.
"You broke the rule. Now you make the offering. Not to ward it off. But to feed it the right way."
Aarif didn’t understand.
But he obeyed.
The charm was hung. Before sunrise. Before the city woke.
And for the first time in weeks, the same customer didn’t come.
The coin didn’t appear.
The chillies stayed green.
And in the background, a radio played an old Kishore Kumar song that hadn’t been played in decades.
---
Altaf Bhai never explained what really happened. But when his son asked him later, hesitantly, "What was that thing that kept coming?"
He smiled through his betel-stained teeth and said, "Luck, beta. But not the good kind."
And from that day on, even Aarif made sure the nimbu-mirchi was hung.
Not to chase something away.
But to keep feeding the hunger that had once mistaken silence for an invitation.
---
THE END
