Story Unfolding: Hugs & Mugs

The image of Shiva is still in my mind. The painted ghats of Kashi. Nothing can stop one who is lit from within, the lines postered on the walls. The essence of aesthetics and creativity, food cooked with love and served with humility. Ambience that is absorbing. A host, that is connecting.

This is how we felt. And today Devanshu unfolds the story of his venture.

In the year 2018 I went to Delhi without any motive, idea or any reference. I kept myself free for at least 3 months, wandered and explored the places in Delhi. Sometimes I visited Rohtak too.

But the time doesn’t remain constant and neither we do.

On April 7th I got a call from a consultancy for a job offer, on 8th I visited the office for the interview and got selected; and joined on 9th, the company basically dealt with merchants and I was placed in food & beverages sector.

After working for a month I realized, I was wasting my potential as the input was 100% and what I got in return was not even equivalent to its 100th fraction.

I resigned from the office on 10th of May, got the bus and returned to Varanasi.

Now was the time for me to explore my inner self.

I started visiting restaurants and hotels at Varanasi. Tasted the food, clicked the photograph of menu card and paid a hefty amount as well to understand the nuances of food, cuisines, tasts, pricing, logistics, market and anything and everything that connected me to my conceived venture.

In October 2018 I decided to open a small cafe at Varanasi and from here the real journey of life started.

I called a friend who was in desperate need of some work , shared the ideas with him & he agreed.. (by this time we were full of ideas and fundamentals but pockets were empty).

We shifted to Varanasi, rented a flat of 1-1/2 room set and from the same day we started to search for a property that fits under the budget of our project.

From property dealers to brokers, doors to doors we searched for almost two months.

Every single property of our preferred locality got knocked by us in those two months.

‘Hum to dheet thay umeed kho de aisa ho hi nahi sakta ‘ Hope gave us light and we kept on finding the suitable place to start our venture.

On 7th of December we were passing through a lane of Kabeer Nagar (IIT and PMT STUDENTS’ HUB) where we (Mukesh & I) saw a banner indicating a place vacant for coaching. We knocked the door and a skinny fellow, who was the care taker as well as the servant of that property came out and enquired about our purpose of visiting the place.

The very next morning we visited the place again, this time the owner of the property met us, we shared our plan and told our motive to rent the place and the landlady agreed. This happened in such a short span that “hame laga ke bhagwan ji ne inko hamare baare me pehle se he bata diya tha.”

On 10th of December we got the rent agreement of our cafe. The moment, do I need to write how special it was for us?

Now the challenge was money, because to set up a cafe we needed furnitures, we needed kitchen essentials, the legal documents, certificate and the food license.

Somehow we managed to collect an amount that was not sufficient but enough to jumpstart our cafe.

We started to shape our dreams working overnight. The decor, furniture, layout, design, food choices, menu cards, reaching out to customers, drafting and publishing pamphlets,  looking for staff to support and handle the kitchen, budgeting, marketing and the endless tasks, ideas and thoughts that came one after the other, as if running in a perfect chase, we tried to work on each one of them, whatever was best feasible for us. Staying at the same place for many days, we forgot the very division of a day and a night. Those dimensions of time had probably melted for us. We conceptualized, materialized and witnessed- our dream coming true.

On 14th of December we did the pooja work as we planned to inaugurate on 1st of Jan 2019.

According to Hindi rituals it is apshagun to start any new work in “Kharmaas”.

Bas Iske baad 1st Jan came and we became live! A day to be remembered and cherished all my life. My friends, social circle was my strength. That day we had gathering of around 350-400 people. We served till 2:30, time was flying. The magic of those moments still pulsates within me.

Oh! Did I mention we named the cafe Hugs and Mugs?

So, remember dreams do come true!