Behind The Story: Akanksha Singh for Catapult
How her usual walk home from work turned into a story about the soul of Bombay.
Akanksha Singh is a journalist, content writer, and editor based between Mumbai, India and Lisbon, Portugal. Her pronouns are she/her/hers.
She writes about travel, culture, social justice, and her experience of being raised as a third-culture kid. Her essays and journalism have appeared in the BBC, CNN, Lonely Planet, Wired, and more.
Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @akankshamsingh and read her work online at akanksha-singh.com.
What was your initial story idea?
When I’d just moved to Mumbai, I lived above a famous (now infamous) South Bombay paanwala, who is worth millions. If you’re unfamiliar, paan is a betel nut-based mouth freshener that’s widespread in much of Asia, and a paanwala is a person — a man; Hindi is a binary gendered language — who prepares paan. Also, for context: paanwalas don’t typically earn millions.
But yeah — I remember thinking this was just one of those very Bombay stories that people had to know about. I just didn’t know how or where to go about telling it. After all, it’s a fairly niche story for a Western audience.
How did that change from your final pitch to the final story?
I’d never got around to pitching this as a standalone story about a millionaire paanwala, so not much changed really. When I came across Matt Ortile’s pitch call for Catapult’s “15 Minutes” column, which I think of as a series of profiles with everyday people, I had my aha! moment. This wasn’t just a story about the millionaire paanwala; in many ways, it was also a story about me and my experiences as a wishful writer-type in Bombay. When I’d fleshed that out a little bit, it was pretty straightforward.
Can you share your pitch?
Dear Matt,
I hope this email finds you well! I came across your recent call for pitches and have a “15 Minutes” pitch that’s been gnawing away at me for the better part of a year, that I hope you’ll consider —
I live in a tiny Bombay studio above a paan shop, and recently learned that the elderly paanwala has a really interesting story. And, in a lot of ways, being a paanwala isn’t that different from being a writer. He’s always at his shop’s counter, which opens onto the street, talking to customers and passersby, or people watching.
We’ve had a handful of interactions — some when I’d come home late from my ad agency job and have to walk past his shop (he’d shoo the men away to make space for me to pass and we’d do ‘the nod’). When I eventually quit my job to freelance, I’d head to his for Red Bull regularly. And when my father was in town, we learned that he and the paanwala come from neighboring towns in Uttar Pradesh. He said to my father, “She’s a diligent girl, your daughter. She keeps her head down and does her work.” Which is when it occurred to me, that all our interactions had been polite and quick. In truth, he’d have seen me leave for work, come and go from the airport, run to meetings, to meet friends and dates. When I was away for a fortnight and went back to him to buy a Red Bull, he asked how my time away had been. And when I went to buy paan from him, he asked how my father was (the only person in our family who enjoys the stuff).
Anyway, there’s so much to this story that goes beyond being a people watcher, or someone who takes pride in their work, or a businessman who is, in his words, “the only online paanwala.” Making paan is a craft in itself; being a paanwala is like being part-people person and part-therapist (lots of heartbroken young men seem to seek out paan on drunken nights out).
I’ve appended a link to my portfolio below. My writing has been published in Atlas Obscura, BBC Culture, CrimeReads, The Huffington Post, The Independent, and The Sydney Morning Herald among others.
I’d love to hear back if you think this is a good fit.
Best wishes,
Akanksha
How many times did you pitch this?
Just the one time! The editor I pitched at Catapult — Matt Ortile — is *fantastic* in terms of replying in a timely manner.
How much pre-reporting did you do, and what did that involve?
Not a lot. There’s that tired-but-true Nora Ephron quote (“everything is copy”) and this was one of those fortunate times where my everyday interactions with the paanwala constituted the pre-reporting. I’d pass him and his store daily, so I’d always catch a glimpse of what he was doing, whom he was talking to, etc. Apart from that, I’d had a few interactions with him when I was on a deadline, and would run down to his shop from my studio flat to buy a Red Bull.
How did you go about writing the story?
The interviewing did, believe it or not, take under half an hour (fifteen minutes, probably — if you subtract his occasional customers and asides). I’d approached him — somewhat hesitantly; this would change our “smile at each other in passing” and “exchange a few pleasantries while buying an energy drink” dynamic — and asked him if he was open to the idea. He said yes, we set a time, and I skipped down to the paan shop with my camera. The questions had been piling up in my Notes app for months (maybe a year) out of genuine curiosity. Stuff like, “I wonder if the rumours of him being a paanwala to Bollywood celebs is true,” and “But how does one earn millions as a paanwala?” came up. He did have a tendency to evade questions, and since I was still pretty new to journalism at the time (the piece came out in 2020, but the interviewing and writing happened in 2019), I perhaps didn’t press him as much as I would have today.
I think this might’ve been one of the first stories where I jotted down first impressions as and when they popped into my head (something I’ve made a habit of since). So, I don’t remember the writing itself being overly stressful, but I imagine it must have been? (It always is.) I probably just had enough of him as a character and the environment to work off of.
How did your initial draft differ from the final published version?
It’s a little bit tighter, and more grounded (both things I like). I remember walking away from the edits thinking my editor was really great, though (his prompts and comments were so insightful). And while I can’t tell you specifics (they elude me), I can say that once the final draft was locked, I’d encouraged a handful of writer friends to pitch said editor.
(You can read the story here: Muchhadji Has Achieved the Bombay Dream — I’m Still Working on It)
What did you learn throughout this project?
Gosh — in retrospect, a lot, actually. I was fortunate, in a sense, that I wrote this when I was still very new to both Bombay and India (I knew next to nothing about how bigger social dynamics like caste play out in urban areas, or what being a millionaire paanwala truly meant). It was slightly naive and I’m not sure I would’ve written the same piece knowing what I know today.
What surprised me the most, though, was how different interviewing someone you sort of know is compared to interviewing a stranger. It’s far easier to be objective in terms of your outlook when the person you’re interviewing is a complete stranger, I think. There’s this unexpected tightrope of not wanting to inadvertently offend anyone while still getting your questions across, etc.
Behind The Story is a regular series that follows the journey from pitch to publication, one story at a time.
