But where is the virtual spitoon?

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There is no sphere of life that is safe from the internet, not even in India. As proof, I bring you paan.com the website of Bombay’s most famous brick-and-mortar paanvala [via Amitava Kumar].

He’s probably the city’s most famous paanwala. It’s uncertain whether (as rumours suggest) he drives a Merc, but it’s clear for all the world to see that Prem Shankar Tiwari, the owner of Muchhad Paanwala paan shop on Warden Road, has his own website. It was built in 1998 by a devoted customer Vivek Bhargav. At paan.com, not only can you order paan online (a minimum order of 10 is required), you can also play a game that requires the participant to run from one end of the screen to the other to catch blobs of paan spit in a virtual bucket. [Link]

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p>While you can order your paan online, there’s no word about whether you can spit it online once you’re done chawing it. [Whether ironically or not, right under the name of the store, the website exhorts the user to keep Bombay “clean and green”]

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p>The website is quite amusing, and answered my burning question – why name a paan shop after facial hair?

His father Shyam Charan Tiwari established the shop thirty years ago. The shop was named Muchhad because his father Shyam Charan Tiwari had mustache so big and long that it touched his ears. And now it’s become a family tradition, all the four brothers have long mustache. [Link]

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p>Click here to play the aforementioned game. It involves the player, holding a bucket at street level and trying to catch disgusting human head sized blobs of paan spit dropping from Bombay windows. Step aside Dante, I now know what hell looks like.

Related Posts: Tai-pan tries paan, Boing Boing discovers paan, Candy Cain

8 thoughts on “But where is the virtual spitoon?”

  1. I am clearly missing the point of this post, may be it because it has been a very long day. If the point is to illustrate the far reach of the internet, it is well taken, if it is to mock this by posting it under news I am lost.

  2. You’re right it’s not news. But I refuse to call Paan food. What subject would this go under – Health and Medicine?

  3. I apologize if I came across as sarcastic, it was a genuine question. We need light hearter posts like these with the mutinous ones to keep the balance. As for where it should be posted I sense sarcasm but I will take the bait may be you guys should start a new category on all things hirsute:)

  5. Btw, this is about 5 years old. Mucchad has existed for a while now nad has been covered in the MSM much before blogs took it up some years ago.

  7. Btw, this is about 5 years old. Mucchad has existed for a while now nad has been covered in the MSM much before blogs took it up some years ago.

    You’re right – as the post states, the store is three decades old and the website is 8 years old. However, I only learned about it now and thought I would share it 🙂

  8. Only on holi you get the best bhaang at mucchad. They put this huge ‘goli’ inside one of their huge supersweet paans. I dont think Iv ever been that high before….