There�s no mistaking Mirchi Galli. It�s the place where all of Bombay�s food lovers and restaurant owners make a beeline to, for their regular purchases of whole spices, herbs and dry fruit.

You can now get the largest variety here, with prunes from California, aromatic cinnamon bark from Sri Lanka, cloves from Zanzibar and the best quality of Mambro almonds from Iran that sell at Rs. 1,600 a kilo! Besides you get a whole load of spices from South India, excellent dryfruit sweets including a sugar-free variety too!

If you have no detailed street address to the place, follow your sense of smell once you reach the road leading to Jama Masjid in Zaveri Bazaar near Crawford Market, the spice bazaar is located in a tiny lane around here. All you have to do is ask as you go along.

In this little lane, it is as if time once stopped to take a breather and did not move on since, so quaint are the shops that stand choc-a-bloc selling their wares. Somewhere, the workers are trying to lug thirty-six kilo sacks filled with red chillies from Warangal in Andhra Pradesh and elsewhere a group of ladies are haggling over the price of a pouch of treasured saffron, all the while nibbling from an open sack of dainty baby almonds.

Ratansi Korji and Co. is the first shop that greets you right at the entrance to the lane. It is the oldest shop here, well-known for its fresh snacks, among other items. �Try the potato chura,� invites Mr. Rameshchandra M. Popat, one of four brothers, who are the fourth-generation owners of this shop. To revert to the food, the chura is certainly different, crunchy and light and mixed with kaju and almonds. Ratansi Korji is also known for its special tea masala sold at Rs. 45 per 100 gms and kesar milk masala at Rs. 190 for 100 gms.

The piquancy of raw red chilli powder wafts as you head in the direction of its source. It is part of the wares of Vadilal Champaklal and Company, family-owned enterprise, now in its fourth generation. But then, that is not a novelty here, most of the shops are more than 40 to 50 years old, marking a foot-note in the bazaar. Here at Champaklal, young Rakesh Shah beckons towards what he calls, �his secrets�. They are spices. Quite a few of them, in fact, a whole 150 varieties, announces Rakesh proudly. Apart from all the common spices, they have �Hirabol�, a pungent smelling golden spice that is specially imported from South Africa. This is specially sought after by expectant mothers. �It is so strong, you can�t eat it just like that or it will erode the enamel of your teeth,� informs Rakesh. Vadilal Champaklal was also the first to introduce a small yellow variety of lassan or garlic from Jammu and Kashmir. Try the garam masala here, it�s not your usual bazaar type masala, rather it�s a delectable melange of powders that are prepared in-house, as has been the custom at Vadilal Champaklal for the past eighty years.

It was Rakesh�s great grand-father Nandlal Shah who bought the shop in 1930 and handed its reins down to his father Champaklal Shah. �I remember when I came here as a child,� recalls Rakesh, �at that time we only had one small shop and the figs, pistachios, almonds and other dryfruits were just displayed in smaller jars, not the huge ones that we have today. Even the spices were simply arranged on steel plates at the counter of the shop�, he adds. Now, several years and two generations later, the business has morphed into a second shop, adjoining the first and the dryfruit and spices are still there, only in greater variety and more opulently displayed. You can now get the largest variety here, with prunes from California, aromatic cinnamon bark from Sri Lanka, cloves from Zanzibar and the best quality of Mambro almonds from Iran that sell at Rs. 1,600 a kilo!

But more than the exotic spices, the owner is proud of the customer loyalty that he has gained over the years, several of them foreigners, particularly those from the Gulf.

Further on, is Ramanlal Vithalal, another stalwart of the Mirchi Galli, who is more of a dryfruit merchant, than anything else. While he does have a whole load of spices from South India, there are excellent dryfruit sweets here, even a sugar-free variety! One in a series of 11 stores across Bombay, it is run by Prashant Sanghvi, his brother Pranav and his cousin Jasmin. Armed with an MBA degree, Prashant chose his avenue of study, all the while knowing very well that he will some day join the family trade. Today, business is brisk here and among their clientele, they haveJet Airways, to who they supply their famous tangy tamarind sweets.

Mirchi Galli is packed with people at all times of the day, but rush hour here is at noon. That is when you will see housewives from all over the city, come here to replenish their stocks of masalas and dry fruit.

The monsoons is probably the time business runs slack here. �That is because as per the trend, Gujarati women, who form the majority of the shoppers here, normally buy their spice and stock them up only in the summer months,� divluges Prashant, as he carelessly waves an affirmatory nod to his workmen to start loading sacks of pine nuts into the shop�s upper reaches. Like Prashant, most of the shop owners here have a certain self-assuredness on their faces, it�s as though they know that business will happen no matter what.