Read the passage and answer the questions given below it.
The lane behind Khari Baoli, in Old Delhi, is too narrow for a rickshaw to turn, and for thirty years that suited Ramesh Lal. He fried bedmi puris with potato curry for porters and shopkeepers who ate standing up, paid twenty rupees and went back to work. Then, last year, a food vlogger filmed him flipping a puri high off the ladle and back into the oil. The clip called his stall a hidden gem. Within a week, two million people had seen the hidden gem.
It is hard to begrudge Ramesh what followed. He now sells out by noon instead of four, has bought a second kadhai and has paid off an old loan. Back-lane stalls rarely get a second chance at anything.
Yet the crowd at his counter is not quite a crowd of eaters. Half of it holds phones at arm’s length, waiting to film the same flip from the same angle, and plates are often left half full once the shot is done. The porters who kept Ramesh going through thirty winters are now conspicuous by their absence. With no room to stand, several have moved to a stall two lanes away. His price is now forty rupees, partly because oil costs more and partly because visitors pay without a second look.
None of this makes the vloggers villains. They brought Ramesh customers he could never have found alone, and most seem truly fond of the food they film. But attention of this kind moves on to the next lane with a story. When it does, Ramesh will need the porters again, and it is not clear they will return.
The remark that “two million people had seen the hidden gem” suggests that
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → the video’s success undid the very quality it had praised in the stall
A hidden gem is a fine place that few people know about.
- The clip praised the stall for being hidden, tucked away in a narrow back lane.
- Within a week, two million people had seen it. A place that two million people have seen is no longer hidden.
- The writer repeats “the hidden gem” on purpose. The clip’s own success ended the very thing it praised.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 2: the vlogger had made the food sound far better than it really was — Incorrect. Not mentioned: The writer never questions the food. The remark is about how many people saw the stall, not about its taste.
Option 3: most of the people who watched the clip later came to eat at the stall — Incorrect. Not mentioned: The passage speaks of two million viewers and a bigger crowd. It never says that most viewers came to the stall.
Option 4: the stall had been popular across the city well before the clip appeared — Incorrect. Contradicted: Before the clip, Ramesh fed porters and shopkeepers from the lane. The words “hidden gem” and “back-lane stalls” show it was little known outside it.