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.
Which of the following best expresses the central idea of the passage?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → Online fame has done a back-lane stall real good, but it has also crowded out the regulars who kept it going.
The passage weighs what the viral clip gave Ramesh against what it cost him.
- The gains come in the second paragraph. He “sells out by noon”, has bought a second kadhai and has paid off an old loan.
- The cost comes in the third paragraph. The porters who kept him going for “thirty winters” have no room to stand, and several now eat elsewhere. These are the regulars, the customers who came every day.
- The last paragraph keeps both sides. The vloggers are not villains, but Ramesh will need the porters again.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 2: Food vloggers are slowly destroying the old street-food culture of Old Delhi for the sake of more views. — Incorrect. Overstated: The writer says, “None of this makes the vloggers villains.” The passage is about one stall, not the whole food culture of Old Delhi.
Option 3: Costlier oil and free-spending visitors have pushed a small vendor into doubling the price of his food. — Incorrect. Too narrow: The price did go from twenty to forty rupees. But this is one detail in the third paragraph, not the main idea.
Option 4: Most of the people who now visit the stall care far more about filming the food than about eating it. — Incorrect. Wrong focus: The passage says “half” of the crowd holds up phones. That is one sign of the change, while the passage as a whole weighs the gains against the losses.