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637. marjoribanks - 9/22/2003 12:11:39 PM Now, we shop like crazy for all kinds of ingredients while we're on that strip of Newark Avenue, and a list of an average day's takings is embarrasingly long.
But the things that get me right here, in a spot that cannot be stirred by the finest of food offerings from the best multi-starred restaurants from anywhere else in the world, are the snacks and "fast foods" that have finally made it over the kala pani. It's stuff that used to make Indian Americans circa 1983 literally weepy at the thought, the outrageously diverse and delicious range that makes subcontinental finger foods by the far the best in the world (and I'm striving for objectivity here).
For now (it is late) I will focus on two areas only. Newark Avenue is great for both, and I will be happy to give directions and restaurant recommendations should anyone want them.
"Fast Food", vegetarian style.
Namkeen, savoury snacks.
Well, okay, there is a third. That is the delectable, unsurpassable, kathi roll (In Bombay, as "frankies", they have a fanatical following.)
But you can't get them in Newark Avenue. You have to make them. The one in this photo was made and consumed by me (which explains the wholly satisfied, expansive, beatific, mood) an hour ago. I photographed it to taunt my brother via e-mail (his wife has temporarily forbidden him to cook anything spicy at home) but I'll share it with you as well.
 638. marjoribanks - 9/22/2003 12:13:40 PM Ha. Chew on that overnight.
The tyke is restless, the fulsome commentary on Indian snacks will have to wait until I eat another kathi roll (won't be too far in the future) and get in the mood. 639. Macnas - 9/22/2003 4:05:36 PM Oh gor but I do love Indian food. Our local place used to do really nice stuff, but of late (the staff changes regularly) its been awful.
There's a Pakistani place opening up in a nearby town, I might give them a try.
640. Neato - 9/22/2003 5:24:39 PM Marj, that was Truly Wonderful, thanks so much, now I'm going to read it again. And my mouth is watering, no kidding. 641. ScreamingSin - 9/23/2003 3:28:10 PM marjoribanks, you devil, I loaded this page and your photos kept on coming, glorious, thanks. 642. ScreamingSin - 9/23/2003 3:28:39 PM That food looks yum! 643. marjoribanks - 9/24/2003 11:07:57 AM I don't have the time, really, to go on another Bombay nostalgia jag. Plus, I'm a bit leery of propitiating the weather gods again. Who knows what could happen.
Anyway, I learned this morning that R. K. Laxman has suffered a paralytic stroke and is laid up in hospital. It's unlikely that he'll be drawing again, and even though we've had probably 40 unbroken years of his stuff, it's quite a sad moment and one filled with a sense of loss.
Laxman is a Kannadiga, one of those extremely dignified Brahmins from the former Mysore state, discreet, conservative and modest in appearance and style, but completely liberated and progressive between the ears.
His brother, the great (late) Indian writer R. K. Narayan, was a masterful narrator of scene and place and the pace of life of the average Indian. His books, in the end, will last far longer and will have much more relevance than most of the flashy Indian writers you may have heard of.
And Laxman did something similar via the one-frame cartoon. His 'common man' never says a word but merely suffers, endures, enjoys, exults, witnesses along with the people around him. Laxman's cartoon ran every day in the Times of India, and it became an irreplaceable part of family life in India.
It's probably the first thing I looked at daily in a newspaper. And I missed it heartily when we moved to the US, so much so that I pestered my cousins to buy me whatever compilations there were so that I could leaf through them when feeling nostalgic.
When the Internet started up, there was a moment of exuberant delight among Indians when they realized that a site (then called Indiaworld) offered you Laxman's cartoon daily. It was my aha moment about the Internet, let me tell you.
But Laxman will draw no more. 644. marjoribanks - 9/24/2003 11:26:34 AM Anyway, I learned of the news about Laxman (from a story that Bal Thackeray - the nasty fascist thug and former cartoonist - visited him in hospital) and wondered if I had some of those books here.
Some searching revealed that I did not. But I did have a battered paperback with a Laxman drawing on the cover. It's an obscure volume with a banal title, and no doubt was printed in a small run, and disappeared from attention.
But, it is an extremely worthy little book, and its hilarious and typical contents should get much much more attention.
It's written by a gentleman named Gangadhar Gadgil, and is most of his English writing - all from the 50's and early 60's. Some of it was even written for an American audience, in some obscure midwestern magazine.
Gadgil is actually an extremely sophisticated writer. In Marathi. He's probably the most distinguished man of letters from the past 50 years in that language. But in English, he wrote with tongue in cheek, and everything is tinged with deep nostalgia and the tremendous and abiding love for Bombay that distinguished lifelong residents.
Anyway, I picked up the little book and flipped through it this evening while watching over my son while he played tee ball. And thus the Bombay mood I've successfully staved away since Spunky and I made it rain on this area for weeks on end made its way back. And so I came upon this article on eating bhelpuri that made me laugh out loud, and reminded me of the photo I posted here above.
And so, since everyone is asleep chez marjoribanks, I have undertaken to type in the mass of that article (I expect to be thanked for my efforts) and am ready to expose the great Bombayite Gangadhar Gadgil's writings to the whole world (starting with the gentle readers here) via the Internet.
I typed in about 1200 words of the piece. And each one gave me great joy. I hope you share it, even if only a little.
645. marjoribanks - 9/24/2003 11:29:13 AM Bhelpuri Without Minding the Tears.
The bhelpuri stall consists of a low wooden platform draped in red cloth on which are displayed in various pots, pans and jars the puris, sev, puffed rice and several other ingredients. The display not only makes the mouth water but is also aesthetically very satisfying.
The piled-up sev has the lustre of broken pieces of gold thread, and the crisp, puffed puris look like exquisite golden brown balloons of edible delight waiting to float lightly out of the jars and into the expectant mouths of discriminating Bombayites. The dahivadas that lie heavy and somnolent in jars filled with water have the shape, form and feel of primordial contentment which is experienced when teeth sink into them and they melt imperceptibly into nothingness.
The ragda – peas cooked in spicy gravy – emits a heady aroma as it simmers gently on a charcoal stove, and the throbbing peas seem to be squealing with delight. Even the boiled potatoes invite admiration for the gold of their bodies, while the red, green and amber-coloured chutneys carry in them a hint of the morbid pleasures secretly enjoyed by the Emperors of Baghdad in the heyday of their medieval glory.
There is nothing mild and subdued about the taste of bhelpuri preparations. They are hot stuff – as hot as a raging prairie fire. Therefore people who are brought up on mashed potatoes (mashing a potato seems to me to be the worst insult to which it can be subjected!) and who have eaten nothing hotter than hot dogs, should not venture to taste them without expert guidance. But once they learn to enjoy the ecstasy of setting their tongues on fire they will realize that bhelpuri preparations are not merely hot. They are also sour, pungent, peppery, salty, spicy, creamy, crisp, fluffy (and believe it or not) sweet. All these tastes annoy, tease, titillate and soothe the tongue while the fire continues to rage on. 646. marjoribanks - 9/24/2003 11:30:18 AM Eating panipuri is an art, an achievement and heavenly bliss. It takes a lot of character, courage and training to eat it. It has to be performed in the company of friends, if for no other reason than to avoid choking oneself to death by eating panipuris in too quick a succession.
The panipuri eaters have to stand in a semi-circle near the stall and strike the proper stance. This means that everybody has to plant his legs wide apart, bend forward a full sixty degrees, raise his chin, half open his mouth and hold his hand ready to snatch the proffered panipuri and shove it into his mouth.
A stranger who happens to see the panipuri-eaters in such a stance may feel puzzled, but a true Bombayite would know how necessary it is to take such a stance and would even advise the persons concerned to roll up their sleeves, tuck up their trousers, unfasten their collar-buttons and bend several degrees more to avoid any mishap.
When the customers are thus ready, the assistant serving panipuris picks up a crisp, puffed puri about the size of a ‘B’ grade egg in a San Francisco supermarket, pokes a hole in it with his thumb, stuffs it with sprouted and cooked moongs, dips it in spiced water and offers it dripping to one of the customers standing in the semi-circle. He then offers the puris in quick succession to all the customers and by the time the first one has managed to swallow his first panipuri, he gets another.
647. marjoribanks - 9/24/2003 11:31:48 AM Whatever the state of suffocation of the customer, he cannot afford to wait and waste even a second when the panipuri is offered to him. It must be shoved into the mouth before the precious spiced water oozes, drips or squirts out of it.
At the same time care has to be taken to prevent the water from squirting on the shirt front, dripping on the trousers, running down the arm into the shirt sleeve or past the chin and down the throat into the collar. Not everybody can handle the panipuri with such dexterity as to avoid these mishaps, and one sees at Chowpatty many a shirt and sari telling tales of eventful bouts of eating panipuri.
It is not easy to shove into the mouth a stuffed and dripping puri of the size of a ‘B’ grade American egg.
The flexibility of the facial muscles is sorely tried in the process and at that time the parties concerned with their contorted faces look remarkably like characters in a Hitchcock film who are in the process of being murdered.
Once the panipuri is securely wedged inside the mouth, there follows a moment of agonizing and tantalizing suspense. The jaw, which is on the verge of being dislocated, refuses to move. The muscles of the throat want to swallow but dare not, and for good reason. An invisible lid is securely fastened on the windpipe and lungs scream for fresh air. The eyes pop out. The temples are about to burst because of loud and incessant knocking from inside, and the spiced water acts on the tongue like vitriol. In other words, one goes through the thrilling experience of being about to be choked to death.
648. marjoribanks - 9/24/2003 11:32:45 AM Just when it seems all is lost the puri is pushed into the correct position by automatic muscular movement and then the jaw sets working, the throat starts swallowing, air gushes through the windpipe, the charred tongue is bathed in saliva and happy tears trickle out of the eyes.
But the ecstasy is shortlived. For one suddenly becomes aware of the protesting convulsions of shocked intestines, and at the same time one has on hand another dripping puri that brooks no delay.
Aftter partaking of panipuri, there is an instinctive urge to quench the fire in the mouth with several glasses of water. But to do this is really to miss the point. The fire must be kept burning, and in fact must be stoked judiciously by eating other bhelpuri preparations. What should be changed is the intensity of the fire. The initial blaze should be subdued by eating dahivadas or other preparations where dahi (yoghurt) is used; and then in the subdued fire must be released multicoloured flares of varied flavours of the chutneys and other ingredients of bhelpuri. Once this principle is understood, everyone can fix for himself the order in which he would like to eat the varied preparations.
649. marjoribanks - 9/24/2003 11:33:11 AM Finally, when the whole spectrum of flavours has been sampled, the bhelpuri addict drinks a glass or two of water. That, however, is not the finale but the prelude to the grand finale that soothes the tongue and lubricates and quietens the exacerbated intestines. The grand finale comes in the form of kulfi,which is, or at least ought to be, creamier than cream itself and cool as cool can be. Two fat luscious cones of this kulfi, allowed slowly to melt in the mouth in all their rich creaminess are just the things to end the orgy of eating fire. As they melt in the mouth the temples stop throbbing, the taut nerves relax, contentment seeps into the intestines and a reflective somnolence spreads over the mental faculties. One enters into a state of beatitude and comes as close to nirvana as is possible in Bombay.
In that state of beatitude, the Maharashtrians stop being surly, the Marwaris look at the millions of stars without being reminded of their own millions, the Sindhis admire the horizon without any intention of selling it, the Gujaratis speculate on the moon instead of the scrips they should have sold, the North Indians dream of things other than Hindi as the official language of the United Nations, and even the Parsi ladies stop nagging their husbands.
650. marjoribanks - 9/24/2003 11:37:30 AM Now that, friends, is the real deal. A Bombayite's Bombayite, writing with typically Bombay gusto about the essential Bombay eating experience.
As you can tell, simple "snacks" are taken damned seriously where I come from.
Now, before I get tempted to type in large chunks of Gadgil's wonderful "Men and Mangoes of Konkan", I'm going to hit the sack.
Later, escape artists. 651. wabbit - 9/24/2003 12:00:17 PM Wonderful, marj, thanks! 652. Macnas - 9/24/2003 4:06:26 PM Ta very much Marj. 653. Neato - 9/24/2003 9:47:40 PM Thanks, can't wait for the men and mangoes! 654. PelleNilsson - 9/25/2003 12:42:00 AM Thanks for taking the trouble, marj. I understand now that I could have benefited from your advice on our one and only visit to Bombay. On the other hand, you were just a teenager then, and probably more concerned with you basketball skills than with your food.
For our fellow escapees here is another little example of marj's musings on food: Feasting on the Poona Express 655. marjoribanks - 9/25/2003 3:13:37 AM You are all welcome, friends.
I went and looked at that Busybee site that I linked into this thread a while ago on the previous Bombay nostalgia binge. You remember that Busybee, Behram Contractor, was another pukka Bombayite, a lover of all that is good in the city especially its food.
And so I found a little piece he did just a short while before he died, a typically Busybee gentle protest, this one written when Pramod Navalkar (a minister in the then-new Shiv Sena government) swept up all the bhelpuriwallas and confined them to a corner of Chowpatty.
Of course the move was a good one, and the whole eating-bhel-in-Chowpatty experience is markedly improved from any number of standpoints (notably in terms of hygeine). But Busybee used the occasion to wax a bit nostalgic about his first forays to Chowpatty, something most Bombayites are prone to with very slight prodding.
So, here goes. 656. marjoribanks - 9/25/2003 3:15:02 AM Ever Since I Can Remember
Ever since I can remember, I was taken to Chowpatty for bhel. It was a once-a-month treat. We lived in Colaba and Chowpatty was like in another city.
BEST buses were not allowed on Marine Drive, it was felt they would slow down the traffic. So we would travel by taxi. The only other time we used a taxi was when we went to a wedding, when the family ladies would be wearing their jewellery taken out of the Central Bank safe deposit boxes, or when we had to catch a train to travel upcountry and were carrying luggage.
The 'C' route, later route 123, was allowed on Marine Drive much later. Then people used it for joy rides.
At Chowpatty, our routine was fixed. We first ate the bhel, then the bhel-puri (the dahi-batata-puri was not established yet), then had a kulfi. No ice-cream, Chowpatty meant kulfi, malai kulfi. Then we would play in the sand, make crows' nests, sand-castles were beyond me, and watched sadhus bury themselves in the sand. Later, just before we left for home, we had coconut water - the good old nariel pani.
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