Street side

Wandering around Mumbai with my friend was an exhausting process and we had to be fed and watered (in a manner of speaking) at fairly regular intervals, otherwise Father had to deal with and mediate between two very crabby and teary women. To save his nerves – and mine, long term – we made an unspoken pact to see that food and drink were carefully fitted into our often-hectic and not particularly aimless days, as we tramped through markets, negotiated escalators and found our way to whatever we wanted to see and buy without too many accidents or emotional crises.

But in all the wanderings and tantrums, we also found some interesting things to eat. And I, as hostess and partner in many unnameable crimes, was determined to give my friend the entire gamut of culinary experiences, from the street to the many-starred hotel restaurant. So one afternoon, with not much to do since it had been declared a rest day and I had work to do for the newspaper I was supposed to be on vacation from, we went streetwards. It was not, to be honest, a truly down and dirty time. We had certain constraints of iffy tummies and foreigner-hygiene-myths that had to be fostered, so I chose the sanitised version of what we had already seen plenty of while walking through Kalbadevi and parts beyond. I chose to take my friend and Father to the Kailash Parbat counter at the Food Court in the mall. It was, all in all, rather like the curate’s egg: good in parts.

We started with paani-puri, the stuff of which manna is made, friends of mine who love the snack swear. I reserve judgement, though I really like the contrast of textures and flavours – the crisp puri with the softer sprout-veg filling, the brown sweet-sour, thick tamarind-based sauce and the more watery olive green spicy-mirchi paani which is where the dish gets its name from. It all came neatly arranged on a tray – a small plate of perforated and stuffed puris, a small bowl of tamarind sauce and a plastic glass of the paani. Father and friend followed my instructions and we slurped, with varying degrees of messiness and varying opinions registering on our faces and, through the liquids sloshing in our mouths, bubbles of speech.

The second round was mixed. I chose the safe option that my tummy would be soothed by. My friend opted for a bit of adventure. And Father ventured into completely unexplored territory. I had a sev dahi batata puri. Friend took on ragda pattice, with extra spice. And Father was terribly brave and picked on dal-batti-churma, as it was spelled. Mine was little ‘bowls’ of once-crisp puri, filled with sprouts and fragments of boiled potato, layered with whipped dahi and topped with spicy green chutney, sweet-sour tamarind chutney and a handful of crunchy sev. Like I said, it was safe, non-spicy and not too heavy. Friend chowed down on what Father calls my ‘college favourite’, since I had eaten a small bite of the stuff when I was in college and trying to make friends (once I stopped bothering with that part, my stomach was far happier). It was a couple of heart-shaped potato-rich patties, hiding slivers of green chilli, carrots and peas, doused in a sloppy gravy with chickpeas, or chana. On top of this was ladled very spicy green chutney and some brown tamarind chutney.

Father’s was rather more exotic. He got a couple of baked roasted-flour balls that had been soaked in ghee, a heap of white rice, two leaf-bowls of tremendously spicy dal and a spoonful of sweet crumbs – sugared and crumbled baked balls of flour redolent with ghee. You need the ghee to survive the spice, Father remarked with a certain moroseness that comes from seared insides. We headed straight to the ice cream when we were done eating. We all needed to be cooled off.