Lickings

Md. Ali Rd.: The Return

2010-08-16T05:42:00.000-07:00

Found all the old haunts on and around Mohammed Ali Road. Read all about it here.

Babasaheb Ambedkar Rd, Dadar

2009-03-06T07:56:00.001-08:00

As the fever broke, I arose as if from a dream. I had a yen for something hot and crunchy and as I pondered how to exorcise it I took the right out of St Paul's and ran smack into a dabeli stand.

The froth of wish fulfillment melted quickly beneath the mercury lamps. I was transported quickly from fantasy through a string of genres: melodrama, farce, tragedy, to horror and, finally, coming-of-age.

Distressingly, there was no butter in sight. Something oily in the center of the tavaa would have to do. I was game. "Ek banaa do," I prodded the wallah. He heard nothing, for he was locked in that most volatile of standoffs: the large-change transaction.

A previous customer was attempting to pay for his eight-rupee dabeli with a hundred. Not bloody likely! For what seemed like minutes, he stood poised with the note in hand, his opponent steely-faced, until finally the latter began counting out tens for what seemed like even longer.

"Ek banaa do," I repeated. He picked it up, dropped it on a square of newspaper, and shoved it at me. I scrutinized it. One side, predictably was cold. "Thanda ho gaya," I remarked.

"Pehle kyon nahin bataa diya?" asked the guy next to him. (I hadn't realized it was a tag team.) It threw me for a loop; I should have told him earlier it was cold? Or that I hadn't wanted it cold? I gave him a quizzical look.

"Kanda hai is mein; nahin chahiye to batao," he explained. A-ha. Kanda: onions, in Bombay, anyway. I set him straight.

"Kahaan se ata hai?" he inquired, and I replied: Bandra. "Tumara Hindi bahut weak hai." I smiled, and got a wink in return. That's the first time anybody's told me that: they always tell me how well I speak. I've hit a milestone.

The traveller halts

2008-12-19T00:26:00.000-08:00

Unflattering qualities in good writers: wan condescension and an unwillingness to meet halfway.

Amusing though Matt Yglesias' modest proposal may be, I'm afraid the demand for a corps of globetrotting grammarians to scour the developing world for bad English is, roughly, nil. Sure, there are a million "oddities" out there to elicit our derision or James Fallows' "sympathy." But they're here to stay, and not only that; they're not wrong!

The sign in question isn't hanging there to satisfy our American sense of proprietorship over every corner of the globe. Its purpose is to communicate basic directions, to us and to every other non-Chinese-speaker. Okay, so "The Traveller Halts" isn't beautiful, like most literal translations. So long as it's intelligible, though, it's correct. And, as per Matt's point, each of us knew exactly what it was supposed to say. You could call the phrase a gaffe in the Kinsleyan sense: it said exactly what it meant.

Global English isn't pretty, or even immediately intelligible to a native speaker. It has no discernible rules and frequently misappropriates vocabulary. But it works in a purely transactional fashion. If it offends your aesthetic or grammatical sensibilities, well, get used to it. Or laugh at it! (Maybe this example would have been more clear cut.) But wipe that sneer off your face, or it'll freeze that way.

English as she is spoke has been mangled for centuries; such is the price of ubiquity. What's new is these pidgins propagating in reverse, in accordance with the logic of the new marketplace. If English owes its prevalence to British and American economic and military hegemony, so, too, as China and India emerge as the largest markets, their Englishes, however painful or amusing to our ears, will have the competitive advantage. What Fallows calls a "standard" English translation like "No Entry" will not be standard for much longer. Or was it ever standard at all? I'll be paying attention next time I pass through Amsterdam, Frankfurt, or Dubai.

On the street here in Bombay you'll encounter three languages. Transactions occur not in the vernacular but in the imported tongues, Hindi or English, or most frequently in a mixture of the two. This patchwork is, to all listeners, confusing. Rare is the case in which two parties theretofore unknown to one another emerge from a conversation certain that they were understood. The presumption is the reverse, and that the effort of listening entails a great deal of interpretation.

At the airport, where the split second it takes us to reinterpret a sign could mean a missed flight—or, for a pilot, a missed runway—we naturally apply a more stringent threshold for intelligibility than we would to a conversation, a TV advertisement, or an instruction manual. But who gets to determine that reasonable standard? I've got an idea: whether you spent any time literally scratching your head. That's a bar low enough for this sign to limp over.

90-Feet Road

2008-05-11T04:36:00.001-07:00

The options were to stick around for another two hours of Pangea Day and then another hour or so until the trains started running, or to leave before the taxis dried up. I left. The Kaospilots were already stretched out on the chittai, and who could blame them. I prefer my Christiane Amanpour in small doses, with regular breaks for mortar rounds.

Girish, a Reality Tours & Travels guide, was kind enough to show me the way to a taxi. Of course one pulled up almost as soon as we stepped out of the community center—yes, at 1:15, in Dharavi. But even before it could, we stumbled over a kulfiwala—yes, at 1:15, in Dharavi. I flinched, uncharacteristically, upon seeing the color of the slush in which the tin capsules had been chilling. Now, I realize it probably had something to do with rock salt; then, without the benefit of chemical analysis, I said, "ah, fuck it."

With a surgeon's hand he popped the top, slid in the stick, and wedged out the resulting popsicle with a spoon. The creaminess surprised me. Nothing like the cassata slices you get from freezer cases, this kulfi was completely smooth, like the gelato I'd earlier that evening taken my students to try. Completely, that was, until I got to the bottom, where I met a question mark of a sour, icy plug. Some sort of thermochemical reaction squeezing the whey parts out to the frosty exterior? Requires more experimentation: swayam shikshan prayog.

The monologue in the cab ride was infinitely more entertaining (and, I daresay, promoting of cross-cultural understanding) than Pangea's spokesmodels-across-continents, international Idol shtick. Of course, I'd missed the ending.

Princess Street

2008-05-09T00:12:00.001-07:00

The day-long stumble from Crawford Market to Zhaveri Bazaar spat us onto the Marine Lines downslope. B. and I were both thirsty, and my first thought was: a beer with Rashid Irani. Little did I realize I had missed the end of an era.

I'd been introduced to the Braebourne by Santosh, an aspiring filmmaker who saw Rashid as his muse and Princess Street as his museum. The way the narrow slice of morning light casts onto the stacked wooden balconies. The sheer density of aspiration crammed into the weekly rented rooms by emigrants from Bihar, Arunachal, or, as in his case, Orissa.

Did I notice, he asked, that the mirrors were positioned so that the man behind the cashbox could see every table? Did I see the various injunctions posted on the wall, always in incongruous pairs (No spitting/Treat your wife nicely)?

Such was the basic grammar of the Irani hotel, to which the food (kheema pav, khari biscuit) was just a reassuring adornment. In this case, beer was sold from a pavement-fronting counter over which presided a slightly crumpled man with three teeth and an encyclopedic knowledge of world cinema.

"Rashid's gone for dry cleaning," said the owner. The place, all old wood and San Miguel murals, is being transformed into a bakery. Good luck to them.

We slid into Pathakwadi where another winking proprietor beckoned. Taj Wines, "the little location with the big reputation," according to its Goan neighbor. Fully stocked with eagle decals and Zarathurstra portraits, the shelves ran the gamut from desi daru to your finer domestic scotches. Those Parsis are a tenacious bunch — don't count them out just yet.

Thanks and kudos to parsikhabar.net for outranking DNA on Google.

Bhaja

2008-04-28T21:41:00.000-07:00

Three unextraordinary drinks. After the trek down from Visapur, these may well have saved my life:

Nimbu pani, premade, in a dampened towel–wrapped steel decanter. No squeezing, no salting, just a sweet-sour-salty shot of dancing electrolytes. Okay, make it two. One for me and one for N. to pass off to me.

Kokam sharbat, the product of a whole family's five minutes' mixing and spicing. At first I mistook the jeera, hand-ground, for gnats. I would've drunk it anyway. This tin oven of a dhaba has perhaps not seen so much business in years.

Limca. More than a drink, it's a fully negotiable unit of utility. As in, how many Limcas is x worth? The answer is usually unflattering to the x.

Bonus Limca anecdote

The Greyhound stopped over in Atlanta for one hour. I made a beeline for the Coke Museum, spiraled my way up to the top floor, and beheld the dazzling array of spigots. When I spotted the green one with the limey orb, I understood what an addict must feel for his substance. My pulse slackened, my breathing became regular, and I had the sense of being at home. It had been years. I drank until my stomach ached. I drank some more.

With 15 minutes to get back to the station I finally pried myself away myself away from the nozzle. Bail bonds, bail bonds, bail bonds. And there was my bus, my luggage still on it, backing out of its gate. I broke into a sprint, dragging my guts with me, sloshing into the curve of the off-ramp. There we stood, face to face, Tienamen-style. I waved to the driver, and then doubled over, head between knees for the few precarious seconds before the door opened with a pneumatic woosh. I passed most of the ride to Montgomery with my legs crossed.

Bandra Station (E)

2008-04-28T21:37:00.000-07:00

Meerut Haleem and Biryani. Not a review — it's a mental note. I might have been able to stand, with effort. I could even have shoved my way through the river of flesh on whose far bank perched three hulking bhartans of slowly liquefying mutton. (Red meat improves x-ray vision, studies show.) But asking the sigdiwala to cancel my order once he'd already thrown on the skewers just wasn't in the cards.

Boti, then. At three for Rs 20, there was no point in asking too many questions. I did not learn what kept them that scandalous shade of red. I did know one thing: for the aches and sweat stains of a full day of outdoor errands I had found a cure, and it was meat. Let's hope this ajnabee is here to stay.

Where? Past the platforms, on the far side of the foot-over bridge, where a solitary track threads its way up to Bandra Terminus. The iron picket along one side and the low wall on the other both have their occasional chinks, but the great mass of travelers flows through this one crossing. Somehow, they manage to close the gate once an evening when a solitary engine sulks its way out of the shed. At those times human traffic flows through foot-wide apertures on either side. Literally, through the wringer.

A Hyderabadi once told me that eating animal parts are good for our respective (counter)parts: gurda helps the kidneys function; paya strengthens the bones, etc. To have been spat out of this flattening machine to the smell of charcoal and the sight of these juicy chunks of mutton leg, I believed him.

Jay Prakash Road

2007-07-16T14:14:00.001-07:00

28 x 2 days later... and the place barely resembles its former self. Okay, I exaggerate; but the absences are glaring. My juicewallah — the one who tosses a hunk of ginger into his carrot pulper — and the kala khatta man have both moved on. To greener pastures, one wishes. In their plots stand two young and hungry new arrivals.

The first misguided lad has set himself up as a competitor to the jalebi man, whose skill and reknown are unsurpassed and have already been herein described. He's shrewdly taking advantage of the Indian fear of innovation, setting himself up as a classical (yellow and brittle) alternative to my man's heartier, braided fare. So far no crowds.

Next stupid move was mine. Surprised and entranced by the incongruity of a dabeli stand, I immediately ponied up. Almost as soon, I noticed the conspicuous lack of butter. Butter is the essence of the dabeli. My favorite stands don't even have a "dabeli" sign up: they just prop up the Amul box in their little window and call it a day.

Sure, peanuts, and great, pomegranate, and fine, tangy, fiery bhaji. A dry dabeli may as well be no dabeli at all. Just as well for me since it was only to tide me over until the Marriott. Of that which we cannot speak we must pass over in silence.

Jay Prakash Road

2006-09-12T19:12:00.000-07:00

The long-anticipated renovation of Khar station (west) is finally complete and it's still a shithole. The approach to the ticket office as well as the long walk to the foot-over bridge remain pocked and rutted, and after a drizzle navigable only by hanging onto neighboring fences and trees. None of this deters, of couse, the many families of plaster-pourers from turning out scores of Ganpatis or Durga Matas (season depending) amid their far-flung domestic detritus.

Khar station (east), on the other hand, is in bloom.

But, you may protest, there's no such thing. Not at the end of platform no. 4, anyway. Only if you take the pedestrian path over the tracks will you land in a zone alternately described as Naupada, Nirmal Nagar, or, as it's home to my school, Kherwadi. I'll be sure to consult Mr. and Mrs. Kher on the precise designation.

Opposite the staircase down is a Chinese fast food stand ("specializing in fish") and the first Rs. 2 cane juice stands. The kids who run it are affable but quiet. Slightly further up the road and across is the second stand, more like a table. This guy is more of a hawker: "thanda-meetha!" he cries at passers-by into your ear. His claims notwithstanding, the juice is both less cold and less sweet than the other guy's, if a touch creamier. He knocks excess foam off with his finger. Next to him a couple squat on a platform piled with printed sheets. Next to them is the pièce de résistance, also meetha but decidedly on the garam side.

Jalebi-making resembles cooking less than legerdemain. Observe: an innocent-looking bag of dough. I wave my hands and, poof, we have these circular enigmae bubbling in the cauldron below. They are every bit the color of crispy dough. Flip them – here it's less rabbits from hats than card tricks – and, presto change-o, they disappear under the fry-basket but in a separate tub, a mystery liquid. Hold that newspaper out in front of you, young man, and voilà, three perfect specimens, glowing orange like glass.

Some part of us knows this confection unmistakably to be candy.

In fact the wala ladled the jalebis onto his scale to confirm I'd be getting my 100 grams' (Rs. 5) worth. But like all good magicians he knew in advance. They were hot. They were sweet. And unlike the spiral jalebis you often see idling on counters, insectoid in their fragility, these were braided into a perfect balance of density and delicacy.

I desperately wanted him to repeat the trick but with the story from Maximum City lodged firmly in my head – you know, the one about the sweetmeat interrogation procedure – I resolved to take it slow. Perhaps next time he will let slip his secret. Or perhaps the confectioner, like a conjurer, has already disappeared into the station night.

Tulsi Pipe Road

2006-09-09T14:29:00.000-07:00

Under the over, as it were. Those fortunate enough to be endowed with four wheels are cruising past Phoenix High Street and a seemingly endless succession of Times Now advertisements. The media franchises have all pissed on their respective trees close to where they stash their employees. The building names are all laughably recherché: Marathon Innova, Peninsula, and the Times' own Brady Glady's Plaza.

One flight down, the Chinese fast food stall has no name at all, just a couple of numbers and a "CONTACT: MILIND" advisory. "Sri Ganesh Prasanna," inside double shloka-sticks, tops the menu – but mistaking that for a name would be like calling a store "Pull" because it's written on the door. Though there's a Sanmica bench and table set up on the raised pavement, and something like a diner counter projecting from the wall, I follow standard procedure, pull up a plastic stool, and start eyeing the ingredients.

The ad agencies and lad mags have spawned a sort of printing ghetto down here in the former Sun Industrial Estate. That's what dragged me down here, as well as the peons (when will this word go the way of "coolies"?) swarming street level with finished color photocopy jobs. Perhaps in the rosy flush of 1000-rupee notes, the free time, the glorious reemergent sun they feel they can blow 13 bucks on a half-order of hakka noodles or 16 on (the oxymoronic) Schezwan hakka noodles.

A lot of carrot and cabbage, not a lot of scallion, and a splotch of hot sauce. The chicken cubes had been deep-fried earlier and tossed on top like croutons. It was hot, and a plateful was more than I could eat – I ate it anyway – and I walked back to Lower Parel station so giddy that I almost got on the wrong platform. Hmm... K. Rustom's, anybody?

Jumboree Maidan (call it 42)

2006-08-26T15:49:00.000-07:00

Uma asked whether I'd ever made it to the end of my marathon, and I said, no, but it wasn't entirely a loss – a man's got to know his limitations. So I got to thinking, now that I've caught my breath, why not pick up where I left off?

Kidding. The mere thought of batata wada makes me blanch. But one whiff off of the kadai never fails to reel me back in. And since I was making a trip to Muktangan anyway, I thought, why not tug on a loose thread and see what happens?

BDD Chawl overlooks the road running from Worli Naka into the heart of Girangaon – a non-neighborhood, a ghost of Bombay past. Gandhi Maidan is a dusty, eerily empty patch keeping the two wings of the chawl separated, as though to prevent a fight. How the moniker stuck is hard to imagine. But 'jumboree' doesn't begin to describe the bhajiwala free-for-all running riot on the pavements between buildings. The late-afternoon squeeze of China bazaars unfurled from tarpaulins and pushcarts stacked higher than seems advisable guarantee, uh, informal relations with the neighbors.

Same dopahar, different demographic: the food stalls are thronged with schoolkids, assembled in teams of tartans. Follow the uniforms and you will reach your vada pav. And there it was, a stainless-steel operation wedged into a general store. Practically indoors! But by far the biggest surprise was that it appeared to be a matriarchal organization. Women fried, women assembled, slightly older women took cash. I may not have done the 42, but I've seen enough to know it is the rare food-stand setup indeed that puts women at the helm. You'll see them hawking on their own, but with all this equipment? Must be something special.

Oversold, I'm sorry to say. Merchandise – fresh, even – was puny and the pav thin. Even the flavor eluded the palate. To top it off, or rather to fail to, the pudina chutney was out. A puddle of it, beyond the reach of spoons, taunted me from the bottom of a bowl set into a spotlessly clean steel counter.

L.C. Road, Dadar

2006-07-11T21:21:00.000-07:00

Amid the chaos, and of it, an entirely different and pleasantly unexpected kind of street food.

The #56 bus edged forward at a meter per hour. The window was stuck half-shut, and the passenger next to me, when I queried him for information, just slumped to his side. Ours wasn't a crowded bus — only a few standees. The Borivili-bound expresses had people hanging off the doors.

A girl, thirteen or maybe fourteen, in jeans and t-shirt, rushes on with an enormous cellophaned brick. "Biscuit!" she screams, "Biscuit biscuit!" Having just completed 40 or so hours of train travel, I was used to the sound. I was impressed to see entrepreneurialism sprouting at such a young age. But there was no system to her distribution; she gave three or four to everybody and moved ahead. And as quickly she was off, without collecting. Remarkable.

Half an hour and 30 meters later we pulled into the circle alongside Plaza Theatre, hung ornately with its own terra-cotta hordes, and then the onslaught began.

"Pani!"

"Chayyya!"

"Paaanaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!"

The median was swarmed with them. They dodged honking cars and skirted cycles. They tapped alongside the passing buses. They advanced from the paan shops with yellow packets streaming behind and tore off Rs. 1 worth of Parle-G for every man, woman, and child.

It continued for kilometers and kilometers. Through Shivaji Park, teams of schoolkids with platters of farsan, heavy aunties with coffee. Through Mahim, where alms are after all a daily affair. The crowds had shed completely only by the Causeway, where the Mithi air flooded in freely.

I've never before witnessed such an overwhelming outpouring of generosity. I still comprehend very little of the scope of the disaster, but I've learned so much about my city.

Haji Ali Dargah

2006-04-02T12:12:00.000-07:00

This vada was peppered with — it took me a moment — dill, an ingredient I haven't seen used this way since samosas down South. The guy was preoccupied with a kid splashing in his bucket, but I'll have to go back and ask.

Then it was splashed with a chutney I can only describe as salsa. It was fresh, it was made of crushed tomatoes, and it had a gentle bite. This brought back a flash of döner in Istanbul, though it's also served, at least in memory, alongside the kebabs outside Bandra station — you know, in front of the Lijjat Papad office.

Mathuradas Vasanji Road

2006-03-26T17:45:00.000-08:00

After the cricket match at Snehasadan and before dinner I decided to take myself for a walk. (Should have taken Rowlf's advice about what to do next.) And the action's all by the station, so.

It's not a reckless generalization to dismiss Andheri East as so much industrial wasteland. Saki Naka, Marol, SEEPZ, ick. But it is undergoing a certain lumpen gentrification. Cinemax Chakala is a perfect example: a multiplex for the downtrodden. The Brijwasi sweets on the road from the station is another such.

Chaat off the street is one thing. Chaat by a little garden by a shady arcade is getting tray play-zant, as my parents might joke. A few exchanges of coins and tokens later, I was in possession of both a vada pav and a sev puri sprinkled with raw mango.

I sat down on a plastic stool and rubbed elbows with some sort of political clique, a group of acolytes attending on a round, sunglassed, white-Safari-suited man they addressed as Babuji. He reminded me of candidates I'd seen painted on walls in the South, not of anyone who'd show his face on a poster around here. There were several levels of hierarchy involved, but it amounted to one very busy boy fetching the puris.

Tardeo Road (20)

2006-03-01T15:17:00.000-08:00

At Swati Snacks the most valuable commodity is space, as in stomach. It was thus not the price tag (Rs. 17.50) of the vada pav that revolted my eating companions, though a stand-in could be cast from the street outside for Rs. 4. Nor was it the ordinariness of the order picked from amongst so many fascinating eccentrics. An unextraordinary sev puri occasioned no guffaws. Least of all the vada pav itself, which was strictly to code. No, none of these so much as the shape: round. Hence filling. As Vinita madam would say, "Some [snacks] are just born that way — they can't help it!"

But no mere vada pav (or two, once the entire order acceded to me) would stand between me and a proper sampling of Swati's specimens. Little did my fellow tablers (does tavaliers get a pun across?) know they were sitting beside New York City's reigning Taco-Off champion. When the two sandwiches, neatly sliced into halves, were placed before me, I cleared them and moved on.

The "taco special" on the pure-veg menu stood no chance of tantalizing that former self out of hiding. But any number of other items did. The dal dhokli was not the cracked wheat bread covered in lentils I'd anticipated, but rather the opposite: a tangy lentil soup in which wide strips of bread lapped lazily like chow fun. My initial discomposure rapidly dissolved into delight, only to manifest several hours later by putting me off of the perfectly tasty Camy dhokla offered at class. As Vinita madam said, "Sometimes we have reactions, ki, we can explain only upon reflection."

The vada pav's sole (and tongue) USP wasn't in it, or next to it, but came alongside the bajri (millet) pancake. It was a thick, not overly sour, tamarind paste, the likes of which I've seen in NYC packaged as Thai but hadn't yet encountered in this hemisphere. That and the coriander chutney make a pretty wicked secret sauce. But that's about all Swati's given it to recommend itself.

opp. Thane GPO (19)

2006-02-25T19:02:00.000-08:00

Khandelwa's has perhaps the definitive collection of local munchies. "Snacks of the soil," if you will. (Definitely not to be confused with Khandelwal, the Gujju supermarket, whose Chembur branch is currently advertising aam ras and Spl. Palak Dhokla, both worth a try.) If it's Maharashtrian and fried and not Prahalad Kakkar it's there.

Next door is a little outlet called Kunj Vihar, which once upon a time enjoyed the totally inapt distinction of appearing on Wikipedia. Though the mention has been revised out of existence, it will always be the original jumbo. Not the Jumbo King, a mere pretender to the throne. I was late to Simon's already, but this seemed like an opportunity not to be missed

Upon exiting the station to Naupada I began inquiring after the sab se famous vada pav bhandar. And was steadily pointed in the right direction! It will be difficult to relate the freakishness of this experience to anyone who hasn't been white and approximately hinglophone in India.

Two hefty vadas (I would say 3-in., but forgot my ruler) on a double-long pav (an adha?) dosed with sweet chutney, topped with a slaw-like salad. All that for Rs. 8. I hated to eat and run, but if I had waited until after I ate I'd have been unable even to walk.

[Taking stock]

2006-02-24T15:29:00.000-08:00

This marathon started January 21. That gives me 8 more days in which to eat 25 vada pav. Not pretty.

Maybe it's a good time to step back and assess what this unit — the vada pav — is worth. In this post at The Other India, Dilip tries to sketch out what someone living at the poverty line can buy in Bombay. Such a person would have one-third of Rs. 540 (about $12.50, though that's deceptive) per month at his or her disposal for food.

If you ate nothing but vada pav that's 45, or one and a half per day.

opp. Malad Station (17)

2006-02-15T21:29:00.000-08:00

Am I the exception, or are we all prostrate slaves to advertising? The tiny Jumbo King stand is wedged between chaat counters like an afterthought, or like me on the fourth seat of a Virar fast. I passed it up without a second glance and headed straight for the aggressively self-promoting MM Mithaiwala, with whose hoardings every available square inch of station frontage is plastered. Enormous (and disturbingly identical) burgers and vada pav leer in at you from every direction, and giant lassis beckon you to "test da thanda."

(Extended aside: Until this very moment I had never registered the double entendre of the Thums Up slogan. As ever, the ad flaks must've been working overtime on the Coca-Cola account. Now when will they reinvigorate the Limca brand? When will Pepsi stop sitting on Gold Spot? When will Sosyo gain the global acclaim it deserves? The answer is blowing in the winod.)

Maybe I should have gone for the Jumbo King after all. But I'm saving myself.

Gurunanak Road (16)

2006-02-14T18:03:00.000-08:00

Forget Infosys. Ajnabee overnight sensation Shekhar Vada Pav is the real India 2.0. If they are not ISO 9002 certified, they may as well be. If the freshness of the vadai weren't enough, I'd be back just for a photo of their stacked pyramid of lemon-yellow bondas. As a monument to single-minded efficiency it falls short of its Gizan likeness only in scale and the relative immediacy with which it will be dismantled for battering and frying.

Posed optimistically in front of Bandra Talao, the spotless Shekhar shack reminds us what a glorious backdrop the tank could be, and what disrepair it's fallen into. (Seriously: paddleboating?) This neglected dumping ground could easily be spruced up into Bandra's third waterfront, à la Thane. Instead it's passed without a glance by, what, a lakh commuters daily? Today we might also consider what Bandra might become if it weren't a migratory sanctuary for lovebirds. Instead they all flock to Bandstand, pressed into benches like Bombay duck. What a waste.

Flora Fountain (13) (14) (15)

2006-02-12T22:04:00.000-08:00

Vendors at three compass points.

E: I hit the first, on V.N. Road, for breakfast. This fry-wallah/hawk-wallah combo is the only team I've seen working in tandem to fill orders with vada pulled fresh from the oil into your bun. Which, let me tell you, is the way to go.

NW: On my way back from the office round the corner closest to Churchgate. The juice stand here is perfectly situated so that you get not only a balanced meal but a full narrative arc. Exposition (shuttling between the stands to place your orders), rising action (plunging through the crowd to grab your sandwich), climax (biting into a stinging salted mirch), and denouement (a delicately salted grape juice). They're out of grapes today, so I'll just make it an anecdote.

SW: Finally, just before the stand-up act, I catch the guy in front of the University just before closing. Still warm. Maybe these guys did a brisk business as the festival crowd made their way to the station — no tickets or tokens at this food court — but here above Sassoon Library the street is already asleep, the chana-wallah no longer roasting and the kerosene lamps coming down off their hooks.

Khar Pali Road (12)

2006-02-11T09:58:00.000-08:00

Before 10 a.m., and already cold. But this morning it's leftovers or nothing. We're on our way to Prithvi for the Kala Ghoda Festival special performance of Dark Horse. It's about Arun Kolatkar who, as Bombay's unofficial poet laureate, was naturally obsessed with street food. I'll post an idli-vendor poem when I get my hands on one.

What does it say about the state of theater when the ticket not only costs less than balcony seats at Gaiety, but costs less even than the rickshaw ride there? I think it says: see more plays.

Hedgewar Marg (11)

2006-02-10T18:45:00.000-08:00

(i.e., Bandra Talkies Lane)

Gaiety Cinema is as abuzz as ever with black ticketeers, but I booked my Rang De Basanti seats advance. So I get to loiter at the snacks stand, notable for its generous portions and the spicy slaw they heap on. Throw in the chutney and it's almost like eating a potato reuben, if you'll excuse the expression. (You shouldn't.) Say what you will about G7, it's as unpretentious as a "multiplex" can get. Nobody minds when you hold the vada pav in your mouth to fish through your pockets for the tickets — just as long as you don't hold up traffic.

Chinmaya Mission (10)

2006-02-03T18:33:00.000-08:00

Now I'm really pushing it. But in this ascetic environment, even a breadless bonda is more than one would have expected. But then some of these brahmacharis have quite a bit of worldly refuge still to cast off. Not for everyone is the path of action.

As for me, after a two-hour bus trip any thali would have done the trick. The one the ashram canteen was dishing out was quiescently greasy: a fat wad of puris, a pulao, some ghee-laden prasad, and to top it all off, like a big, fluffy cherry, the aforementioned potato ball. Pav sold separately.

Dnyan. Mandir Road (II) (9)

2006-01-30T17:25:00.000-08:00

I know, I know. But a vada pav laced with irony is not the same vada pav as before, is it? Darned if it didn't taste different, too. On my first trip, see, I hadn't registered how difficult, how obstinately contrarian an exercise it is to run a vada pav stand opposite a Jain temple. One swarming with white-robed, broom-and-bucket hefting, surgical-masked world-renunciators, at that. Saint Dnyaneshwar, it turns out, did so by burying himself in a cave on the banks of the Godavari.

If our culinary sins really do add up, I'll be coming back as a pork tenderloin. But the illicit substance being trafficked here is, of course, potatoes. They're excluded from the Jain diet to avoid inflicting injury upon earthworms, etc. So aLike a cash-and-carry shop opposite a mosque, or "Love it or leave it" t-shirts on the ACLU website, sales are outnumbered here by dirty looks. Those who play the odds are better off avoiding neighborhoods where Reliance runs ads in Gujarati.

Union Park Road No. 7 (8)

2006-01-29T10:08:00.000-08:00

The morning vada at the Candies corner tastes nothing like the one at tiffin time. If I hadn't seen them mashing the potato, I might have guessed they'd filled it with upma: creamy texture studded with whole chana gram and curry leaves, mustardy without even a hint of coriander. The chutney slopped onto the bun was dilute to the point of absence. All that, plus the dewy desolation of the Sunday morning sidewalks, lent the neighborhood a profoundly foreign feel, as though I was in Southie being served "ethnic" Bambaiyya food.

Bandra Station (7)

2006-01-27T12:40:00.000-08:00

Flagging early. Just the thought of Worli — halfway point of the half-marathon — still sets my legs to trembling. I'm facing exhaustion again: already stuck one pin to the north, in the koliwada; aforementioned Jumboree Maidan beyond striking distance to the east; racecourse to the south free, for the time being, from such intrusions; and simply no time for the option, yes, to the west: Haji Ali dargah. I'm scheduled all day: a meeting, an appointment, and a rendez-vous. So I buckled and, while waiting for my ride, washed one down with a cane juice. I am not pacing myself. I am in trouble.

At what point does a problem becomes an addiction? Is it when we start planning for the next fix? When it prevents us from seeing what's directly in front of us? When it pervades other areas of our lives? When our thoughts veer predictably in its direction? When it intrudes upon friendships? I'm worried that chaat and vada are colonizing too much of my mind. How can other bloggers manage it?

St. Theresa's (6)

2006-01-26T19:14:00.000-08:00

Everything but the street stalls being closed today — Republic Day mubarak ho — I felt more or less assured of finding a newsstand with a fresh copy of Time Out. The Mumbai Festival is about to make its exit and the Kala Ghoda Festival is waiting impatiently in the wings. I wanted to check theatre listings and was pretty certain I hadn't just missed them in my Navbharat, though I do miss plenty. For instance, I see from the headline that one Chahat Khanna takes the position of "Expose ki khilaf." A highly controversial one, I may add — contortionistic, even. But all I got from the interview was at that at this point in her career she's "jitna kar rahi."

Anyway. Slipped out the door without disturbing the landlady's astrology session and slid down into town. Was pretty sure there was a Pali Hill Festival on today, but Nargis Dutt Rd. was Planet of the Apes. Pali Naka: zip. Turner Road: nada. Waterfield Road: kuchh bhi nahin. Finally I homed in on Bandra's spiritual center: National College.

The 15-m.-sq. park opposite it bristled with illicit couples. Householders in tight formation brisk-stepped around the jogging track like jawans on Janpath. Presumably they were squeezing in a whole year's worth of exercise. Opposite that, a newsstand. And opposite that (good thing Google Maps isn't up yet) a man, calling attention to himself with a Pesci-esque strut, lit a match beneath a kadai.

Dnyan. Mandir Road (5)

2006-01-26T18:16:00.000-08:00

En route to the printer's from Dadar we circumnavigated an old-timer sleeping behind a basket piled with something sheathed in green. I glanced down as I walked on, and soon my curiosity got the better of me. They looked for all the world like tomatilloes, but I knew they couldn't be. Running back and nudging the guy, I got a name: "raspberry." Or did he say "ras bhari"? Two bucks later I was undressing it, the fruit inside just larger than a cherry, supple and voluptuously orange, and popping it in my mouth. Juicy like a grape, but seedless. Wish I'd saved it.

I'd eyed a snacks counter on the way, and hit it on the way back. I had my hand extended with the four bucks as I walked up and asked the kid for one with everything. He obliged with the works, two chutneys and a mound of the dried garlic stuff like I've never seen. Barely having broken my stride I bit down, and my tongue lit up. The burn lasted me the ride back to Bandra.

Worli Koliwada (4)

2006-01-25T17:12:00.000-08:00

Friends often tell me I can ask just anyone on the street which bus goes where. They've failed to consider the extent to which people feel compelled to agree with me. I took the bus to Worli Village thinking that it would leave me close to the Nehru Centre. So very wrong. Not only was I several kilometers away, but walking toward the sea only entangled me deeper in the meshes of Koliwada, the fishing village. One gentleman even stopped me and, after inquiring very politely in grammatically perfect English where I was from, confirmed that, yes, this was the way to the Seaface. Soon I could see highrises — Prabhadevi — across the bay. But there was no point turning back. Finally I reached Worli's apex, surmounted by a fort that resembles a roofless church, swaddled in semi-pukka constructions.

My timing couldn't have been better. As I retraced my steps to the depot the scent of frying oil wafted from every doorway. Boys were exiting in droves with trays of samosas, pakoras, and yes, vadai, until I was just one member of a mouthwatering procession. I followed a tray of samosas into a sweet shop. Its cases were filled with multicolored burfis, marzipan strawberries and watermelon-slice kaju rolls. The owner gave the fresh vadai another five minutes. In the meantime I had a samosa with a surprisingly coconutty coriander chutney as we tried to hash out where I'd turned wrong. He concluded that my Hindi was "tutti-frutti," which is just about right. Five minutes later — 10:00 on the dot — I was striding briskly southward with a hot vada pav in hand. Now that's how eating and running is done.

Jamshedji Tata Road (3)

2006-01-24T22:53:00.000-08:00

The street that threads the fraternal-twin pillars of Churchgate station (Victorian Gothic) and Eros Cinema (High Deco) is a fine example of Indian urban planning. If Churchgate is the beating heart of downtown Bombay, this is its vena cava. Yet the principle here is manifestly chalta hai. The 45-watt streetlamps, placed at vast intervals, cast an orange haze over the street but illuminate nothing. To the extent that the sidewalks are navigable, it is courtesy of the fluoro bulbs dangling from food stalls and the gas flames of peanut-roasters. Normally chased off of pavements for their presumed infringement on public goods, here the equation is flipped and the municipality mooches off of the little guy.

I'd much rather be having hakka noodles fried to order, an omelette, some chicken lollipop — all of which are within arm's reach. But I have made a commitment, so I sidle up to the tray of flattened bondas and grudgingly ask for one chutneywala. I force myself to chew. I swallow. 'Nuff said. (And it's only day 4. Is this what it's like to be married?)

[Yes, day 3 was a bye. I'll make up for it tomorrow.]

MG Road (Borivali) (2)

2006-01-22T16:21:00.000-08:00

If I'm not surprised that somebody gave the Mahatma's name to this tiny nub of a street in Borivali, then it's just another sad coincidence, not ironic per se, that it would lead to the immense Sanjay Gandhi National Park. 777 sq. km., I'm told, but on a Sunday nonetheless too busy to be fully appreciated. Sumos chew up the available landscape and picknickers back up their Santros to the diodic strains of "Salaam|Namaste". Ah, nature.

Amit and I crossed under the flyover and no sooner did we get down to business than "Jumbo Vada Pav" leapt at us off a storefront. Unquestionably auspicious—have I ever seen another shop devoted to them? Someday, Bluetooth permitting, I'll yank the photo off my phone. The sign contained an ingenious devanagari ligature for which the stroke piercing the "ba" is rotated 45° off the usual (recalling Tristan's work on the Signs titles).

Nothing was jumbo besides the price: an extra 50 paise, presumably for table service. But the vadai themselves had been sunning in the glass case and were the better for it. They bit through with zero impedance, but were still fringed with a satisfying crunch. The usually tart coriander overtones had rounded and broadened. The tamarind chutney was sweet like jelly. The pav were the chewy, savory kind usually reserved for bhaji. Worth sitting for.

Nargis Dutt Road (1)

2006-01-21T12:18:00.000-08:00

This time, the kick-off was fittingly enough made at home. The recipe came from Hooked on Heat, Indibloggies' Newcomer of the Year. Though its instructions weren't followed to the letter, it did embolden me to toss in 6 pinches of whole dhania seeds — "Bihari-eshtyle." Lalita and Rachel took over the kadai, for which I'm grateful. For some reason, I'm still not at ease around cauldrons of boiling oil. (Brings to mind a Dalrymple anecdote about the siege of some gurudwara and the "special jalebis.") I laid out a fresh coriander chutney along with the dried-garlic and tamarind, but to my delight a more popular garnish was stuffing the pav with my drippy Greek salad — "Tommy-eshtyle." After it all, we kicked back with a frosted glass of tinto de verano. Charmed life.

[A technical appeal: I'd like to start pinpointing my entries. Is there anything out there like the Google Maps API that works in Bombay?]

[False start]

2006-01-19T14:40:00.000-08:00

Can marathoners take a mulligan? Only the ChampionChip knows for sure.

You'd have been correct in assuming I had fired the gun with my previous post. And breezed past the wire with a thoroughly unearned exuberance. I did take two samples at Lamington Road, one by Churchgate, and one at the stand absurdly placed in front of Candies. But if I don't blog it concurrently, it don't count.

Somewhat more devastating than that four-cart pile-up was the talk given a few days ago by investigative journalist P. Sainath. (Thanks to Anand for the tip.) He called it "The Moral Economy of the Elite: Rural Distress and the Crisis Before Journalism," I suppose to lay the groundwork for a crise de conscience among its attendees. But I'm imagining Lewis Lapham noodging him to call it "At Nero's Table." While the decision could be read as a victory of sanctimony over subtlety, for me it simply does a disservice to Sainath's critique. He appeals to our minds, our hearts, and our pocketbooks, but he doesn't privilege them over our stomachs. His analysis may be sophisticated but his reasoning is alimentary.

Farmer suicides are occurring in India's rural districts in alarming numbers. The underlying cause is indebtedness, and the effect, increasingly, is the inability of farmers to feed their families. Even as the urban middle class eats better than ever before on its soaring purchasing power, the rural poor have gone hungry at a rate unprecedented since the Bengal famine of 1943.

India's highest-growth industry, Sainath forcefully asserts, is not IT — it's inequality. The causes to which he attributes this precipitous rise are
(1) liberalization of agricultural imports
(2) reallocation of subsidies, and the simultaneous
(3) restriction of credit to small farmers in favor of automobile owners.

These three policies, he claims, were adopted as part of the BJP's "India Shining" campaign. One typically vivid (and unsourced) statistic: as car sales nearly doubled over the '90s, tractor sales halved. Sainath doesn't spare the current UPA government, however. Baramati MP and BCCI member Sharad Pawar, nominally in charge of the situation, was described as "Union Minister for Cricket."

Beyond the overwhelming need to address this problem, the talk brought home two points. The first is that there are two Indias, one of which is still totally foreign to me. (I had accepted this contention vis-à-vis America two Novembers back.) Even as urban India becomes more and more an open book, I'm still ignorant of how the vast majority of Indians live. The contrast could not be greater than in my last post, when, for example, I lament the ongoing disrepair of my coastal parkway while shoveling in biryani.

Second is that this blog, though conceived to deal entirely in mundanities — nay, inanities — can do more. No, I'm not planning on taking any turn toward the high-minded. That market is saturated, and well-served. But if we agree with Sainath that journalism is in "crisis," we admit that to the extent that we have readers, we have a responsibility to inform. I don't know whether eating for hunger awareness is ridiculous (any more than, say, running for disability awareness) but I am, brace yourselves, pledging this marathon to that service. I'm no SEA-EAT but it's a start.

Azad Maidan

2006-01-15T14:22:00.000-08:00

Gandhiji went to a lot of trouble to get his salt. If only the British had had Fritos. Neither man nor nature has devised a system more perfect for delivering vital minerals. Yet this crowning accomplishment of our species, that which separates us from beasts, remains unknown to Indians. So what would I reach for after completing my 21.06 km?

The overpowering sensation was thirst. Could there really be no water on offer? (I had laid my hands on only an airplane bottle since Haji Ali. The "water" handed to us as we limped past Girgaum turned out to be a sweet-salt sharbat so thick it almost made me gag.) Thanda matlab... kya?

As I emerged from the chute I was struck by a vision glinting in the 9 a.m. sun: a beautiful, milky, very rectangular slice of heaven. Some reckless optimist had positioned her kala-khatta cart at the finish line, anchored by a 100-lb. block of ice. I was hoping to be bludgeoned with it. The next best thing was a nimbu pani or, as it became as soon as I could fetch my wallet, three. Though again both sweet and salt, they were of course cut with lemon and oh-so-cold, fished pensively from the glacial runoff with a long-handled cup ladle.

It took until Bandra to lay my hands on the appropriate foodstuff. Lay's my hands, that is — with the flavoring from their special-edition "Latino Style" potato chips. Though made by the same people as Fritos, they are no substitute, as I quickly realized. "Hot Peppers & Salsa" tastes suspiciously like barbeque. To Frito-Lay's's credit, the bag is not, as on the "Spanish" flavor, adorned with a maraca-shaking Saif Ali Khan. (Instead, these anonymous flavor ambassadors are playing sax. N.B. The project of cataloguing the other Lay's varieties was cut short by an allergic reaction to Saif Ali.)

After a nap, my first impulse was for a chicken tikka biryani. I clambered over the still-upheaved Carter Road to the recently renovated Mezbaan. The fan inside was out thanks to a short circuit, so I sat on the terrace in the beating sun and downed glass after glass of water. When they inquired politely whether I wanted "anything else" I asked for bijli and sadak. This joke went over with a resounding thud. Maybe my delivery was off.

While I was glad I hadn't tried anything so suicidal as the full marathon (which, as I finished my biryani, was only 4:00:00 on), I had recovered enough to feel let down. I hadn't challenged myself. But why push myself to run, when I really wanted to push myself to write? As usual, I needed a conceit. A blogging marathon. A challenge:

42 vada pav in 42 days.

This, I know, sounds like a laughable goal to anyone who went to college in town. My classmate Priya, in her own words, could "down five at a sitting." But the object here is not gourmandizing, nor is it mere snacking. I am seeking out 42 unique specimens from every corner of the city, from the Jumboree Maidan parcel shop to the Teen Hath Naka quarter-pounder. I have been training for months. I am ready and set. Wish me luck.

Mohd. Ali Road (II)

2005-10-30T11:45:00.000-08:00

Naresh's tip was hotter than a fried paratha (see below) and had a whiff of destiny about it. I was aching to revisit the scene of my criminally unsatisfying first foray into the Ramzan food fray and here were the means and opportunity. 8:15, Byculla station, platform #4. Her name was Zainab.

As the azan rang out, the assembled pack of gourmands began to salivate. Few if any of us had fasted. In fact, I had luncheoned on beer and biryani (thanks, Uma and Anando). Nonetheless I was set to graze a trail of devastation through anything edible ahead. Pint-sized Zainab counseled patience. With her in the lead we skirted the station fruit-sellers, crested the tea-stall-enhanced flyover and landed in Nagpada.

This was her gaon, her research subject, and her sustenance. Her family hardware store was still in evidence some streets over in Dongri, but her grandparents had vacated the upstairs apartment for Bandra after the riots. Zainab, though she had recently lived in both Kashmir and Bangladesh, seemed in another sense incapable of ever leaving the neighborhood. Her intimate familiarity with these winding bylanes and gullies was, for this suburban kid, nothing short of astonishing. Now, onto the food.

2100. Sharvi Hotel, corner of Sofia Zubair (Bellasis) Rd., Byculla
Paya tasted fine here, but I was alarmed to see it served with spoons. Tandoori roti was only an afterthought. With nahari still on the brain I couldn't help but be somewhat disappointed by the, well, soupiness of the soup. The seekh kebabs, however, were delicate and fresh off the charcoal.

(Many thanks to Altaf M. Abid for the photos.)

2200. Outside Mastan Talav YMCA, Nagpada
Harissa looks like a hybrid of haleem and khichida, without the former's pasty density or the latter's lentils. In other words, more liquid meat. The hearty porridge was drizzled with grilled onions and ghee tadka. The pav I cleaned the bowl with was the fluffiest I've ever torn into, a masterpiece of small pleasures.

Some of you may also remember harissa as a Moroccan chili chutney that I made out a recipe in Saveur. Others may remember it as the substance that sat on the kitchen block for months doing nothing besides staining the Tupperware orange.

2230. Beneath "KK International," Do Tanki
Deep-fried parathas. 'Nuff said.

2300. Kamathipura
The sign above the door said seekh kebabs, but the ladies' eyes, done up Sharmila-style, said something different.

2340. Sayeb Abu Mohd. St., near Chor Bazaar
Rylan and I started midway down the block at the tavaa. They were frying frankies and, filled with the same egg and mutton mince, a tiny sandwich they called naan-chop. It would have felt right at home at a White Castle.

Syeed, Zainab's basketball-star research subject seemed intent on having us taste everything. So when my repeated attempts to hail a frothy glass of sugarcane juice failed he intervened. If the juice weren't enough to cut the masala, old men had stationed themselves between stalls with clear packets of pineapple and peeled pomelo.

Then we joined Rishi by the kebab stand that, when we'd arrived, had been monopolized by the gold-chains-and-yoga-pants set. They had performed an important signaling function — this was clearly the food tourist destination — and then split as quick as they could, probably instructing their drivers to idle the Hondas in the next lane over.

The boti were tender and tangy, slathered in a tikka-like paste with a bite. I couldn't put my finger on it then, but they may be India's closest approach to "barbecue." Could go for that again. Khiri, for future reference, means "udder," which explains its subtle milky flavor and slightly springy texture, though nothing as bizarre as tripe or vastedda, with which I broke last year's fast.

Suddenly, a discovery: outstation Sosyo. The Gujju soft drink, offspring of a late-night tryst between cola and kala-khatta, is next to impossible to find between Gujarat and Jackson Heights. Reminds me a little of Faygo Rock & Rye, but the IITians had never tasted anything like it, and gave it mixed reviews.

We then shuttled to the other end for malpuwa, an eggy, syrupy pancake that vat-frying had rendered crystalline on the outside and virtually melted inside. As the others made a move, I ran to the "famous" ice cream shop about to close its shutters. The proprietor apologized that he was out of both sitaphal and papaya, and offered to give me my mixed fruit for free. I insisted on completing the transaction, but in the ensuing discussion he wished me a happy Yom Kippur.

0130. Mughal Masjid, Dongri
Rapt in admiration of the elaborately tiled facade, I didn't notice the man in the red kurta approaching until he addressed me. "Why not come in the evening, when you can see more?" asked the mosque's self-appointed proprietor. Another situation where explanations were doomed to fail. I just might, though — apparently there's a hamam next door.

0215. Ebrahim Rehmatullah Rd.
Bol Bam, says the urn. What is it, we ask the gentleman, who replies, in a long, piercing, cry: Bol Bam. I'll try getting the photo off of my phone, but it won't do him justice. Jai Jharkhand, indeed; if this is what it means for Bihar to be backwards, I don't want forwards.

0245. Kamathipura redux

Mamta had lobbied for mujra, and what gentlemen would we be to refuse? Though I had visions from Chaudhvin ka Chand dancing in my head, I had already seen that the setting would be anything but old-world. We went back to the seekh kebab sign, beneath which two cops were standing guard. The ladies explained that we were there for nothing more risqué than a song performance, but the cops refused to let them tarnish their virtue. "What if somebody says something?" they asked rhetorically, closing the matter. We slunk off to Marine Drive, which was patrolled by equally overzealous policemen. Chastened, we headed back for seher.

0500. Ebrahim Rehmatullah Rd.
Zainab had saved the "Hindustani kebabs" for last, anticipating that our appetites would be at an ebb. As a kid, she would come with her father to the Hindustani Hotel for these tiny boti. They were good, but I had lost my focus. My mind was wandering, the blood no longer flowing. I leaned back. The delirious angles of Minara Masjid loomed overhead. A cage of quails mulled their fate next to a rack of their tandoori-red former colleagues. I, too, glazed over. We cleaned out another couple clay pots of phirni, a rose-watery custard, and called it an incredible night. The lights were still blazing and the servers scurrying as we piled into a cab for VT.

Andheri New Link Road

2005-10-28T23:32:00.000-07:00

I would love to write something about my peek inside Yash Raj Films, but I'm still figuring out what it all means. Besides, there was no food involved — yet.

Mohd. Ali Road (I)

2005-10-25T23:03:00.000-07:00

As any Encyclopedia Brown aficionado can tell you, the First Battle of Bull Run wasn't known as such until the second. Likewise, it's evident from my title that my bloglag has caught up with me. On the one hand, I've learned from my mistakes; on the other, even I have cause to doubt my hindsight.

Took the #1 bus south from the seaside. Past where the lights were strung, past even where the roadside stalls began to choke traffic, until I saw the sidestreets carpeted with worshippers in namaaz. The khichida was bubbling in anticipation. I'm sure the meaty lentil stew is a perfect iftaar intro, but since I had no fast to break I skipped it in favor of more substantive fare.

In the nocturnal shadow of the flyover there was plenty of firni, sewaiyan, and jalebis, but nothing like a meal. I stalked the street until it became JJ Marg, and I turned back. What was I missing? Finally, a raft of wafting embers beckoned me into the arcade of the Noor Mohammedi Hotel, where the seekh were on the sigdi.

On my way in I put dibs on two kebabs and a rumali roti, but when I sat the gentleman across from me suggested that I try the "house speciality," which he described as the "gravy item." Thus was I introduced to nalli nahari. It's a paya-like soup, but instead of lamb trotters I found a brick of beef sitting in the middle of the bowl. With naan and the Mohammedi salad — ginger, green chilies, and a touch of soy sauce? — it hits the spot, then hits it again, then gently lulls it into a dreamless sleep.

Peddar Road

2005-10-23T22:50:00.000-07:00

Priya's caterer hadn't figured on his fresh mosambi sharbat being turned into daiquiris, or else he wouldn't have forced it on her like that. ("What if they get thirsty?" he asked, completely oblivious.) She had tried repeatedly to decline but could not inform him that the guests at her Ramzan party preferred Black Label, thank you. We preferred it, anyway, until we saw how smoothly the icy, minty sharbat mixed with Bacardi. Everybody seemed quite at home with this concoction in one hand and a kebab in the other.

Aside from their doctrinal differences with other Muslims, about which I remain ignorant, Bohras interpret the word "kebab" differently from other communities. At this party it meant "entire lamb shank on the bone." It was a sideshow-like exercise in dexterity to maneuver one around the clusters of backslapping college chums chewing the fat, nibbling it, tearing, gabbing, teasing, gnawing, chattering; all of a piece. That was all for appetizers, with crudités set out for a laugh.

I'd been told to expect a non-veg affair, but when Priya uncovered the chafing dishes my jaw dropped. (Sometimes I forget she's leggy like a game-show hostess, and for a moment I knew how it felt to be a contestant on The Price Is Right — er, Khulja Sim Sim.) The meat here came in configurations I had never dreamed of, let alone tasted. Left to right:

"Dabba" gosht, named after the box it was cooked in to lend its porridgy base a smoky tinge. A very Bohri biryani, fragrant without a trace of garam masala. Last but not least, cream beef, which looks something like a seekh but dissolves on the tongue as if it were hot, meat-flavored kulfi. It must have begun this life as a blob of haleem-like paste with a skewer at its center. That's baked and lightly breaded, a lollipop with a texure so smooth you can wolf one down in two seconds flat.

Which I did, as the last guests willing to drop me at Prabhadevi walked out the door at 4. Thanks, Priya and Musti.

Colaba

2005-09-07T10:04:00.000-07:00

Cafe Mondegar, where the "cosmopolitan" (read: obnoxious) downtown is on full display, is a great spot at which to meet, and an even better one from which to escape. Just around the corner is the sizzling, shimmering Bademiya, equal parts institution and mirage. My first time there, I had picked a taxiwallah at random and asked for the "sab se famous" kebab joint. He pulled it out of thin air with his index finger. Just behind the Taj, down an alley I must have walked past a hundred times without noticing a thing. It's like India's take on the exiles' colony from Atlas Shrugged.

Waiters, wearing laminated menu cards around their necks, helpfully steer you to a "table," meaning a seat on the bumper of a van set up inside with a stainless steel counter on milk crates, or around a hood popped and jacked up to horizontal with a Thums Up bottle. The rest of the block is parked up with everyone from club kids ordering from behind tinted windows to their grandmothers, enjoying the same chicken reshmi in the back seats as their drivers up front.

What you get for Rs. 50 is reasonable by Bombay standards. The seekh kebab resembles a burger more than it ought—a consequence of grilling until well-done instead of sealing in a tandoor—but makes for great late-night fare. And even if the rumali roti are a little rubbery, they're big enough to finish off the plate of garnish: thinly shredded onions (why do most places here give you the impenetrable purple core?), nimbu wedges, coriander chutney, and "gravy."

I can't complain. Even if I miss the last train from Churchgate (00h45) I can still catch the #1 Ltd. back to Bandra, and catch a vivid glimpse of late-night Bombay—thinly sliced, just the way I like it—on the way up.

[Krishna Janmasthami Mubarak]

2005-08-30T12:18:00.000-07:00

How do you celebrate the birth of historical-figure-cum-god Krishna? You (1) hang a dahi handi (literally a yogurt-pot, but symbolizing a cash prize of as much as Rs 11,00,000) from a wire, 20 to 50 feet above street level. Then you (2) assemble teams of 50 or so men and boys, dress them in identical (usually saffron) tee-shirts, and drive them around the city in flatbed trucks. These teams are known as govindas—whether after the dashing movie-star-cum-politician or Krishna's nickname meaning "supreme cowherd," I can't say for certain. Upon reaching the competition site, the teams race to (3) form human pyramids, à la cheerleaders, which mount to eight or even 10 levels before they (4) collapse violently and/or (5) smash the pots, claiming the prize.

Walking from Mumbai Central down to Opera House, I was shocked and disappointed by the near-total lack of hooliganism. I got hit with a water balloon but otherwise escaped unscathed. Crowds seemed to peak just north of Kalbadevi, where buses had trouble getting through the cross-streets. I only got to witness the govindas in action once I got down to V.T., where it seemed every by-lane and chawl had hosted one. We saw a five-story pyramid fall just shy of the prize, raising that eternal question, "Is it better to be the schlemiel or the schlemozzel?"

In evidence all around the city are the mandapam being erected for the upcoming Ganesh Utsav. I'm hoping to take a look at Lal Bagh's ganpati, which is supposed to be 10 m tall, before it gets dipped in the sea at Chowpatty.

[Back in the saddle]

2005-08-30T11:18:00.000-07:00

or the hammock, rather—I had a box seat this weekend for the drama in the parking lot. I'll turn the webcam around and give you a look.

Let me back up, so to speak, to the toilet. Sunday morning I walked into a bathroom so unpleasant that the mess could hardly have been the work of one man. Lalit-bhai, in other words, was off the hook, and in fact was already on the way to fetch a plumber. He, after a valiant effort with a plunger, walked us outside. In an gesture befitting the previous day's celebration of Krishna Janmasthmi, which I'll get to, he clambered up three stools (wooden, not the other kind) and uncapped the pipe down to the sewer main. All clear!

It relieved the pressure on my bathroom by diverting flushes from above—onto the driveway. Though I paid Rs 150 for the favor, the idea came from the building society secretary, who had already called in a specialist. He hadn't, however, notified anyone on the floors above, and so the pipe continued to gush periodically. He had the watchmen, Jha and Singh, set up plastic chairs at what he considered a safe remove, and we chatted about his recent visit to his daughter in Queens and the uses of bamboo while the specialist's lackey poked away at the sewer main with a wire. The mixed legacy of the Raj: buried sewer lines, and the impossibility of finding a plumbing snake in all of Bombay on a Sunday.

More than the futility of the task, it was the roaches' increasingly adventurous sorties from the open sewer (won't ever have to wonder where they come from) that finally got me walking. I set off to the juice stand by Khar Gymkhana. Rs 25 got me two meters' worth of sugar cane. When I returned with it, and demonstrated how strong and flexible it was, Jha and Singh bust a gut. You're supposed to use an old one, they told me, and proceeded to break up the cane and chew on it. At that point I decided to do my watching from one floor up, taking some cane with me. And the dirty waterfall continued to flow periodically.

For two days.

I went into town as much as possible. Last night I returned to learn that the municipal sewer maintenance crew hadn't shown. This morning, however, I was awakened by a knock on the door: would I please flush? Three buckets went down like [simile withheld], and we could all finally rest, and do all sorts of other things, easy.

Pali Naka, Bandra (W)

2005-07-08T06:12:00.000-07:00

Had my first real pani puri today. Not quite on the street, but not quite inside the New Sindh Sweets shop either. Seemed like time, as I've been drinking the tap water for a week already, to no noticeable effect. I picked this place because the puris were all intact, in plastic bags inside the case: clearly fresh. First thing they did was replenish the bhartan with several blocks of bright white ice; the water had reduced to practically chutney (the flavor of which, incidentally, is just like the Chaat Masala Lay's chips). They beckoned me around to the right-hand side of the server, so that he could replenish the plate with the next puri as soon as I had picked up the last. But he stopped after just five. Not that I wanted more, but he deprived me of the satisfaction of saying, "bas, bas" and waving my hand in his face.

Will probably go back to dahi puri—water, even spiced, can't beat yogurt for a snack filling, or a filling snack. But there's something entertaining about the way a pani puri dribbles that makes the snacking seem more urgent.

Kanchipuram

2005-06-08T01:32:00.000-07:00

Another night on the Kanyakumari Express simply wasn't in the cards. (We had no cards. Even if we had had, they'd only have stuck to our skin and fused to the vinyl sleeping bunks.) So we got off near Vellore, took a rickshaw to the central square and were — this was a first for me — hailed by a bus. Here we are in the world sari capital, city of seven gopurams. Off now to inspect the workshops.

Juhu Chowpatty

2005-06-01T21:37:00.000-07:00

Don't let me forget to describe the ("sea facing") view from the 3rd floor of the Taj tower, which surely must be the best in India. However, seeing as this blog is nominally about chaats, I'll mention instead that I had pav bhaji and falooda on the way to the airport. Took the bus up to Santacruz, where I had an incredible dahi puri, then walked through Khar (W), past a Shiv Sena post, past a bulldozer in the act of clearing a slum, and onto Juhu, home of the Sea 'n' Sand and playground of filmi stars. Clustered at the northern tip of Juhu are some hundred semi-permanent stalls, all offering exactly the same selection of snacks. If Bombay is a pav bhaji mecca, this was the Kaaba. But I saw only one place actually working the tava, churning the fresh vegetables into the fried paste known as "bhaji." So I ordered it up fresh, and they delivered it with a still-melting pat of butter to a rattan mat on the beach. With the extra pav ("quarters," so you get only two buns split in half) it came to Rs 35, on a Bombay scale not too shabby. Onions, as always, were free.

Dubai

2005-05-29T11:54:00.000-07:00

Bottle of guava juice: 1.25 dirhams. Fine for littering, stringently enforced: 500 dirhams. Seeing an Indian throw something in a garbage can: priceless. Yet another moment when I wished I had my camera.

However, I was encouraged by the cabbie (also Indian, of course) to take a picture of the Burj Al Arab, the world's only seven-star hotel on its own custom-built island, with my phone, from the gate, where we were told rather unequivocally to turn around. I'll put it up here once I figure out how to email myself from my phone. What have I become?

Bar

2005-05-22T08:37:00.000-07:00

is the name of the place but for the life of me I can't find a bottle of pear brandy. Spent the weekend by a little pancake island called Sv. Stefan, in Montenegro. You may be familiar with Serbia and Montenegro from their 7th place showing in last night's Eurovision song contest. (Kudos, Greece.) The wedding band, a brass ensemble like in all the Serb movies, struck up at around 8:00 and rang through all the stone staircases of the town. Is there a term for "picturesque" in other senses? "Sampleable"?

Tonight, the train from Bar to Belgrade, "one of the world's great mountain railroads." Full moon.

Ljubljana

2005-05-11T11:15:00.000-07:00

In this hostel in Metelkova, the "counterculture" district, every fixture and piece of furniture appears at first glance to have been custom-built—implication being that our 4000 tolar room bill supports local artisans. But in fact the place is 99.44% Ikea. So it goes.

For the first time I really wish I had my camera with me. The posters in this place are just the best. Perhaps Benjamina knows where I can steal some. Now off to stalk Slavoj Zizek (diacriticals TBA).

France, Italy

2005-05-05T15:44:00.000-07:00

Get back to you on this one.

Barcelona

2005-05-01T20:28:00.000-07:00

At the Barcelona Asian Film Festival. They have wireless here, claro. Who wants a t-shirt? Got a ticket for Jiang Hu, the new Andy Lau gangster film. Nearby is a Pakistani neighborhood that I hope to explore. Perhaps the kurta pajamas are cheaper at Naveen's on C. de Carne than in West Bloomfield. Next feature's starting—shhhh.

Cádiz

2005-04-20T05:59:00.000-07:00

Seated is Juan, a guest of two years at the Casa Caracól and the inventor of the Laboratorio Móvil Abraham Lincoln, a portable windmill generator. Standing is Tom, a five-month resident and apprentice in flamenco guitar. Beneath is Niña, last night's chef.

Time has stopped.

Essaouira

2005-04-19T04:19:00.000-07:00

I selected these sardines especially for their gleaming coats and docile manner. Each stall in the arcade, wedged between the Place Orson Welles and the ocean, assembles fresh daily its own fish collage. From the latter you select your specimen, then haggle over its price, watch it sizzle on the grill, and eat it au naturel, French for "without napkins."

Marrakech

2005-04-12T17:28:00.000-07:00

Off to a slow start with the posting.

Kebabes mixtes, mergueze, olives à Place Jamaa el Fna.