Wow...or mmm what else can I say?

`How else do I describe the feeling of eating something on a roadside gaadi? As I write I can feel my mouth watering.
I dont know who all feel that urge or love to have that street food. If you do love it, then read on....else you can just skip it. And if you havent eaten them, then let me repeat Rachna's words - "Just too bad buddy. You'll never know what you missed. A better life next time"

The first thing that I picked from road to eat probably was in front of my school in Mysore. (My memory is not going beyond that). The old lady who sat with the bamboo basket full of guava, cucumber, raw mango, some peanuts, some masala mandakki (masala bhel), some boti, some tomatoes....I mean no less than a supermarket of little eatables. Unlike the school bus or the autos that the kids today in India go to school in, I was going in a tanga (horse cart). On the last day of school, our tangawala uncle would give us a small treat of these things.Putting that salted guava in my mouth, feeling that salt melt which cannot make you hold the temptation to chew the piece in your mouth....wow or mmm what else can I say?

Those hot summer days with the sun shining to it fullest glory, when that old lady gave that thin sheet of cucumber smeared with proper combination of salt and chilli powder and said "10 paisa"....good looking cucumber is treat to the eyes, low price is music to the ears and that taste is heavenly for the tongue...well I dont know what it was to the stomach...but I have and many have survived many such trips of eating roadside food.

I was in Shimoga, another town of Karnataka, from my high school days to end of college. This was where my love to another famous street food developed....the 'puri' series. Burst of that tangy pani in the mouth when you bite that puri......wow or mmm what else can I say? Not to forget that last bowl of just pani.... The mysterious masala, which even my mom could never recreate at home was ofcourse the highlight of any of them...pani puri, masala puri, bhel puri, sev puri, aloo puri.....wow right?

During my graduation days one of my friends introduced me to another set of eatables.....tomato masala, boti masala, nippattu masala (I cant translate it to any other language sorry) and the the very famous masala pepsi or masala soda. I was a total fan of tomato masala...those round slices of tomatoes sprinkled with salt, chilli powder and some other secret ingredient, then it had a layer of churmuri (plain bhel or mandakki) then a sprinkle of grated carrot, onion and coriander leaves...then another dash of that secret ingredient. It was then all set to be eaten.....what a food it was.

And now I have a husband who is not in much favour of such food (he is one of those people who will never understand what this blog is about). He feels its not hygienic, doesnt matter I still have had pani puris from those places when he is around and muttering, "I dont want...you eat".

My world hasnt taken me outside Karnataka for street food tasting, but I am sure the feeling will be the same anywhere in India.....may be outside too. But what makes them tick? While having golgappas why is it that you have to tell that bhaiyya to tell you when one plate is over? Why is it that you have to see reviews of restaurants and dont really bother to try anything roadside in any city? Is it that warm smile of the person who serves you? Is it with the price that you pay? Is it that nostalgic chit chatter with friends while having them? Is it with the microbial germs breeding there? Or the permutation and combination of all of these?
Whatever it is, the wow quotient has never gone down for such eatables...

Are you at a hands reach to pani puri, take my name and have one :)
Do you have any memories with them? Share it...


P.S : Couldnt stop myself from writing this, after reading the post : http://www.rachnabisht.com/3/post/2011/06/roadside-rendezvous.html

Where are you?

I keep asking this question atleast a hundred times every day....not to myself, but to my son...

"Sacheth where are you?"

With the magnanimous level of energy that only toddlers seem to have is really mysterious. He is always at work....sometimes happily running around for no reason; sometimes jumping on the mattress or the sofa; sometimes putting all his energy in crying to ask me for water, making people around feel that I am his stepmom who deprives the poor child of the basic need of water.....and only I know that he wants it to spill it around.....with all this he keeps his brain running too, as he knows when I am angry and gives me the warmest smile which calms me down instantly..

Basically....I cant keep him tied at one place for sure...so when I am in the kitchen or totally engrossed in something on the laptop, my little son escapes to his space out of my sight. He keeps blabbering something or there is some or the other noise with his toys that keeps coming when he is away....and I know where he is. Then there is silence which is a signal that there is danger........not to the child, but to the things around him.
Some instances I am sharing here, which could not have happened if I wasnt lazy, more vigilent and blah blah blah....but heck, I am not my mom....I am just too imperfect for situations like this...I am hoping that I will grow wiser by the time I have a grandchild atleast. Ya just hoping.....not confident!

Scene 1 :
I forget to keep away the paper towel roll away from his reach....dont even remember why it had reached down there...I went to see the answer to my question "Sacheth where are you?"
I see the complete roll torn to pieces. On a positive side, I see he is very skillful in that...he has control of his hands to tear even the tiniest paper to pieces. So you know I was late to the scene, the bigger pieces of tear were long gone.

Scene 2 :
I take out the dried clothes out of the drier, feel too lazy to fold them then and there and dump it in the room thinking I will fold it a little later. I go to the kitchen to make his meal. I can hear Sacheth's toy talking in the room....so I know he is playing with it. Then there is silence, then there are giggles...silence again. I decide I need to check. And yes let me tell you all this happened in probably less than 2 to 3 mins.
"Sacheth where are you?" I have never verbally got an answer........he hasnt grown old enough to tell me the truth about where he is....and he has some more years before he can lie me about where he is not.....but I ask anyway.
I see the answer. Clothes thrown in every corner of the room...I feel an urgent need to check the weather channel to see if there was a tornado that just struck that room.

Scene 3 :
Old McDonald rhyme is playing on youtube. I am trying to make him eat his lunch at a rate of atleast one bite a rhyme. There is a knock on the door. I leave the laptop, the kiddie, the plate and spoon together to answer the door. A courier man, I sign.....the rhyme stops playing in the background. I keep the parcel in its proper place.....by this time it seems like eternity of silence....I start panicking for my foolishness of leaving the room in that way....as usual "Sacheth...."
You have by now guessed it... Let me try to reconstruct what would have happened.
As soon as I left, he should have tried to grow up and eat the lunch on his own. Hand went to the spoon and tried to pick up some rice...in this process, a lot of rice went down on the carpet...some stuck to his little fingers. In the meanwhile the song stopped. He wanted it to start singing again....Realising the gravity of the situation that he is on his own, he becomes responsible and tries to put on the song. His fingers went to the keyboard.....hit some keys slowly....song did not start...he hit some more with some more force...
so basically when I saw my answer I saw his plate almost empty, carpet having relished most of it and some tasted by the keyboard...The next second some strange combination of his hits seem to work and the rhyme plays again...he sighs a sound of relief, smiles....looks at me points his fingers to the monitor and says 'eeya eeya'....I dont know how I should react.

Scene 4 :
Yaa the same thing...I am in the kitchen...there is silence from the room and the usual "Sacheth where are you?"
I go to see him.....he is tapping his chest to show me where he is and laughing uncontrollably thinking we are playing 'peek-a-boo'..... I was totally drawn to his smile.....played peek-a-boo with him for few more mins just to see him enjoying it... I was suddenly brought back to my world when I remembered that I had spread dosa on pan before coming here......I reached the kitchen in time to save my pan, if not the dosa.

Scene 5 :
Once I saw him in the below position :)

I need to run as there is silence again...."Sacheth where are you?"