MISSING AUTORIKSHAS AND ‘PANI-PURI’ OF MUMBAI!

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MISSING AUTORIKSHAS AND ‘PANI-PURI’ OF MUMBAI!

WHENEVER I visit Mumbai which is a three-tiered megapolis today of rising towering real estate lost in the skies…at ground level there are only the working classes and professionals suffering it out at ground level. Mumbai at road and street and lane level may be jam-packed, noisy and polluted to high heaven, but every time I return to comparatively still green, quiet and peaceful Goa and take several deep breaths of thanksgiving … a few delays later I start wishing there were metered autorikshas in Panjim and a better quality of chaat item numbers to relish come the evening.
I mean, is there Mumbaikar who is not addicted to the tangy light snacks of pani-puri, bhelpuri, sev-puri, dahi batata puri, samosa-chaat, papri-chaat, dahivada and the rest of the chaat range? Chaat vendors are everywhere in the market places of Mumbai suburbia and this is real chaat and not the pathetic versions one may find in Goa down 18 June Road or anywhere else! A true blue UP styled chaat is hard to find anywhere else but in …er…Mumbai suburbs. Even down now crowded Juhu street winding all the way to St Joseph’s Church one would find half-a-dozen chaat vendors in various avatar…the solo bhaiya I found outside on the veranda of a shop offers really authentic pani-puri and other chaat variations. According to me a pani-puri is pani-puri only if there’s a filling of a hot mash of peas and potato along with the sour sweet chutneys and divine “pani” infused with green chili, green coriander, green mint, fine spice chaat masala…this is super digestive water so good yummylicious that when a friend of mine is in a constipated condition…he goes to his favorite chaatwallah and drinks an extra helping pani-puri pani! It’s so effective that it cleans him out like a whistle or so to speak. I must confess I’ve seen this “de-tox” effect too and there’s nothing to finding a just so finely made pani-puri pani to double as a cocktail of the very best kind… if I may so!
The much loved chaat range of light snacks is very traditional, some say born in Uttar Pradesh but I’m not so sure. Bengal has it’s own “phuchka” and Delhi you will find “golgappa” and these too are variants of “pani-puri” – the puri part of it being puffed up crunchies (puri) of made of wheat flour or a mix of wheat flour and semolina to give the puri a finer softer crunch. Oh yes, when badly made these puri can be stone hard and you may break a weak tooth on them! These puri mostly adulterated with refined white flour maida, or I imagine tapioca flour or corn flour…anyway, these little crunchy puri are meant to be cracked deftly and filled up with an irresistible warm savory dollop of mashed “ragda” (usually cooked peas and potato but can be cooked moong spouts too)…tarted up with sweet-sour chutneys and the piece de resistance of “pani” from preferably a terracot pot covered over with white or red linen cloth. There are chaat presentations and chaat presentations now and in Goa I guess you will have to go to a many-starred hotel to find a decent chaat presentation, say the Marriott or Taj or Cidade de Goa resorts. The UP chefs usually do the best chaat snacks and one may make an early supper meal of them all. Skip dinner altogether. This is what I love to do if a real too goodness sake pani-puri comes my way some blues evenings…and then nothing, goodbye and goodnight!

OKAY, no more chaat chatter. This is just to say in Goa and in capital city Panjim how much I miss the chaat vendors of Mumbai that was Bombay; even my friend Sonia’s Chat Street downtown cannot match the chaat presentations of Mumbai suburbia….but the larger northern India continues to migrate freshly to the big megapolis in search of a better livelihood. Find a place and serve up pani-puri and other chaat numbers and soon there’ll be a queue! Chaat is irresistible, like forever till death do us part.
DEEPAVALI or Diwali is here anew and most government and private offices are filling up with sweetmeat or mithai gifts from customers. I too got a box of some amazing designer “mithai” with seductive names like “The Rosette” and “Le Pistache,” and “Citrus Noir” and “Gur Mewa”…also “Saffron Parcel,” “Dates & Poppy Seeds.” Health consciousness is growing and the odd mithaiwallah will prefer to offer low/no sugar, low ghee (or some real fancy ghee from a desi cow dairy farm) and no dairy mava. Some just offer jazzed up or regal boxes with parcels of dry fruit like badam, pistachio, cashew, golden raisins.
Needless to say come Deepavali it’s impossible not to be tempted by the odd “motichoor ladoo” or “badam katli” or “ice halva”… although I will say this, if somebody offers me this gorgeous amber apricot from the apricot orchards of Kargil valley in Ladakh — I would say goodbye to all other sweet somethings real or unreal … just to relish one more time the amber apricots which grow in the dry wintry mountains of the Himalaya. Can’t find Ladakhi apricots for love or money nowadays.
COME Diwali and my mother dear would be sure to make some of the Guju specialities of melt in the mouth “magas” (besan sweet) and “gugraa” (fat ivory crescents stuffed with a fine choora of semolina, poppy seeds, golden raisins, cardamom)…there were also the savoury snacks of “chevdo” and “shakarpalla” and “thikki sev.” I used to help her make all these things once upon a time and now she is just not here, gone with the wind, and every time Diwali comes around I remember her.
Those days women were just housewives or homemakers and mothers constantly anxious about what to cook to feed small or big families three and four times a day (including teatime). Those days are gone for better or worse, I can’t for the life of me make up my mind!
AT the Marriott resort cake shop I find they’re doing designer dry fruit too: how about coconut and “jaggery almonds, ghoda masala spiced cashews, kaffir lime and lemon pecan, thecha cashew nuts”? I wish most of the dry fruit wouldn’t come salted though, even if mildly salted! I prefer my dry fruit unsalted. Salted may be tasty but feels one with a terrible thirst. Does anyone else think so?
Frankly, if you’re asking me, I’d rather get basket full of fruit or veggies for Deepavali celebrations! I used to do that once upon a time in Bombay which has become Mumbai, just buy cucumbers, tomatoes and mangoes and bunches of greens (dill greens, sour palak, ambadaya greens, yellow turmeric and amba haldi too)…of course in Goa I would include the large thin-skinned fragrant lemons including a gondaraj! Well. Happy Deepavali, my friends, light a few diya with rice bran oil for good luck in 2027.