Category Archives: india
Pilgrimage to Bandra
I don’t quite remember which Mumbai friend first introduced me to Pani Puri at Elco Market in Bandra. Whoever you are, I am eternally grateful. Over the past couple of years, as I visited Bombay on my bi-monthly business trips, I would always somehow make time for my pilgrimage to Bandra and Elco Market. Now that I live here, I am trying to limit my pilgrimages to one weekly trip.
I didn’t even know how much I liked pani puri until I tried this dish here. It’s technically street food. Here at Elco, you have a sense of cleanliness (real or imagined). The guy who’s actually dishing out the pani puri wears a clean ,disposable glove – at least on the one hand that dips the puri into the spicy and sweet water to make it whole and complete. And, I heard (but never verified) that they use bottled or filtered water to make the pani. That can be pretty important. But nothing is quite as important as sheer taste!
For the uninformed and uninitiated, Pani Puri consists of taking tiny, crisp puris and dipping each in an equal amount of sweet/tart and spicy water, then handing it quickly over to the customer. Included in the puri will be a small amount of boiled lentil. Said customer then puts the entire water-filled puri in his or her mouth and gulps it down. At Elco, they don’t serve you a plate where you make your own. You stand around the pani puri counter where the pani puri guy makes each masterpiece himself – with just the right amount of sweet and spicy water – for you to wait your turn and just gobble down.
Seshram Serving Up Delicious Pani Puri at Elco Market; Photo by vishalphotography.com
One “plate” of pani puris at Elco consists of six servings or puris. Most people settle for one plate and then branch out to some of the other goodies that are being freshly prepared. Some graduate to maybe two plates and you can sometimes see on their faces that that was more than they had bargained for.
But not moi. If I don’t have three full plates at each visit, then there’s something truly wrong with me. Each tiny puri is power-packed with taste and flavor. It is crisp yet succulent. It is spicy yet sweet. It is minimal yet full. It is simply, food ecstacy. Of course, this is just my humble opinion. You would think I am describing something else altogether! But, I insist that I’m not.
On your next visit to this city, see if you can find some time to make your own pilgrimage to Elco Market at Bandra. It will be worth it. This review shows what other goodies you can find there. And, here at this photo blog is another great picture of the pani puri at Elco (scroll down and you can’t miss it!), in addition to some wonderful and colorful pictures of Mumbai. Enjoy!
Home again
After a few weeks in India, I returned home to the US for a short visit. It’s absolutely the perfect time to be here – Spring time. After a stormy week, the weather is now that rare form of perfection – neither hot and humid nor cold and rainy. Just. Perfect. Everywhere I look around my sleepy, sunny, wonderful town I see the vibrant, fresh green of spring and blooming bright flowers – the season of new.
Fresh Green Spring!
This crisp morning, it feels fabulous to decompress with a great, big cuppa American coffee. (Yes, I know it’s really Colombian, but let’s not fuss a detail). Every morning and every afternoon that I am here, I’ve promised myself this indulgence. Followed in the evening by a nice glass of a Napa Valley cabernet, perhaps?
It’s so quiet and peaceful here. There’s a gentle breeze blowing. There’s literally not a soul stirring, as I sit here early in the morning, enjoying the nothingness and writing away.
Soon, I will get ready and go out. I don’t have to wait for my driver to arrive. I just get in my car and drive wherever I need to go. There will be no honking horns blaring and breaking the silence. No morning prayer chants broadcast over the neighborhood loud speakers. Actually, no neighborhood loud speakers! And traffic jams? We don’t have those here either. Just people politely driving in straight lines within the lanes that have been painted for them, on roads without potholes the size of their car, giving others the right of way as needed, without blinking or cursing or just plowing ahead.
What a world of difference from the other city that never sleeps! Mumbai, you are probably thinking right now, how boring.
It’s quite fascinating that you have two places where the contrasts are so stark and severe. (When you think about it though, you could actually say that about virtually any two places you randomly pick from around the world). More, I feel fortunate about experiencing both these places – in effect, at the same time.
I’m not talking about just visiting two diverse (and random!) places, but actually living in two contrasting worlds, leaving to go to “the other side” when the time has come. Today, as I savor this crisp morning air, the time to leave is not yet here, but I know that it will be, soon enough.
I wonder today, will I ever yearn for life in Mumbai after I have been there long enough? Time will tell, I guess. That frenetic pace and animated motion, the grime and the smell, the noise and the traffic, so many things to do in so little time and what seems like millions of people everywhere, anywhere you look.
Yearn or not though, I promise myself that I will make the most of my time in Mumbai.
And, as for my visits back to my US home, why, I will make the most of them too.
Just consider me two times lucky.
The Yin and Yang of Life Anywhere 