This, That and Some More

Picture Courtesy: Bongeats Kolkata is where home and heart both are, Gunter Grass had a love hate relationship with Kolkata and Dominique LaPierre labelled it as 'City of Joy' and it truly is a joy to be home ensconced in the warm welcome of family and friends. Here, the people are harried yet politically aware with a vague sense of dissatisfaction around them, phrases like "eyi chole jachche" (it's going on) or "benche aachi" (I am alive) are common responses when asked "How are you?" I have always been saying that France resembles Bengal and before I could articulate that thought, it was written by someone else , anyway people like to complain about the politics, weather, transport, rising prices and whatever else is worth complaining about. The city is culturally aware, progressive in thoughts and actions, has an exuberant expression of art and creativity during festivals, it has a street dedicated to book shops and a road dedicated to worsh...

Image Courtesy: Times of India A few cities have a food or a snack which defines the city and what it stands for, for example if one was playing guessing games and if 'Vada Pav" was mentioned, nine out of 10 times the person guessing would say 'Mumbai' as is 'Croissant' for 'Paris' and perhaps 'Roll' for 'Kolkata'. There may be others as well like 'Idly' for 'Chennai', 'Bagel' for 'New York' and so on. Mumbai is an ever-growing city which is bursting at it's seams and has about twenty million people, the city has a frenetic pace and people are always spending time traveling from here to there. Local trains are the lifeline of this city and people (seven million daily) spend a significant amount of time on trains, they form friendships, save seats for special people (if they can), do their vegetable shopping and cutting in the train to save time so that when they reach home, what was chopped can be wa...

Picture Courtesy - TripAdvisor   I have a Varanasi hangover and it refuses to leave me - I have recently returned from an amazing trip to Varanasi - an ancient, complex and unique city with so much of vibrant energy and positivity. while this city has a lot of temples which are on most travelers "to do" lists, the city is equally known  for its vast selection of street food. Every nook, corner and alleyway has food outlets tucked into a tiny niche, effortlessly dishing out their creations. Varanasi has many flavors, in mornings there is kachori-sabzi-jalebi - the holy grail of all breakfasts, chai and butter toast, choti kachori and you could have a few more variations around the same. These are primarily sold in the mornings after which the shops shut for a snooze and preparations for the evening menus. Most of these shops reopen in the evenings where they sell samosas, tikkis, bread pakaoras, bhajias and of course there are more shops specializing in various kinds of chaats...

After spending eight years in Bombay, Irani cafes were still virgin territory for me, something which I had read about in every single publication, heard about from many friends and acquaintances yet somehow never had the opportunity to go and discover the much talked about culinary delights they served. To add to my worries, I also kept reading that most such institutions were shutting down or selling out to make way for the retail boom in the space starved south Bombay. On 14th August my husband and I were in South Bombay for some work and we made desperate calls to friends and acquaintances to tell us about an Irani cafe in the vicinity - a Google search may have yielded better results though! Some friends were vegetarian and did not know about any while others were vague about directions, one last call was fruitful though and the kind gentleman told us the exact location and said that Britannia would be closest to where we were. After a few misses and wrong turns we did finally fin...