I was standing outside my house in Ramgarh, Jharkhand, when Raju Bhai walked up. On his head, as always, was his pani puri khomcha and on h...
I was standing outside my house in Ramgarh, Jharkhand, when Raju Bhai walked up. On his head, as always, was his pani puri khomcha and on his left shoulder a wooden stand. His pani puris, what we called gupchup, were delicious but that wasn’t the only reason I admired Raju Bhai. He also had enviable knife skills. Before serving pani puris, he would teach me how to dice onions.
To a great extent, I have learned cooking from small dhaba owners and street vendors like Raju Bhai. Each time I visit the Chindian noodle or samosa-jalebi seller near my home, I learn how to make sweet batter or stuffing or something unexpected. Besides delicious food, they create permanent memories and flavours that reside on the palate forever.
I always loved street food but my respect for it grew when I moved from Ramgarh to Delhi. In the lanes of Malviya Nagar and Purani Dilli – two places that offer a range of street food, from Mughlai and Afghan to Bihari, Punjabi and Kashmiri – I became a student of it. I began to see patterns. I saw that urbanisation and migration had left inexorable imprints on food in the megacity. In Purani Dilli, Lucknow’s Nimish or...
