On Bhel, Samosa, Wada Pav, Cutting Chai etc.

What is the first thing one feels like doing, after months of starvation and undernutrition at the hands of university food services ? Of course, you feel like having a nice hot and spicy wada pav with a cutting tea at a bus drivers' canteen. So that's what Hoga and I did as soon as we got the chance. So here we were, eating samosa and wada pav and sipping a cutting chai (although slurping would be a more closer description of the way you are supposed to drink boiling tea making those "phluuurrrrrr" sounds) at the foodmall (well not quite a busdrivers' canteen but close enough) at 3 am in the morning. I followed this up with a session of Kanda bhaji (Onion Dumplings) and Mirchi bhaji (Green Chilli dumplings).

And while eating all these snacks we were discussing what else we are going to eat once we reach Pune - Things like Bhel, Sabudana Khichadi, Bedekar Misal, etc. And I did eat all these things on the same day that I landed in India. It was just great. Although, it must have been a tough job for my stomach to digest everything that was being pushed into it.

Do I appear to be a gluton ? I have become one after going to the US... NO NO. It's not "The american food" that's made me a gluton. It's the almost complete and forced abstenance from Indian food that has done it. Do you find this weird ? Then I am sure you are not from a family where your mom and dad cook all sorts of wonderful things for you and you just don't understand how great chefs they are and you eat Bhel, pani puri, samosa chat and Kachhi dabeli almost every evening, complaining about how it is becoming more and more expensive (from Rs. 3/- per Dabeli to Rs. 4/- per Dabeli) till one day you find yourself standing in front of a food counter in the Frist campus Center in Princeton, trying to figure out what would taste less boring now that you have consumed everything on the menu at least 10 times already, day after day. Then you will know what I am talking about...