Vanshekha’s story:
I miss street food. I miss all tapri food. I wonder what I will eat first when this shit show is over and I can’t decide. I think I’ll just stay out for 24 hours to eat.
The last time I had tapri food was with my sister. We had pain puri and sutta after.
My sister got married some 3-4 years ago. I was so used to having a sibling around that it was hard. My relationship with her changed a lot. Marriage and additional responsibilities do that to a person. I can understand.
I also have a cousin who I am close to but never spent any substantial time with. Last year, we re-kindled our relationship. I found a sister again. And it’s amazing to have a sister again!
I still love my own sister an unmeasurable amount and I miss her. But we’re on very different pages now, things have changed. Maybe for the better. And I am not a spoilsport, I look at it as a new chapter. Things never stay the same and they shouldn’t be expected to.
My experience:
- I have been missing street food. I have been missing it so much, I’ve had conversations with people where we co-fascinate eating chola bhatura, pani puri, chicken tikka, and momos. If there is any food that has felt like home, it is street food
- In my brief time at the engineering college, where I enjoyed nothing, I discovered street food. I was low-key addicted to Chola Bhatura sold on the street right outside the campus by Raju chacha. After I quit engineering, I could not make myself go back even close to the campus. But I need the Chola and I needed to have it in the steel plate using newspaper as tissue paper. So I went around Pune tasting each and every Chola Bhatura I came across till one day *drum roll* I found a guy who made Chola just as addictive as Raju chacha’s. I have gone there every month since 2014.
- I had pain puri every day, and I mean EVERY day between the age of 10 and 14. The pain puri guy would pass from my colony at around 6 and wait for me if I were ever late. If I went out of Nagpur, I would tell him beforehand so he wouldn’t wait for me. This guy looked like a balding Rahul Roy (from Aashiqui) and I still can’t watch RR without missing Pain Puri wale bhaiyya.
- Vanshekha and I did not talk about why she wanted me to make a certain food. All she told me was that she misses street food. This conversation, like a stream running into a river, led us to talk about her sisters and change. It warmed my heart and made me thankful for people.
- I am not comfortable with change, it mimics abandonment so well, I scare me. So when Vanshekha started talking about her sisters and embracing change, I bookmarked the moments in my head to remember later when the need arises. So when she said she had pain puri with her sister at a tapri, I didn’t ask which sister, the sibling or the cousin. It didn’t matter.
Recipe
Call me an anarchist but I actually used a Rajma recipe to make Chola.
This one: https://www.indianhealthyrecipes.com/rajma-recipe-rajma-masala-recipe/
I learned that the thick, chola tasting curry actually has chola puree in it.
The only thing I changed about this recipe was that I put the Chola in a pressure cooker and cooked it till the cooker whistled thrice.
Kulcha recipe: https://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/kulcha/
I used regular cumin seeds instead of whatever black seeds are used in this recipe.