From Time to Time

A city of the stature of Bombay is forever in the process of reinventing itself. Thus even if in colonial times it may have stood for the urbanization and the resultant prosperity that the British brought to India, in another historical moment an aerial shot of the blanket of asbestos roofs over the slums of Dharavi will have been put alongside glorious images of the Marine Drive to imply the funny realities of a country living in ironies. The truth is that the dynamics of this great city are such that in no point of time in history can Bombay totally stand for one thing alone nor can a few emblems crystallize all that life on this union of seven islands is about. Even in this present day, for the foreigner, Bombay is a reluctant global city with high hopes and poor infrastructure, while for its own citizen it evokes pride and the best of what this country has to offer. However, what has remained constant through this long and continuous process of change and reinvention is the way the third group views Bombay – not the foreigner, or the Bombayite, but the average Indian born and bred outside this city. For years, for this group, Bombay has been and continues to be a land of promise – of the basic necessities of man, of two meals a day, of – essentially – food.

Though I do not belong to the third group of persons, I am fascinated by a particular anthropological way that attempts to define a piece of land and a collection of people in relation to its favourite food items. And though I do not seek to do that either (for we have already agreed upon the impossibility and hence the un-necessity of attempting to define a city of the stature of Bombay), what I really would love to do is plainly talk about the unique food of this city that has so made me fall in love with it over the years. But again I find myself limited. I cannot give you an encyclopedic account of the origins, or even the recipes, of the various dishes that Bombay is famous for. Even if I decide to narrow down the scope to just one favourite dish of mine, there is still such a lot I cannot do justice to. So what I can – and will – do is simply tell you the story of my personal relationship with this “one favourite dish of mine” – Pav Bhaji (that, as you may have noticed, with its name in two parts has already started to sound like an actual person).

A day many, many years ago when I was still a kid, and my parents used to take me to a nearby Udipi restaurant on the main road just off my house on weekends or other special days, must have been when I first tasted this dish. And though I don’t remember it, I can vividly see myself forming an immediate bond with it. What I do remember, however, is asking my father on our way into that restaurant one evening why there always was a separate corner outside every fast-food joint where Pav Bhaji was prepared while the rest of the items were made in the proper kitchen sheltered from public view inside the hotel. And again, what I don’t remember is his answer… which, as a matter of fact, may have partly been because I was too preoccupied with gobbling down pavs after pavs once we were settled in the restaurant to have my mind open for any of his words of wisdom.

In fact, if you go to see, there’s not much to this story of my personal relationship with Pav Bhaji other than memories of myself gobbling down pavs after pavs and keeping up a regular demand for more till I had licked the very last speck of the bhaji off the plate. And still, to me, this dish today is not just about satisfying either my hunger or my taste buds. I can give you detailed accounts of evenings when the sight of that steamy plate of bhaji put under my downcast eyes in the Udipi restaurant, accompanied by two pavs dipped in a pool of melted butter, lit my face up and ended days of melancholy. Lately I’ve been to grand five-star hotels but always longingly thought back on modest Pav Bhaji while I was at tasteless, continental dinner. Over the years I’ve also grown to look beyond that one Udipi restaurant on the main road just off my house and appreciate the Pav Bhaji of Bombay as a whole. I’ve come to believe that there is something inherent about this dish that no chef will ever be able to take away from it no matter how hard he tries – that is, however, so long as we’re talking of Bombay (and here I once again see the latent and interesting connection between the food and the people of a place).

Vikram Seth, while paying homage to Music in his book An Equal Music, wrote, “Why ask for happiness; why hope not to grieve? It is enough, it is to be blessed enough, to live from day to day and to hear such music – from time to time.” I would say the same about good food, for, as a post-teen and a young adult, many more days of melancholy are yet to come. And isn’t good food as sublime as music in any case? A foodie like me would agree. The more I think of what Seth said the more I get the answer to my own question to my father years ago. Pav Bhaji, to me today, is the queen of all of Bombay cuisines. And hence you’ll find a special corner given to her outside all fast-food joints so her aroma doesn’t have to waft all the way out of the kitchen in order to make hurrying passersby halt, turn towards the beauty and then walk in perhaps. These passersby of Bombay do not have pretences of hurrying. The rush is genuine. But once in a while we all need to stop, don’t we? And relax. What better than a plate of Pav Bhaji that is really enough to have from time to time, as one lives from day to day – in this city of Bombay?

- Siddhesh Inamdar
siddhesh.inamdar@gmail.com