Monotony is a killer. Bored of scribbling about the so called society, it’s people, movies, ideologies, etc. I unintentionally ignored a very prominent angle of mine i.e. food. So here I come…from restaurants that would obviously offer the best of everything to getting the best of certain dishes in the most unexpected places, I share my foody experiences with you.
Let me warn you, I am no Vir Sanghvi or a trotter who’s been to some countryside eatery in Istanbul and would go gaga about some almost alien dish.
Let me go down the memory lane. As a kid, I trotted quite a lot with parents. I was too young when we visited Ooty and to have been able decipher the taste of food we ate there, but all I remember that I had this enticing chocolate flavoured tea. It almost felt like I was having bar of Dairy milk!
Come jawani and the travel bug bit me. I started venturing out on my own. With friends, for work, no work…
I have these preconceived notions about hills, notion because I still don’t know if it’s a fact. One of them…that hills have some of the best bakeries. I bumped into the most succulent apple pies in Mussoorie. One bite and it melts in your mouth. Quite unlike those apple pies they give you in CCDs. Ohh it doesn’t end here, the pasta alone was something that will take me to Mussoorie again. Penne cooked in a weird sauce neither red nor white (instead an orange sauce), but tasted divine. The chocolate chips were something I could die for. And as you relish the fruit cream, you have Pink Floyd, Elvis Presley, Bob (both Marley and Dylan) and posters of Casablanca and the likes staring at you from the walls. The owner is this 50 year old globetrotting rocker chap who picked these from all over the world. Chic Chocolate is what the place is called. Keep walking on the mall road till you reach the ropeway. Take the way up. Cross Dominos and CCD as the road takes a left turn towards landour bazaar. Spot the place on your left. Oh ya…they have some heavenly homemade white chocolates too!
Great food is always a value add to any trip. And all the more, when you get to have the most delicious dishes in the most unlikely places.
If Hrishikesh was one level less beautiful, I would never have the urge to go there twice. It’s vegetarian!!! Isn’t that enough? And the well known local chain Chotiwala offers quite yucky food. Let’s face it…food IS a problem for budget travelers in Hrishikesh. Until you force yourself to get into one of those groovy German cafeterias only to bump into Firangs doing bumbhole! The fussy me pokes from inside at the most appropriate times. Questions like hygiene, what if they serve doggy meat and the ilkes come up when I can kill for food. I gathered courage and climbed up those stairs before laxmanjhula begins. In the next 30 minutes, I realized it was not any place, It was a place that was very close to heaven. With the best spinach soup and the rebellious Ganga on my right, it was nirvana. From the briken glass window, a monkeys tried to figure out what was there in my bowl and went off looking disappointed. The soup, I thought could give a run to soups served in Mainland China. The vegetable salad came to my table as an enlightenment that mayonnaise and dressings are useless. How just vinegar can do wonders to a salad. The cookies and pies I packed to binge on my journey back to Delhi were simply out of the world. When you the reach the non-temple end of laxmanjhula, face the jhula and look at your left. Climb up the staircase to reach the last little dingy cafeteria called German bakery. Heaven’s really close from here. Trust me!
Life really throws up some delightful surprises. How about a dash of orient in the rustic state of Rajasthan? I prepared myself for gatte ki subzi and roti for the next three days when I started. Day 1 and 2 were ordeals in the government lodge with mix veg (lauki and aloo mix). The last day I headed to this private lodge that had a red brick building. Out of a dozen resorts on the same road why did I choose that one. My weakness towards red brick building since DU makes me pick one whenever given a choice. And DU saved me again! We played it safe and ordered for noodles and chicken chilli. They took close to an hour to serve it on our table. The chef probably went to poultry to pick a chicken, marinated it, cooked before he could serve it right on our table. And trust me I’ve never had such wonderful chilli chicken. It might have been miles away from being authentiv but who cares! We spend almost 5 times the money for those Chinjabi preparations in Golden Dragon and Chungwa! Juicy, spicy to the right level and you could feel the freshness in every bite. There was this big Delhi family goring on dal makhni, navrattan korma and roti, I looked at them and kept saying, “they don’t know what they are missing” till I got scolded to shut up and just enjoy. As you turn take the right towards the park gate keep left. You will spot only one red brick building. Welcome to China!
I confess, I can go till any extent for food. This was till I turned a health freak one month back. (man I’m into serious gymming n all!) So I was as game heading to Chandni Chowk for a lunch as well as walk down to city walk for a lunch buffet at spice market.
Delhi never disappoints foodies. Let’s start with the never ending list of street food. Bengali market offers the best chaat in town. No debates on that. For the non finicky on taste and extremely hygienic ones Sona sweets in Nehru Place offers some of the best chaats in town. Reach the famous golchakkar climb up the stairs and take a left to spot a big hogging crowd. You really can’t trust Sona for rabri faluda. And we shouldn’t be blaming the south Indian proprietor for this. For the most authentic rabri faluda you have to travel some 20 kms. Head to Chandni Chowk Take a rickie, go straight till the fatehpuri chowk then take a right and keep going straight. On your right, you will see this really dedicated guy making lassis. Only if you haven’t eaten for the last 3 days, try a glass and move ahead to spot a queue on your left. No it’s not a ticket queue; it’s the queue to heaven. Yes! You need to really behave and stand quietly in the line to experience the world’s best rabri faluda. 45 bucks??? Isn’t that expensive for chandni chowk? No it’s too cheap a ticket to heaven! Since you’ve started your meal dessert, Let’s head towards Jama Masjid for food! Karim’s ! bus naam hi kaafi hai! Coming back to street food, the guy in ber sarai market gives the best momos in the south. Try them in those foggy winter evenings! Now that we are close to the airport, let’s fly to Kolkata for the next round of foochkas and rolls. Try out any foochkawalla across the city, each one guarantees better taste than the other one. Only one place in Delhi has the same foochkas…reach the malviya nagar main market, cross the kotak ATM, The more intellectual ones head towards coffee house, any of the two and order a chicken omelet! Eggs fried in lavish oil stuffed with succulent breast strips of chicken! And all this for less than 20 bucks! Welcome to Kolkata! My impatience to hog on those egg and chicken rolls took a toll on me when I paid some 200 bucks to buy a couple of ‘Kolkata chicken rolls’ on my flight to Kolkata. I wish I had waited for a couple of hours more! But anyways those cold, stale and tasteless ‘Kolkata chicken rolls’ could’t do any harm to my enthu. On reaching, I headed straight to the best roll guy in town on Lindsay street. If you knew the old weekender store (now changed to something else), or take the connecting lane that has scoops to reach Lindsay Street. The van is on your right. Order and take a seat. The total waiting time is 5 mins at max even in the rush hours. The rolls leave me speechless. The noodles are no less. Oh ya! And when you are in Kolkata delete the word calorie from your dictionary. That should help. For restaurants, I prefer 6 Ballygunge Place. Yes it’s the name and the address both! All I would say about the food here is these folks are giving the Oh! Calcutta monopoly a good run for their money. And their Lunch buffet has a welcome drink too!
Talking about metropolis, my life has been mostly spent in Kolkata and Delhi. So whatever I know will be of these two cities. Kindly bear!

This blog has already become too big. And I cant wait to upload it So will talk about the rest in my next blog/ Stay tuned!

Half a day

More than movies it’s my passion for cooking that often takes me to the neighbouring Basant Lok (better known as Priya) complex. Because of it’s location, the complex is blessed with two very upmarket departmental stores where you get everything from all over the world. Apart from these, a few stores, my bank, a few posh and not-so-posh restaurants, coffee shops & pubs and of course the very warm single screen PVR populate this little hangout. A personal favourite since JNU days, I’m still a regular here. The mood is different, unlike malls where it’s too much of concrete everwhere. Especially in the lazy winter afternoons when you can just walk around with (or without) a coffee. I can go on and on about it…

So my Valentines’ in-house dinner once again took me to Le Marche on the D-day. And this blog is all about what I saw in there! My enlightenment on how love truly catches up on this day and how primitive I still am.

Young men with young women, young men with not-so-young women, young women with not-so-young men, people wearing satin shirts and white shoes, girls in skirts, many of them in no skirts! Women with flowers holding their partners hands…the whole world around seemed to be madly in love. It was more like the prelude of the movie ‘Love Actually’, and it felt like the cupid has injected a love ‘n’ life tonic to the old & lazy multiplex complex. I wanted to find another person roaming single, I realized, I had no other option but to look into a mirror. People stared at me with ‘Whatcha Loser’ look as I walked around. By the time my shopping was complete, I felt a li’l kick inside my stomach. No, not a baby, it was hunger this time! A coffee shop was the safest place to be, because all restaurants were full of love-birds. I was delighted to see two more singletons reading books and listening to music as I walked into the corner coffeeshop. Finally, I said to myself, “Oh dude no worries for you’re not the only one.” Found myself a table by the window with some lazy, semi-sleepy sun rays trying to peep in through the clear halves of the very artistically designed, zigzagged glass window of the shop. Amazing it was, I thought. The other two singletons (one male and one female) gave me a look and exchanged looks as I placed my order. I opened my book and placed my earphones setting my favourite FM channel. It was wonderful. The sun kept playing hide n seek, the kids kept running around, they played love songs on the FM channel…life was perfect. I drowned myself in the ocean of thoughts while flipping through the pages of the book. People walked in and out and that kept me busy enough not to concentrate in the book. Questions, questions and more questions came to my mind. Why Valentines? Why a day for love? Are these people all in love? All committed? Or just playing around for a day? Or they just don’t want to be single?
There were so many people around, and I watched each one of them with an aquarian’s observational skills. The single guy had calls every five minutes, he’d leave his Chetan Bhagat bestseller, take the call and move out, I saw him wiping tears, must be missing his woman on the day of love. The single woman, on the other hand looked quite liberated,. She read a book and kept making notes and drank water from her strinkingly red Nike sipper that drew everybody’s attention! A young couple walked in, the girl must be my age, she looked prettiest in Priya’s I thought,. She was dressed in a subtle pink chiffon saree for her man. Her man helped her seat herself as she finely adjusted her plates and made herself comfortable in one the couches. Have I ever done something like this for my man? Sweet. I thought. Then there was this Indian nerd guy with this Japanese girl who was so confused about the whole deal that she wasn’t able to choose her coffee. Then walked in a duo of these supposedly very hot English women with a kid. Couldn’t figure out if one them was the mother of the kiddo! Suddenly this very posh middle aged couple walked in. the lady was too prim to even like the place. She somehow managed to find a place and made faces that clearly said, when the hell can I get outta here!

I was deep in my own little world when the sandwich and the coffee arrived. That brought me back to the day! When I thought the world is in love and why do I have to hate it? If people are walking hand in hand, loving to be in each others arms for a day what harm does it do to anybody? They are not killing people, planting bombs around, they are not moral policing anybody, they aren’t into obtaining sadistic pleasures watching people die with bombs placed any and everywhere.

So what do we human beings want, we don’t want hatred, neither do we want love! I hated seeing people walking hand in hand, I ridiculed couples who lost themselves in each other’s eyes. I thought they were mad, and they thought I was mad, the feeling was mutual though. But what’s it that we exactly want? No love, No hatred? These couples whom I made fun of, are they killing people? No! Are they spreading terror and tears? Are they making you lose you loved, near & dear ones? NO!

Let’s just let them be! If they are not hassling us, why are we even trying to poke? We might be happy with the way we are! Why can’t we let them spread more and more love all over. Amen.

I finished food and walked off, I’ve had quite a day, I thought!

The question is WHY.

When it comes to my taste in art and cinema I’m a total Bollywood propagator. Yes I’m all for Yash Raj chiffon romances, Farhan Akhtar’s reel-y real films, RGV’s cult films, Kunal Kohli’s ultrasmart films, Shyam Benegal’s arty films as well as unreal films like Jaane Tu… similarly I have a lot of faith on actors and definitely definitely Aamir Khan tops the list. He doesn’t make films, he does cinema. And why not? He has given people a lot more meaningful cinema than anyone else has. Starting from the rib tickling comedy Andaz Apna Apna to the hatke Taare Zameen Par he is definitely the “been there, done that” guy of Indian cinema.

And there comes his much awaited “Ghajini!” The story about this guy who suffers from short term memory loss (Remember that Tom guy in 50 First Dates?)and is driven by only one cause, take revenge from this Ghajini Dharmatma guy who killed his girlfriend. But how would do it? He forgets everything in 15 minutes! Remember short term memory loss? Well…another thing, he is a business tycoon and owns the country’s leading telecom service providing company. Now here’s a thought think about the day when all tycoons (with or without memory loss) get to taking revenge from some arbit small time criminal. Think of the country’s economy then? In recessionary times all business tycoons leave work and get to killing criminals! I mean will Mallya’s son or Narayana Murthy’s daughter do something of this sort?

Okay, and then a tycoon whom you have never seen on TV or read about in the newspapers! And which girl wouldn’t google a piece of information…I hate this over dumb and unreal portrayal of women. And then why revenge out of everything else…the whole nation is going ga-ga on Aamir, saying he has lived up to their expectations. What expectations? A movie where the hero looks scary and villainous than the villain! The chocolaty hero’s face haunted me throughout the night the day I went to watch it. And I mean if at all he was too eager to show off his 6-8-12-24 whatever pack abs, he could have very well done it a different movie, he could have chosen a different subject…for example the making of a body builder or something! The film might be making fat lollies at the box office but I see it as what Amitabh was to Boom. And these older heroes of ours…what do they want to prove making films opposite these new girls who are forever in awe of these men and it shows on screen! Ansd those Van Heusen suits! Those made Aamir look like Atal Vihari Bajpayee’s bodyguard! And they too are on the verge of becoming a rage in the nation. India gets moved by anything I swear, last time I visited a Van Heusen store, it was full of Ghajini suits. Imagine hunks around you walking around in look alikes of bulletproofs!

No wonder Mani Ratnam said Indians still need another 10 years to accept Dil Se
after Dil Se flopped in India. We are a country where a Sajjanpur flops but Ghajini will always be hit.

Jai Hind Jai Bharat.