Old City

I can’t eat Bun Maska again for a long time.

Just like Dora the Explorer, I went about with my tiny bag pack and minimal sense of direction towards the old city area of Ahmedabad. The last time I visit those dusty streets probably. The eight decade old New Irani Café had the butteriest delicious bun maskas, with a milky chai that was sweeter than dessert, waiters who could balance numerous teacups with saucers and a mid-morning throng of local customers. There were no other tourists; that gained me many pitiful stares as I took aesthetic pictures of their chai-stained table; oh well. The meal gave me a headache and a sugar rush – and it was just breakfast.

Travel is not my passion; I do not enjoy a self-imposed change in my environment or living out of a bag pack. At the same time, I enjoy trying out new cuisines in their place of origin. This includes melt-in-your mouth paneer tikka and parathas in Amritsar, rotlis and aamras in Gujarat, the softest idlis from Coimbatore, or even fresh bread from an Iyer’s bakery in Bangalore. God knows sambhar above the tropic of cancer is not sambhar at all. It is not a life goal; I don’t think it would be financially prudent to chase food for a living when I have no qualification or culinary talent. Yet, it does give me ample time to think of the stories behind these much-loved preparations.

Why was I touring Ahmedabad twice in one week? Because I have now left my home of twenty months on campus. Only to spend some time with my family, before the next phase of my life starts. Some days I would spend hours pondering whether I made the most of my college days, or did I nap too much? On other days, I look at my friends who keep trudging forward on grad trips and pre-work internships, without feeling the need to micro-analyze the past and decide to do the same. I have passed a course on making the most of the remains of my day, so might as well. This includes weekly trips to Society Bakery for fresh cream buns and fancy pastries, childhood treats that I would fight my sister for. Somehow, even if I can buy as many as I want now, it doesn’t taste as good as the once-in-a-quarter cream bun I had to painstakingly share with her when I was younger.

I think food has meaning, history and relative value- the harder it is to get, the more it’s worth. This can change across time and place – nothing tastes as good as Maggi on a cold winter night, even though the product Maggi is standardized. The first meal you cook by yourself grants more satisfaction than any five-star buffet (may not taste half as good though). Food is one of my father’s (and as per social media, many South Asian fathers’) ways of pampering me. It is in pieces of vadas, bananas, apples and bread rusks that he slyly shifts onto my plate. Even more fun is stealing little morsels of the puran poli filling when my grandmother is making them, or a bite off my friend’s chocolate Cornetto because mine is butterscotch. It’s not a give and take though, I am infamous for refusing to share food (cue Joey.gif).

My mother exclaims – “the tiny stomach demands so much attention, and hunger makes people do the unthinkable”. While it’s true that we need livelihoods to sustain us, there are livelihoods that hunger sustains. As reminded by the Chinese fishing nets on the Kochi backwaters, spotted while on a cruise with my Austrian friend (who has currently seen more of India, Kerala and Kochi than me). The waves of the Arabian sea are strong and formidable, and I realized that despite being a localite, I am more prone to seasickness (and have a lower spice tolerance) than the chap who grew up in Salzburg. Yet, it was energizing being at sea, despite the blaring DJ and dancing old people who made up the rest of the cruise. Even when I move to another tropical coastal city, I know there will be food, people, and stories to add meaning to my corporate drill life – and I hope I can offer more than an okayish cup of chai by then.

PS: More than a month delay from the last blog because my heart literally couldn’t handle the craziness of the many endings and beginnings, in case anyone was wondering.