Bye Bye Bombay: Looking back - The food

Bombay has an amazing variety on offer to the ones who love their food. From star hotels, to specialist restaurants to road side shops, there is everything to take care of ones diverse palate. I was extremely lucky to roam around a lot with Sid and Sonal, who are people who simply love their food and who know the right places in Bombay for the right kind of food.

Here is a list of some places I have been lucky to visit.

The new years eve of 2004-2005 was spent at the Orchid in Chembur with my best friends here in Bombay and so it would be always special for me. It has a good ambience and a very good Italian cuisine on offer; 5 spices in VT is the place to be for Chinese food. Grand Central near chembur railway station has the best ‘butter chicken’ in the world- which has been disputed by my friend Ritesh, more on him later. Rice boat –of the Western express highway in Bandra gives me good Kerala food, though it’s a trifle too expensive.

Don’t look beyond Nooranis at Haji Ali for Biryani and round it off with some juice and cream at the nearby Haji Ali juice centre. Mahesh lunch home in Matunga is the place to go if you want a heavy duty Tamilian lunch. That has been my haunt whenever I had been to the Aurora movie hall nearby to catch a Tamil flick.

Having resided in the suburb of Vashi for a year and a half, I have frequented almost all the hotels there. The Centre one Mall has every kind of food under its roof, from fast foods to fat foods( McDonalds) to South Indian to Ice creams to Coffee shops.Dosa plaza at the Vashi station complex serves about 100 varieties of dosas, of which many of them are, believe it or not patented.

No mention of the food culture in Bombay is incomplete without the mention of the roadside chaat shops. These are omnipresent and do thriving business. At first glance these shops look low on hygiene and you would be justified in thinking twice before having anything from these shops. But then all of Bombay is polluted and soon you would be immunized to such stuff. So don’t think twice and go ahead and gulp down on the spicy pani puris on offer. The joy of gulping down those small spicy puris one after the other in rapid succession is just too good.

Getting back to Ritesh, I am sure that the best food that I have had in Mumbai has to be ones that he cooked. Whenever we have had a party at his house, he has simply delighted us with his offerings. Cooking is a passion for him and it shows in the variety of dishes that he makes for us. Be it a completely Indianised pasta, some innovative starters, finely cooked mutton or dessert, this guy is simply amazing. Whenever I am browsing through a PG Wodehouse novel and read Bertie Wooster describing the French cook Anatole’s out of the world cooking, I am able to relate to Bertie. Because he might well be raving about Ritesh.

Bye Bye Bombay: Looking back - The Local Trains..

The great city of Bombay (Mumbai) has been my home for the past year and a half.
In a week’s time I would be moving out of this city and going back to Madras(Chennai), my home town. Even though I am completely overjoyed at this development, I am sure I would in more ways than one miss this amazing city. This has to be the most happening, lively and exciting city in the whole country. I have never been to Delhi, have seen only parts of Bangalore and Hyderabad , and while each of these cities claim to be the most happening place, I cannot imagine any other city giving out so much of energy and spirit that Bombay exudes. True, the city has its filth, its slums, it’s never ending traffic jams, pollution, hopeless infrastructure and much more, but it also has a spirit of joy, happiness and helping one another that is so infectious. Many cities call themselves as the city that never sleeps. That description would fit Bombay more than any other Indian city. Over the next few days planning to write about a few things about Bombay that I would miss…

First up, the Local trains

When I say I would miss the trains it is the experience of being part of the lifeline of Bombay that I refer to. Madras also has a suburban rail network but they are a distant cousin to Bombay local trains which defy any sort of logic. Unlike other suburban rail networks which may have a peak hour and lean hour, a busy sector and not so busy sector, a traffic intensive direction and otherwise, the Bombay local trains are as a rule, always full, irrespective of the day, hour and direction of the train( towards town or towards suburbs).

The sight of these beasts thundering into the station with people hanging out of the doors, some of them standing on the windows and many perched on top, perilously close to the ‘touch me - you die’ electric wires is one of the most unforgettable images for me. The agility that the old, the women and the impossibly small kids display in getting into a fairly fast moving train as it swims into the platform has to be seen to be believed. The joy and satisfaction that one gets when he is able to successfully squeeze into one of these packed trains and manage to get a seat is just unmatchable.

When people talk of New York they say that if you spend some time at Times square, you get to see people from all over the world. Along the same lines, if you travel in a local train for some time, you would get to meet people from all over India. One day I counted as many as 6 different vernacular newspapers being read by fellow travelers in just one small section of my compartment. That’s people from 6 states among a sample size of say 20. Truly National.

On the flip side, there also would be verbal duels, scuffles and fistfights many a time on the train as all the trouble of getting into the train, finding a place to stand and getting down at the right station get into people’s heads. Unless you are party to the duel, such fights make the journey more interesting, providing you some good entertainment.

I was lucky to be boarding the train at the origin station ( the7:34 am Vashi to CST local is my train) and so would be able to get myself a prized place near the door and hang out of the train with one half of me inside and the other outside. You may wonder as why I don’t get myself a seat if at all the train was originating from my place; the reason is that I have to get down at the fourth station and so if at all I sit down, it would be virtually impossible for me to dodge the crowd standing inside the train / the crowd waiting to get in at the destination station and get down during the 10 seconds that the train halts. By the time the train reaches the second station it would be filled to the seams with absolutely no space to stand even. At the station where I get down, there would always be a huge mass of people waiting to board this full train. To a new observer this would look like a task tougher than any of the ones that Hercules managed in his life, but what amazes me everyday is that, these people do manage to get into this train, which chugs on unmindfully to the next station to take in another chunk of people.

These trains for me are in more ways than one a true reflection of the city. They are always crowded but accommodative, even though they are not cared for they are dependable and trustworthy - there is a train to serve you almost 24*7.They are a microcosm of the country and carry on unmindful of the abuse, dirt and filth that they are subjected to.

Next up - Eating out in Bombay...