Adhi Potoba

Following my wedding on my last trip, I decided to take my firang wife to a city that offers a little more of the India that is promised in travel books than what Pune can offer. And after an impromptu flight to Jaipur, we settled in a generic hotel, the name of which escapes me at the moment. It was a quaint little place and by quaint I mean management had absolutely no interest in managing the it. It was the kind that makes your local lodge look like a 5 star hotel. The restaurant part of the hotel consisted of 7 tables haphazardly huddled into a room attached to a kitchen. The food however was spectacular. They had some pretty good pakoras, the likes of which I have never had before. Their cauliflower pakoras were especially memorable. My most memorable moment in said restaurant, however, was when I asked for some sugar to go with my coffee. I discovered some ants in my sugar and summoned the waiter immediately. As I referred him the ants in my sugar he gave me a look that suggest...

The year was 1988 and my mediocre performance in the SSC exams was followed by successful admission to the science stream at the prestigious Fergusson College with little help from my dear aunt who headed the Dept. of Physics. A decision she no doubt came to regret after going over my attendance record and my report card. As it is common knowledge, junior college is best attended as a casual student and yours truly took that piece of advice to heart. As a result, most of my time at Fergusson was spent either in deep, 'scholastic' discussions at Vaishali or under the eight odd tin sheds outside the main gate that served as two-wheeler parking. The bicycle stand was an excellent alternative to attending class, except for one problem — there wasn't any food readily available. However, all was not bleak among the Hero Hondas! Stationed right outside the gate of the ladies was a bhuttawala . With a pyramid of corn and a large bowl of live coals and the right combination of le...

After growing up in a land where every menu includes Chicken Manchurian, Sweet Corn-Chicken soup and Chopsuey, the Chinese food here in the US was a little bit of a let down. Sitting in my sad little student apartment in Syracuse, I could only dream about having a piping hot bowl of sweet corn chicken at the Pune University fountain or a spicy plate of Chicken Manchurian at the Oriental Room on Karve Road. I did find some relief in form of Chinese food in the most unlikely of places, the Carousel Mall . A seven-floored eyesore with a footprint of a ceiling fan that contained pretty much every store that could ever come from America’s flyover zones. You could buy a Macbook, a Midor Saw and some sexy lingerie, all under one roof. The food court stood on second floor of the mall with an gigantic old carousel, thus the name. The food court included all of America’s greatest names in generic mall food. Not to mention that fine family restaurant of silicone fitted spandex dolls, Hooters . On...

They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. In Pune, however, breakfast almost seems to be a second thought. It’s something you do between getting dressed for work or school and leaving the house. I for one have been brought up on a steady breakfast of Carbury’s drinking chocolate (the one that came in the blue tin) and Britannia Nice biscuits . (Hello diabetes!) Shoving the biscuits in my mouth and washing it down with chocolate milk hot enough to take the top layer off your gullet. All this mostly while the school bus would stand outside honking the horn and my mother, trying in vain, to ask the driver to wait just one more minute till her son got his shit together. Unfortunately, no matter how old you get or where you go in the world, breakfasts might change, but the chaotic morning scene remains the same. On the weekends however, we try to bring back some sanity to our lives and what better way to start than with a healthy, hearty sit-down breakfast. Ingredients 3 cu...

Once upon a time Pune was a small town with cute little houses. The traffic was manageable. The air was breathable air. And roads had no dividers. Fergusson college road was a beautiful street lined with Banyan trees and pretty much everything else was hunky dory. Much unlike the awful shit storm that FC Road has become today. A few things however have remained unchanged there. One of them, much to my delight, is a restaurant called Amrapli. As far back as I can remember, Amrapali was the place to go to for vegetarian fare. It is located off Fergusson College Road at the end of an access road right behind Hotel Roopali. It is very easy to miss as the only indication is a beaten up cantilevered neon sign, which must’ve worked at some point in time. A bicycle repair shop on one side and a scooter garage on the other guard the entrance to the access road. The entrance also featured a Lambretta , which I guess no one had claimed for decades, rusted and sunk half way into the ground. The le...

So my girlfriend and I finally tied the knot with a small ceremony in Pune last week and flew straight to Jaipur for our honeymoon. My wife wanted to live in a small place with lots of character so anything with the name Taj, Oberoi or Sheraton was out. We found this small hotel, Hotel Palms that must’ve been someone’s residence at one point. It was one of those hotels where the owners lost interest in running it just as soon as they acquired it, giving it the right amount of character and ample scope for comic relief that we were looking for. It came with notable amenities such as mosquitoes, an internet café that was open only between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m., a utilities shop that never opened the entire time that I was there and more staff than there were rooms none of whom were of any real help. On my first morning there, I woke up and ordered some tea. The tea came in a stained thermos with a jar of sugar cubes. The jar of sugar cubes had ants crawling all over the sugar. When I pointe...

Like any big art school my alma mater gave India many successful artists, sculptors, architects and creative directors. Of course, it wasn’t enough to be at par with everyone else, so Abhinav Kala Mahavidyalaya gave us something no other art school has produced—the deadliest gang of serial killers in the history of Pune city. Jakkal, Sutar, Shah and Jagtap were students of the commercial arts stream, the same major that produced the lack luster career of yours truly. The four went on a killing spree for 14 months between Jan 1976 and March 1977. Being evil is one this, but being stupid and evil just isn’t a good trait to have. The four were finally apprehended as suspicions arose when the foursome went and inquired about the progress of the investigation at police stations one time too many. The first victim of the infamous foursome was Prakash Hegde, the son of the owner of a small hotel, Vishwa. Situated behind the college. Prakash’s murder was the only claim to fame for this otherwi...

Hostelites, especially males, living in the Deccan area were really lucky to have the Lucky restaurant. Situated in the prime location of Deccan Gymnkhana, between Hong Kong lane and the Champion sports shop, it proudly served most of the Fergusson, B.M.C.C and M.E.S Garware college students. Of course, it was a popular dining spot for families, too. The structure of the restaurant was very similar to Café Good Luck, the other Irani restaurant on the block. It was divided into two sections. One served tea and snacks. And the other was for dining and families. Dining at Lucky (or Good Luck for that matter) took you back into the sixties. Mostly because it hadn’t been redecorated since the sixties. The design of the Formica on the tables was a mere suggestion of what it may have looked like 3 decades ago. The surface of most tables was so worn out that there were huge black spots caused by wear and tear. There were areas of the walls with extensive water damage and the ones that didn’t w...

Tilak Tank is known to most Puneites as the largest ‘natural’ swimming pool in Asia. What it really means is that this is the largest natural body of water where some dude had the brilliant idea of putting pavement around it and a few changing rooms. “Voila, now we can charge people money for this” he said. “Let’s put a statue of Lokmanya Tilak in the front call it Tilak tank.” It is true that Tilak Tank is large by any standards. And for the most part, pretty scary. It sits right off Prabhat Road boasting beautiful moss green water. Mostly on account of the abundant moss, algae and random freshwater flora. It is dotted by large schools of guppies that live in perfect harmony with bullfrogs, freshwater snakes, eels and some uncomfortably giant crabs. To emerge out of this cesspool disease free after a summer is a testament to one’s immune system. (Yours truly spent six summers in Tilak Tank, almost 5-6 hours a day). The tank is divided into different zones by depth. 3ft and 4ft are mea...

I remember of a simpler time when there was no flyover on Deccan Gymkhana, no Stock Exchange above the P.M.T bus stop and Chitale Bandhu was just a milkman. That’s right, Chitale bandhu had just a humble little store selling milk and milk products nestled snugly between Hong Kong lane and an HP petrol pump. Living in Pune, Chitale Bandhu Mithaiwale is an integral part of life, especially on holidays and during festivals. The smiling face of the 'kobra" Chitale behind the counter is still fresh in my memory. It has been in the family for many generations, but recently they have branched out into franchises. It was inevitable with the vagabond younger generation of Chitales. (They are friends of mine so I can say that). I remember that the line for sweets would stretch from Chitale all the way up to Lucky restaurant the day before a festival. Young and old alike would stand in the sweltering heat with tins to take home a litre of Basundi. I also remember celebrating the mediocr...

Long before Bhandarkar Road was mauled by malls, there was only one block with any commercial activity on the entire 1 km strip. It was the block opposite Sane Dairy and consisted of 6 completely unrelated stores. A food store named Ruchira. A tea house the name of which escapes me. A store that was split into two smaller businesses: M/s Joshi (the granary) and Snacks (the grocery). The Prince laundry. And then there was a bicycle repair shop and a car garage. In spite of this weird juxtaposition they all served the community in perfect harmony. Ruchira was the new kid on the block and had added a few extra items to his daily inventory to compete with the older, well known Snacks. The owner of Ruchira was a generously proportioned man with pitch black skin (and only partially visible at night), with an extremely cheery disposition. He would wave to you from behind the register whether you knew him or not. His offerings in terms of fresh ready-to-eat foods were very humble. A tray each ...

I have been meaning to pay a visit to the motherland for over a year now. Unfortunately, due to work constraints, it’s just not happening. And when it does happen, it will be an extremely short visit and I won’t be able to do all the things I have planned. Of course, the one thing I am dreading about going back is the breakfast, lunch and dinner engagements. As any sojourner making a return visit to India knows, you can’t leave unless you have consumed food with all your obscure relatives. And the funniest part is that they expect you to eat platefuls of stuff for breakfast knowing fully well that you have to be somewhere for lunch in a couple of hours. And this almost always means that I will be eating less of mom’s cooking. The simple, homemade comfort food I so desperately need. Like matar khichadi with lots of ghee and papad. Ingredients 1 1/2 cup Green Peas 1 cup Rice 1/2 tsp Mustard Seeds 1 Onion grated 2 tsp Goda Masala 1/2 tsp cumin powder 1/2 tsp Dhania 1 tsp Turmeric 1 tsp Ch...

Scanlynn and I recently paid a visit to a local South Indian eatery here on Curry Hill by the name of Tiffinwallah . It's a charming little place with a homey feel and decorated with 3-tier tiffins. It immediately brought back memories of school and my dabba wallah . As I tried explaining the concept of the Tiffinwallah to Scanlynn, I realized that the Indian tiffin delivery system that I didn’t think twice about was such an elaborate and complicated ordeal. The New York Times recently had a big article about the Tiffinwallahs of Mumbai and their FedEx like precision delivery systems. This article does more justice to it than anything I can ever say about it. And all this fuss just so that people like myself that too lazy to go down during lunch hour can get hot, home cooked lunches at their desks at work (or school). Although my dabba wallah at school operated at a much smaller scale, he did cater to about 100 students. One of my pet peeves about my dabba was getting watery cu...

I was always intrigued by the old ads for Monaco biscuits with their nicely decorated toppings. I, on the other hand, dipped my Monacos in my tea till my cup became a soggy, salty, inedible mess. I wasn't aware that Monaco was a salty cracker and didn't always have to be consumed with one's tea. (Of course, when you drink your tea on a two-wheeler parked under a tree, you dunk whatever is available in your tea.) In the ads the Monacos were usually decorated with strange, colourful toppings, although I had never really seen one pass by on a tray of hors d'oeuvres at a party. Not so long ago, I happened to be on the Parle Monaco website where they featured Monaco wallpapers for your computer. Why? I had to take a peek and I must share this ad / wallpaper with everyone. And as a professional in advertising I couldn't help but laugh at it. Considering the fact that no one outside of India would've even heard of Monaco, this ad must be for Indian audiences. It fea...

Keli chya baaga maama chya. Pivlya ghaada ni vakaychya. If you were in an English medium school and Marathi was a second language, you'd remember this poem from your Bal Bharati text book in Std II. It was a poem about the poet's uncle who apparently had some large banana plantations. The poem goes on to describe the how each member of the family tended to the banana plants and it all climaxed in a domestic orgy of Shikran. One may conclude that the uncle's family really, really loved their bananas. Had this poem come in at a slightly later year I am sure one of the pupils would have surely questioned such a banana centric lifestyle. Actually, it was a very sweet poem and whenever I think of Shikran, I cannot help but think of the nicely illustrated yet slightly exaggerated banana plants weighed down by large clusters of ripe yellow bananas. A well prepared bowl of Shikran never fails to transport me back to my mom's kitchen where she'd serve me Shikran and chapatt...

If there's one thing the great city of Pune lacks, it's a beach and an abundance of fresh seafood. Sure there are a few fish markets and some scattered fish mongers , but the seafood is always expensive and unless you're really tight with the fish monger, not really that great. This would also explain the lack of good seafood restaurants in Pune. Growing up, I couldn't recall a single restaurant that was known for great fish. But in the last two years that I still lived in Pune, a restaurant by the name of Kalinga had just opened it's doors on the small road whose only claim to fame was a quick access to the Mhatre Bridge . A restaurant that tried too hard with a seating capacity of 500 and was decorated with baroquean excess . Hopefully they've toned down the decorations a bit. The only saving grace to this eyesore was the great food. And great seafood. During my limited number of visits to Kalinga I had the only acceptable prawn curry served to me in any res...

My girlfriend and I visited the Sapphire Indian restaurant on Broadway at Lincoln Center in New York. After the meal, as the waiter asked us for our dessert selections, my girlfriend ordered a Kashmiri Naan with Masala Chai. The waiter turned to me to convey a "What the fuck?" look. And I responded promptly with a "Dude, don't even get me started" look. Anyway, my girlfriend really, really likes the Kashmiri naan which is traditionally made from enriched white flour, which is nasty. I thought I'd try making a healthier version for her using whole wheat chapatti flour. I'm not so sure that the FDNY is comfortable with me having a Tandoor oven, so I had to use a tawa. Turns out, it tastes even better. Especially, if you top it with a generous amount of ghee. Ingredients For Atta (dough) 
2 cups Chappati atta (finely ground wheat flour) 
1/2 tsp Salt, 
1 tsp oil 
1/2 cup Milk 
Warm Water For Filling 1/2 cup Raisins 1/4 cup Pistachio 1/4 cup Almond 1/2 cup C...

Most of my friends through my twenties were big rum & coke drinkers. And great thing about having a solid 'pettad' as a friend is that whenever you go out, there are always great appetizers on the table. One of the more popular watering holes in Pune back in the early 90's was Pinnacle in Chandani Chowk. If one can remember that far back, Chandani Chowk was a place people went to get out of the city, stand at the pinnacle, enjoy some fresh air and a great view of the city from the top of the hill. At that point, Pinnacle was still trying to attract customers with low prices and a sit-as-long-as-you-want policy for drinkers. As a result, the average young drinker on a shoestring budget could manage to go beyond the masala peanuts for drinking snacks. Some drinking snacks like Chicken Manchurian Dry , Fish Koliwada and Masala Papad continue to be the favourites. My favourite was the Tawa Prawns. Fresh jumbo prawns spiced and stir-fried to perfection. Today, the city of P...

By the time I was in the 7th standard, I along with a few neighbourhood kids had perfected the art of making a good potato chip. Known in this country as the French Fry or in the fly over states as Freedom Fries (sad, isn't it?). In India young boys are always discouraged from carrying experiments in the kitchen. As a children of parents who were busy and away from home most of the day, my friends and I found the kitchens at our disposal during the afternoons. We would have potato chip parties between games of 'galli' cricket . It involved everyone stealing 2 potatoes from home and maybe some oil. Stealing oil from the oil dispenser on the kitchen counter was a rookie mistake that would get caught. Only the seasoned potato chipper knew to steal directly from the 15 litre Postman dabba as a few missing cups wouldn't be detected. The loot would then be gathered at one of the kitchens where peeling and cutting began. As a measure to increase the number of chips per potato,...

Varan Bhat is to a Maharashtrian what rice and beans are to our Mexican friends. This is the one dish that for some reason never tastes as good in a restaurant as it does at home. More so for lunch than diner. And if you nail the combination of the dal, salt, lemon and ghee at the first helping, just stop. The second helping will never taste as good. A good batch of dal is probably the second yardstick for judgement that the mother-in-law uses against the new bride after the roundness of a chapati . Here's to a start to a good finger licking lunch. Ingredients 1 cup Toor Dal (pigeon peas) 2 tsp Oil 1 tsp Turmeric 1/2 tsp Cumin Powder 1/2 tsp Asafoetida 2 cups water Salt to taste Lemon, sliced 1 tsp Ghee Method In a pressure cooker cook the pigeon peas till they are completely soft and almost dissolved. (If you don't have a pressure cooker, boil in a pot till cooked.) Set aside. In a pot, heat the oil. Add cumin and asafoetida and allow to cook in the oil. Add turmeric and then...