Friday, November 21, 2014

Bombay food

I haven't written anything about Bombay in a while. Not that I am left with regular readers for this blog would would know that I used to write about Bombay every now and then. Bombay or Mumbai - to me both are the same. Bombay is just a habit as I have known that city by that name for years. It's that weird habit and attachment you have with old names. Maharashtrians have this tradition of changing the name of the girl after marriage. Your name, your identity that you held for years suddenly changes overnight. But her family will always relate to and call her by the old name. Same is the case with this city. Some people act like its khadus sasural wala and force everyone to call it Mumbai. Stupid analogy, yeah. But you do get the drift right?

Anyway. There is this very typical thing about Bombay. Like if someone goes to Haridwar, you ask them to get you a bottle of gangajal, when I travel to other cities, people ask me to get vada pav for them. Yes we do get vada paavs here at every corner, and they are tasty almost everywhere; but getting them at 5 am is expecting too much even from Bombay. And if you are a gujju, then the list includes thepla dhokla too. 

Yes. Vada paav. The best ones I have had so far is at Ashok's vada paav near Kirti college. If you are from Bombay and haven't had vada paav there, what are you even doing in this city bro? Then you get this awesome vada paav outside mithibai college. I guess their butter layer in it is thicker than the paav.then you have datta vada paav across Bombay and express way, dattaguru at panvel, Joshi vada paav in Pune. But yes, all these can be missed, but not Ashok Vada Paav. Go and eat that right away.

Misal. Another maharashtra specialty. Again, you can hardly go wrong with this dish. It's mostly spicy and has gujju farsan in it. It's so spicy that you can't make out any other taste. And it tastes the best with paav. Probably the best misal place in Bombay is mamledar misal in thane. (I know thane is not Bombay, but for food we can adjust this much.)

Then you have thaali pith and kothambir vadi. Thaali pith is maharashtrian version of thepla. And kothambir vadi is another dish with coriander and besan. You either steam and serve it or shallow/deep fry it. It tastes superb either way. Some people ruin it by adding shengdana to it. This state people add shengdana and vataana to every damn thing. Anyway, coming back to these two dishes, again you cannot go wrong with any. And you get amazing ones at any maharashtrian food joint. Datta again being the best place to have it. And Sapre.

Sabudana vada. And Piyush. Place to go is Prakash in Dadar. Sabudana vada - I am sure most of you know. Piyush is liquid Shrikhand. If you are not a fan of sweets, it will kill you. It is extra sweet. And then you have jhunka bhakhar. Again a dish made of besan and bhakri - roti of different/mix grains. Earlier you had Jhunka bhakhar kendras across bombay. It was a kind of food chain. Now you see fewer of them around, but they are still there. The best one I knew was at nariman point. It was a sea facing joint behind NCPA. College time regular joint. They served the tastiest parathas and sandwiches I have ever had anywhere. It shut down. Again something you really really missed if you lived in Bombay a decade ago and never been to. Then there is puranpoli too - sweet roti. I hate it so I can't tell you where you get the good ones.

I must have missed out on quite a few dishes and places. Food everywhere is unlimited. You have plenty of varieties at almost all the places and in all the states. Almost all of us can write/talk about it all the time. All of us have favourite places to eat out at - restaurants and street food joints. Bombay has so many khau gallis. Most of them are in gujju areas. Bombay is full of gujjus anyway. But you still can't miss out on Maharashtrian food. If you visit Bombay, read this post. You don't have to meet me now. Hah.

Thursday, November 06, 2014

Weeding out

It's probably the best exercise for your mind. We are almost always surrounded by negative people, things, energies. We are stuck in the wrong job, wrong relationship, wrong arrangements. At times that being a comfort zone is our way of fooling our mind as we cannot bear the pain our heart will go through due to their absence or disappearance. For that we put up with them. But does that really help us? No it doesn't. And we also know who wins in the battle of heart vs mind.

When you have to repeat this exercise frequently and you end up removing too many people, or at least one person who you considered very close to you or gave that special place to - be it a friend or a boyfriend/girlfriend, you need to really introspect about your life, the way you have been living and the kind of people you are choosing. 

Not that difficult. Most of the things in our life work as per a pattern. We almost attract same kind of people/assholes in our life, we make same/similar kind of mistakes and the final result is almost the same too. Every time we come out of it damaged. The trick is to identify the pattern. And make sure you don't go for any such thing or people that fall within that pattern. They are the most tempting options for you. You are almost always attracted to that pattern. And they always hurt you, destroy you little by little every time.

Trick is to go for boring, simple and unexciting. Wild and interesting will always attract us more than dull and boring. Predictable is so meh. Yes you will agree. But it's actually the best arrangement you can get if you are looking at stability or long term relationships. It's all right to not hear adventurous stories every night after he comes back home, it's okay to live with someone who has a normal routine life. You don't want to feel lucky as he still has the ability to patao girls easily and at the end of the day he comes back to you. These things sound good but don't last. The dream breaks. The pieces pierce your soul. 

At the end of the day, all of us want to be accepted, respected and loved. We want to feel happy and we want to be happy. Only then we will be able to keep others happy. Only then the life will be content. Weed out wrong ones from life. Make place for the right things. Time is always right, it's upto you to choose the right people and things.