PHOTOGRAPHY | SIX WORD STORY
Indian Street Food
November Six Word Photo Story Challenge: “Collecting Smiles”
A quick bite for happy souls
Wearing a crumpled shirt, a lean-framed wheatish man is on the street corner selling Bhel Puris. If you don’t know Bhel Puri, it is a famous Indian street food made with puffed rice, puri, boiled potatoes, onions, various chutneys, and herbs. When someone walks into his makeshift stall on the edge of the road, he piously prepares a fresh plate and hands it over. The dish, the aroma, and the condiments all make it lip-smacking and mouth-watering.
Welcome to Indian Street Food.
If Kochi boasts about Banana fritters, Delhi claims Chole Batura, Kolkatta prides in Kathi rolls and Hyderabad serves Samosas. Each city, each town, and each village in India has its own trademark delicacy. As the day winds down, streets get buzzing with these street vendors selling various food delicacies. As you walk past any busy thoroughfares in the city you will be treated to a smorgasbord of eclectic food in various hues and smells which are sure to tickle your taste buds.
A haggard old man cycling his way back home after a tough day stops by to have his plate of Bhel Puri, and so does the corporate honcho dashing down the road in his air-conditioned car. These street-side food joints are a great social leveller, where facades of wealth and social order crumble. All stand here shoulder to shoulder to have their pie — rich and poor, old and young, men and women, all jostle around encircling the vendor. Seeing the crowd sometimes reminds me of my grandmother. When all my cousins are at home, she makes all of us sit around her in a circle and she feeds us curd rice to each of us in a round-robin fashion.
These vendors are super adept and street smart, if you are in awe of their culinary skills, the dexterity with which they manage the crowd and multi-task will surely boggle your mind. It seems like these vendors have a mind that works like a supercomputer and hands which maneuver with robotic precision. Friends and families flock together to satiate their hunger pangs and more importantly to have a gala time bonding with their loved ones. It is very rare to find people going alone for having street food.
Street food infuses joy, camaraderie, sharing, and caring and spreads joy for all.
Indian street food for sure brings smiles to all its patrons.
Thanks Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles for the great prompt for November.
