aka Om Routray
V V Puram. Most of the blogs and magazines had this listed as a must visit place. It’s a must visit for sure, not sure if it can be listed as must-eat. Anyway, the locals calls it the Khau Gali, everyone online calls it food street. That makes it quite hard to find. Also autowallahs everywhere are the same, I learnt it the hard way that it’s so much better stick to Ola. And, Ola in Bangalore is awesome, the drivers are super polite, don’t…Continue Reading “VV Puram khau gali, Bangalore”
I said this when I came back from Pondicherry and Chennai. I am saying the same after Bangalore. The Delhi food scene needs to crash and burn before anything comes out it. In Pondicherry, the lanes around promenade have restaurants that are known for something – creole food, French food in an old villa, drinks with a view of the sea etc etc. In Bangalore, I ate 4 meals a day for 4 days in order to just cover as many places as I can….Continue Reading “What’s killing Delhi food scene?”
Moradabadi biryani. As someone on twitter said when I posted one of these photos – there are more people selling moradabadi biryani in Delhi than there are people in Moradabad. Now, that is a little exaggerated, but just a little. Suddenly, there are so many of them in Delhi that it seems less like a trend and more like a conspiracy. Anyway, the distinct markers of a Moradabadi biryani are shah jeera, yellow chilli and lemon. I always had some confusion about saunf but that…Continue Reading “Moradabadi Biryani, Nizamuddin”
When I peel garlic, I wonder what the hell was the plant thinking all through the evolution? That it will fly and build a colony on Jupiter? For god’s sake, the pods are shrink wrapped, tied at both ends and then they hug each other like it’s a tribal dance inside a clean film and then there is extra packaging on top so that they can last ten cataclysmic events. It is the Hilsa of condiments. I can still understand some human misbehaved with a…Continue Reading “Peeling garlic, thinking Hilsa, evolution and tribal dances”
Why should girls have all the fun! I am tired of seeing women tag each other in some saree challenge, some gorgeous pic, some black and white pic and what not. Yaar hadd hai, hum mardon ka koi tag hi nahin hai. So, here are a few ideas, let’s finalise one and start a tag. And, these are very man tags, no woman would ever dare hijack this. So, feel free boys. 1. Post a shaving photo of yours and tag real men who shave….Continue Reading “Facebook tagging campaign ideas for men”
A decade back, while on a bus to Mussorie, I had written how Delhi was a city that acted as a jail. Punishing those within the premises and punishing harder the ones who tried to escape. That was about the roads, now a decade later, same can be said of the airways. During the last few months, I have had numerous instances of flights that refused to either take off or land in time. One of the Air India flights that I took, this one to…Continue Reading “Flights and learnings”
Okay, I have been saying it to everyone I meet. Time to say it to everyone I don’t meet. I really like Rahul Gandhi. I know in today’s politics, there is a special place in hell for all who say that. Even then, I like him. And, then one day, he would be PM. No matter what you feel or do, that is inevitable. In five, ten, fifteen, twenty years, UPA will come to power. If he is around, he has a chance as anyone…Continue Reading “Why I am not giving up on Rahul Gandhi”
There is a term in English – whine. It is a senseless, irrational white noise that grabs your attention and keeps you off more important stuff. Whiners are attention seekers who employ it as a strategy. The upperclass, elite, cool cats – or whatever they call themselves in Delhi – are masters of the art. In a metropolis of nearly ten million, you would hardly hear other voices. Just a few dominate all discussion, all perspectives, all city planning – without any value addition. The…Continue Reading “In support of car free zones and rooftop ban in CP”
I am the wrong person to write about temples. Because, I hate them. Most of them. At least, the ones with deities inside. I am indifferent to mosques and churches. Why? I have never been harassed in a mosque or hounded for money in a church. Actually, no one really cares when you are there in an Indian church. Apart from the peculiar Indian habit of leaving shoes outside, churches here are really nice, calm and friendly places. Mosques have ruled about shoes and head…Continue Reading “About Rajarani temple in odisha and a few others”
Industry experts and watchers wield a massive amount of influence when it comes to determining outsider’s view of the sector. That’s why, while we need those who support and promote nascent sectors, we also need dispassionate journalists who can evaluate facts, write with a global perspective; and state things as they are so everyone is wiser. Against this background, you will notice a massive void in Indian wine writing. Though I have never been much interested reading about wines and must confess that have not…Continue Reading “About wines”
There have been a few cheese posts lately. I could write this as a comment but this is not about cheese. This is about cheese and wine and anything that is seen as high brow. I usually stay away from all such posts as my experience with both cheese and wine is like less than 2 years old. Never had too much money or inclination for either and both were paraded as such high trends that people like me stayed out because of reverse-disdain. But…Continue Reading “About wine, cheese and food snobs”
The guy who gives me a haircut spends 45 excruciating minutes on how to hide the whites and the bald. The salon, yes I go to a salon, has never slid a line in the bill or winked at me for a tip. But since morning most restaurateurs have come out saying how if you don’t pay service charge, you are robbing poor dish washers and service staff of their due. Imagine the owner of a for-profit enterprise saying his staff needs public charity to…Continue Reading “Service charge is in restaurants is a giant scam”
Women are unsafe in public places. What makes them safe? More women in public places. 12am: MG Road, Pondicherry – a lone woman selling food from a cart is done for the day and starts folding up 8 am: Auroville beach – a single woman on the beach, setting up her stall, chopping pineapples 9 am: Pondy Marina – after 2 kms of empty roads, a single woman walks down the road and signals that my bike headlight is turned on. 1 am: Promenade –…Continue Reading “Women in public places. Pondicherry”
PVR Anupam is. It’s still the old theater with no legroom, the size of a drawing room. Just that the sounds is too loud for a small room and that is good at some times. The loos are clean and the food counters are decent too. But, more than the theater, I thought the PVR Anupam complex was dead, way past its glory days. I expected a crematorium type of scene there. But on a weekday, at 11 in the night, it was more like…Continue Reading “PVR Anupam complex is not dead”
This is called a korana in Odia. Koriba, the verb, would roughly translate to grating. So, a korana, theoretically, can grate anything. But, in practice, it is a single purpose tool – grating coconuts. I am not claiming this is an Odia innovation, but I am sure non-coastal folks would rarely have seen it. Once you know how to use it, it looks deceptively easy to handle. When you don’t, you call it what we call all things we don’t understand – art. In my…Continue Reading “Grating coconuts and adulthood”
There is nothing new about calls to prove your patriotism. Before all these idiotic new ones, there was the original, primal one that every east Indian would know. If you are from Bengal or Odisha and had moved to Delhi, no matter how many lifetimes back, you will walk into this question so many times that they can act as milestones for your life. Do you love puchka/gupchup or have you converted to golgappas? You see, if your answer is in favour of the first,…Continue Reading “Puchka / Gupchup or Golgappa?”
This is the most dominant streetfood in Odisha. The vendors are everywhere, under every tree, at every bus stop, in front of every school. Everywhere. It is a breakfast item, a preferred lunch dish for some and is eaten at all hours of the day. Quite a lot goes into this too – there is the vada soaked in dahi, matar ghugni, dum alu, sev bhujia, onions and coriander for garnish and some sprinkle a spice powder. There is also a sweet…Continue Reading “Streetfood of Odisha”