Pani-puri, Gol-guppa, Gup-chup, Pani-batasha or Phoochka all are the name of the same common Indian fast food & If you have not heard of them please paint yourself white and call yourself "Jonny English". But the special observation which i am going to enumerate here is these round hollow fried crisp, unleavened bread filled with a watery mixture of tamarind, chilli, chaat masala, potato onion and chickpeas have special connection to behavioral pattern of women.
Lets start from the past, I believe most of us have come across such incidents or stories in their, lifetime just didn't join the dots. In the Dutta family there is a very famous folklore,Dr Avantika Dutta (who happens to be my mother too.) the only female in the family (to be exact in the branch stated by Uddipan Dutta) had to once go through a long perilious bus journey with lot of motion sickness, giddiness, nausea and loads of vomiting. Just when the ordeal ended & she got down at the bus-stop, chance to sight a Pani-puri wala.Dr Avantika Dutta prompty hailed the hawker and asked for a plate, obviously her fellow passangers were astonished to see her enjoying food when minutes before she throwing it out. That was as a legend, stuff i have heard (many times & always from Baba) but not seen. What I have seen is my Ma and my cousion eating pani-puri and chat and getting double sick since they were already down with stomach upset from a party last night. What I have seen is my Ma silently pointing to pani-puri hawkers and my Baba (who is by the way a medical officer in the Indian Armed Forces) trying his best to decline with reasons like "its not clean" and "not nutritious" etc but giving in for greater good (& probably peace).
Certainly my Ma and cousin are not big enough sample to generalize a rule for the whole women kind. But i am sure all of us must have seen womens' profound affinity to this grub. I am so very confident that i would place it in the list of things that women (specifically Indian) _always like_ right below diamonds, flowers and above chocolates, soft toys. Why because with advent of modern times have seem an emergence of more health conscious and serious/confident type of females (hence above chocolate and soft toys). Pani-puri fits right into the power schedule of a modern lady, its light low/no calories and fast food (to prepare and to eat). But there is a catch, the image of pani-puri has not always been associated with cleanliness, a quality you would always expect out of a lady. To be gore the pani-puris tastes best when the sweat of the "pani-puri wala" has gone in the "pani". Careful observation brought me to a conclusion that even the most hygiene freak ladies are ready to make an exception to enjoy them. Take the case of a particularly fastidious colleague of mine, who always asks for extra tissue off the food counter and carries and alcohol based super hand-cleaner in her bag. She is of the kind who would carry a jacket to keep her dress clean and another cover to keep her jacket clean. But all her cleanliness falls apart in front of a pani-puri she is ever ready for it, even more it is the only thing for which she ever asks us to stop when our group is out somewhere.
The incident that really got me to think this way though is a different one. Recently or not so recently while we were returning from somewhere and I was totally focused in outwitting early evening Bangalore traffic the soft, pleading yet firm voice of my pillion reached my ears "Gol guppe khaye" ?/. The confusion in the punctuation is because i am still not sure whether it was statement or a query. Any how i had no other option other than to say "Haan.. Jaroor" and to start looking for chaat shops along with impending traffic. The one I found and stopped was hugely a crowded stall on the Banergatta Road, but before i could manipulate by bike into a parking my companion had returned with a fallen face "Saab puriya khatam ho gaye, only toote hue bache hai ". A look to the basket of puries reveled the fact that yes there seemed to be only few left. Getting out of there we started our slow crawl towards BTM in search of a decent pani-puri place. The next one we checked out got rejected after a careful inspection of ingredients "Yeh south Indian gol-guppe hai, matar (cickpeas) dal ke banate ahi, aache nahi hote." . An astute observation that i never knew of in my 2&1/2 year stay of Bangalore. The third place was decent,clean,a less crowded one, but alas its strength became its downfall. My friend said "Kisi ne ek bhi gol-guppa nahi kaya, bahut bakwaas hoga, yahan ka." making a twisted nose but in softer tone. At this point i remembered my yoga exercises and took a deep breath in _my mind_ (yes in my mind, a visible sigh can cause or get you grievous injuries.). I made my voice as polite as i could and asked "Koi aachi jagah jante to? Hum wahi chalte hai". The response to my question was strong nod of affirmation and beaming smile. We immediately hopped on the bike and she started to give me directions with great confidence and surety which was quite a surprise to me. Usually with my rudimentary knowledge of Bangalore roads and her shifted sense of directions we had ended getting lost manier times. Not this times though, she was pointing me to roads and turns much better than a GPS mapper would do, that made me think do all ladies or only this one have a PPS (Pani-puri positioning system) built into them . The place we ended up was "Ladoos" (BTM) which my friend proudly declared owned and run by _biharis_. May be its endorphins, a hormone that is said to make people happy and is stimulated into blood flow by chocolate , coffee, pani-puri etc. (Though not yet confirmed but I am quite sure researchers if try would find the pani-puries act as endorphin producers in a female body) , or its that they look very cute when with their cheeks swollen trying to stuff the whole puri into their small mouth, or maybe its _just_ that for those few minutes they are _quiet_ as its quite difficult to speak with it in your mouth, I don't know. Whatever it was the evident pleasure and satisfaction on her face made the whole effort, every ounce of it worth it.
In an attempt to put my observations in an academic and practicle purpose. I suggest pani-puri can be document as one of strong fondnesses rather weakness of Indian women. All guys, keep it in your mind pani-puri can help you make up for forgotten events, late ariivals and so on. The more dedicated ones can think on the lines of (when looking for surprise presents) a life time supply of pani-puri from some good pani-puri maker or they could even try their hands in trying to make them.
Lets start from the past, I believe most of us have come across such incidents or stories in their, lifetime just didn't join the dots. In the Dutta family there is a very famous folklore,Dr Avantika Dutta (who happens to be my mother too.) the only female in the family (to be exact in the branch stated by Uddipan Dutta) had to once go through a long perilious bus journey with lot of motion sickness, giddiness, nausea and loads of vomiting. Just when the ordeal ended & she got down at the bus-stop, chance to sight a Pani-puri wala.Dr Avantika Dutta prompty hailed the hawker and asked for a plate, obviously her fellow passangers were astonished to see her enjoying food when minutes before she throwing it out. That was as a legend, stuff i have heard (many times & always from Baba) but not seen. What I have seen is my Ma and my cousion eating pani-puri and chat and getting double sick since they were already down with stomach upset from a party last night. What I have seen is my Ma silently pointing to pani-puri hawkers and my Baba (who is by the way a medical officer in the Indian Armed Forces) trying his best to decline with reasons like "its not clean" and "not nutritious" etc but giving in for greater good (& probably peace).
Certainly my Ma and cousin are not big enough sample to generalize a rule for the whole women kind. But i am sure all of us must have seen womens' profound affinity to this grub. I am so very confident that i would place it in the list of things that women (specifically Indian) _always like_ right below diamonds, flowers and above chocolates, soft toys. Why because with advent of modern times have seem an emergence of more health conscious and serious/confident type of females (hence above chocolate and soft toys). Pani-puri fits right into the power schedule of a modern lady, its light low/no calories and fast food (to prepare and to eat). But there is a catch, the image of pani-puri has not always been associated with cleanliness, a quality you would always expect out of a lady. To be gore the pani-puris tastes best when the sweat of the "pani-puri wala" has gone in the "pani". Careful observation brought me to a conclusion that even the most hygiene freak ladies are ready to make an exception to enjoy them. Take the case of a particularly fastidious colleague of mine, who always asks for extra tissue off the food counter and carries and alcohol based super hand-cleaner in her bag. She is of the kind who would carry a jacket to keep her dress clean and another cover to keep her jacket clean. But all her cleanliness falls apart in front of a pani-puri she is ever ready for it, even more it is the only thing for which she ever asks us to stop when our group is out somewhere.
The incident that really got me to think this way though is a different one. Recently or not so recently while we were returning from somewhere and I was totally focused in outwitting early evening Bangalore traffic the soft, pleading yet firm voice of my pillion reached my ears "Gol guppe khaye" ?/. The confusion in the punctuation is because i am still not sure whether it was statement or a query. Any how i had no other option other than to say "Haan.. Jaroor" and to start looking for chaat shops along with impending traffic. The one I found and stopped was hugely a crowded stall on the Banergatta Road, but before i could manipulate by bike into a parking my companion had returned with a fallen face "Saab puriya khatam ho gaye, only toote hue bache hai ". A look to the basket of puries reveled the fact that yes there seemed to be only few left. Getting out of there we started our slow crawl towards BTM in search of a decent pani-puri place. The next one we checked out got rejected after a careful inspection of ingredients "Yeh south Indian gol-guppe hai, matar (cickpeas) dal ke banate ahi, aache nahi hote." . An astute observation that i never knew of in my 2&1/2 year stay of Bangalore. The third place was decent,clean,a less crowded one, but alas its strength became its downfall. My friend said "Kisi ne ek bhi gol-guppa nahi kaya, bahut bakwaas hoga, yahan ka." making a twisted nose but in softer tone. At this point i remembered my yoga exercises and took a deep breath in _my mind_ (yes in my mind, a visible sigh can cause or get you grievous injuries.). I made my voice as polite as i could and asked "Koi aachi jagah jante to? Hum wahi chalte hai". The response to my question was strong nod of affirmation and beaming smile. We immediately hopped on the bike and she started to give me directions with great confidence and surety which was quite a surprise to me. Usually with my rudimentary knowledge of Bangalore roads and her shifted sense of directions we had ended getting lost manier times. Not this times though, she was pointing me to roads and turns much better than a GPS mapper would do, that made me think do all ladies or only this one have a PPS (Pani-puri positioning system) built into them . The place we ended up was "Ladoos" (BTM) which my friend proudly declared owned and run by _biharis_. May be its endorphins, a hormone that is said to make people happy and is stimulated into blood flow by chocolate , coffee, pani-puri etc. (Though not yet confirmed but I am quite sure researchers if try would find the pani-puries act as endorphin producers in a female body) , or its that they look very cute when with their cheeks swollen trying to stuff the whole puri into their small mouth, or maybe its _just_ that for those few minutes they are _quiet_ as its quite difficult to speak with it in your mouth, I don't know. Whatever it was the evident pleasure and satisfaction on her face made the whole effort, every ounce of it worth it.
In an attempt to put my observations in an academic and practicle purpose. I suggest pani-puri can be document as one of strong fondnesses rather weakness of Indian women. All guys, keep it in your mind pani-puri can help you make up for forgotten events, late ariivals and so on. The more dedicated ones can think on the lines of (when looking for surprise presents) a life time supply of pani-puri from some good pani-puri maker or they could even try their hands in trying to make them.
10 comments:
My grandmother, my aunt, her daughter, my wife, her sister, my mom-in-law are testimony to this fact.
that said. Good observation and nice blog.
heh, quite a lively post !!
BTW, fastidious women have their own ways of ensuring cleanliness....they only eat at places where vendors have neat gloves on while they dole out pani-puris ;)
ur sample size is still quite small to generalize :P but still, well written and humorous post !
scared of ur plastic smile-it says'ok enough,plz go away-don't try talking to me'.ur 'goodbye' says-i shall go n have an accident cz i won't die young wth any other reason n yes ur "Koi aachi jagah jante to? Hum wahi chalte hai" said dimaag_mat_khaao_pani-puri_khaana hai_khaao_aur_kaha_khaana_hai bataao-we would go there :p all these can scare a raw person like me easily :( n when u r scared al ur senses r up for the rescue,mouth-shut n u end up dominating or the other person does.
nice post,could see why was i asked to check it :)altho don't agree with lots of things here.but let the men guess,think n exp..
Advice:- plzzzz just treat the last para as concluding good line of the post as u might end up having heavy penalty if take it all as anything else- from a novice ;)
By the way,bachcha must have had a practical exp from it-realizing how baba would be feeling n ma would be behaving on it.
So,hope the end was well giving u satisfactory result-scaring people around :P
Uttaran,the panipuri/phuchkaa was not nice yesterday,had to have it cause of u boring people who don't know value of good panipuri/phuchkaa :( anyway as I said yesterday I'd write the comment agar achchhe nahi hue to..so here u go!
miss these pani puris alot these days.. u must be cherishing me missing it.. i see ;) n I cherish it :) u never know.. pani puriiiiiehhh
"of pani-puri & women" and apporva a man.connection?i didn't understand.somehow connected it n it comes men also like pani-puris if the mr. apporva is following star plus serial a woman might follow ;)
would u believe i have seen so many men loving it more than women.n i cant believe when a person says sweat on pani/puri.in b'lore?rarity :D look around.
talk about north india,u might be playing the right chord :P
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