GOING BANANAS ON GOL GAPPAS

Recently there has been a spurt in soft-drinks and eateries in Chandigarh. Whenever you are out on a shopping spree, there is no dearth of shops and kiosks selling ice-creams, cold-drinks and lots of other eats to quench your thirst and hunger.

There are several roadside vendors and stalls selling tall glasses of freshly crushed sugarcane juice, tingling with a dash of ginger and a squeeze of lime or a chilled water-melon crush or hot tikkis of potatoes, chana bhaturas and chaat etc. But can anything match the gol gappas – the famous Punjabi treat?

Certainly not.

Of course, it is a pedestrian fare. It has great popularity and curiosity value. And it takes mouth-watering gol gappas to get a Punjabi excited, obviously.

My love affair with gol gappas started during my childhood. I vividly remember how as a little girl, I once wanted to hold a big gol gappa in my tiny hands and goblle the whole of it down my small mouth.

And as I grew, my love for gol gappas also grew. I often along-with my friends would visit a particular vendor for our daily quota of fun and frolic. We stopped going there when we, at the school entrance itself, found the vendors selling yummy gol gappas to a milling crowd.

The one whom we patronized was a man of dark complexion. Since we never bothered to find out his name, we gave him our own name ‘Kala Khatta man’. Soon he came to be known by this name.

The ‘Kala Khatta man’ was, indeed, something of an artist at his job. A kingpin in making gol gappas, he was a wizard who conjured up incredible, delicious and spicy gol gappas from ordinary things like suji, maida chopped and boiled potatoes, boiled kala chanas and a few spices and chatnis.

The loving care with which he went about his business was a sheer delight to watch. He would arrive at the school gate much earlier than the other fellows with his rehri loaded with the stuff ready for sale – gol gappas on one side and papadis, curd and chatnis etc. on the other. From the stow-away of his rehri, he would take out the cutlery and carefully arrange it on the sides of the rehri. Then he would gently stir the spicy water in a big earthen pot, presumably to give it a shake before proceeding on to meet the demand of the customers while we would patiently wait chatting and laughing ready to begin our assault on the gol gappas. And no sooner did start distributing them among us, the gol gappas would disappear even before they reached our mouth….or so it seemed. We would make delicious, gurgling sounds which were an index to our enjoyment. Before dispersing, we would never forget to take that extra sour’n spicy water (meant for gol gappas) by way of bonus.

Over the years my love for gol gappas has blossomed. Though I have discovered a lot of other eats and the pallet loves all things spicy, right from bhel puri to pau bhaji, yet gol gappas top my list of favorites.

If ever I happen to go out of Punjab, I miss them terribly. After settling down in Chandigarh in the seventies, the first thing I did was to look for a vendor or stall of gol gappas to nurture my Punjabi taste buds. I found several stalls selling the stuff, but nothing could match the flavor and the memories of the gol gappas of the ‘kala khatta man’, till I chanced upon one in Sector 23 of Chandigarh.

Once going past the sector 23 market on my way to the university on a winter afternoon, the driver of the auto rickshaw slowed down in front of a chaat stall, turned his head and said, “Madam, I’m feeling very hungry as I’ve had no lunch. Will you mind if I have some chaat?” I was in no hurry. So I simply nodded my head. Five minutes later, he was back. “Would you like to have some?”, he wanted to know. Like a typical bourgeois snob, I refused and have regretted it since then. But next time, I decided, if someone offers me a patta of chaat, I won’t say no. When it comes to chaat or gol gappas, why say no. Better be a part of the proletariat.

Nevertheless, after finishing my chores the next day, I dashed off to the same chaatwala and had my share of chaat and gol gappas. To my delight, I discovered that the man behind the counter could even beat that ‘kala khatta man’ so far as chaat and gol gappas were concerned. And his stall has been my favorite jaunt since then.

Whenever I realize that I can’t take my nine-to-five routine anymore, I pamper myself with a breakfast on the house and then tick-tack-toe between the house, beauty parlour, shopping arcade and then just indulge in for my favorite eateries. Come weekend and I am off to my favorite jaunt. You know where.

Anjana Datta.

[ad#demo-advert-1-1-1]