Indian Villages, Bearings, and Street Food: Feb 21 to 24

On the 21^st, Shilpa and I went with Professor Sardeshpande to visit a manufacturer in Ambernath, about an hour and a half away from campus by local train. On the way over, I asked Shilpa more about the village she stayed in last summer for her CTARA field stay (all CTARA Master’s students stay in a village for 8-10 weeks during May and June between their first and second years. I am planning to join some first-year students for 1-2 weeks in May after I finish my projects).

My questions were inspired by a book I have recently started: “The End of Karma: Hope and Fury among India’s Young” by Somini Sengupta. Each chapter tells the story of a different person in India and how their situation is affected by the nation’s coming of age that is currently taking place. Previous generations grew up with India’s new democracy as simply a “topsoil” covering the underlying way that society had functioned for centuries. India has a very young population that believes democracy and equality should be more than lip service; the clash between this principle and the way Indian society functions has produced unrest and difficult situations for many in the young generation. In exploring the young generations, Sengupta discusses the many issues—poor education, violence, lack of jobs—that plague villages and cities across the country.

Reading about these topics reminded me once again that by living on campus at IIT-Bombay I am not necessarily experiencing the “real” India; I know I am living more comfortably than a significant percentage of the population. This is one reason why I have enjoyed my field visits so much during my stay here—I get a chance to observe a small sliver of how people live outside the IIT campus and outside the city of Mumbai. There are more places to visit in India than I could ever hope to see, and I want to see as much as I can while I am here. It is hard to get bored here because the people-watching is so good.

In the village where Shilpa stayed, there was a woman who had gotten married at 14 and had her first child at 16 because her family did not have money to support her. This woman is now in her 30’s and also had to marry off her first daughter at the young age of 16, again because of financial reasons. The daughter had loved school and was very bright, but will no longer have a chance to pursue her studies or her career dreams. Alcoholism and domestic violence were also problems in this village, as they are in many villages across India. I am now a second-degree connection to the issues in this village; they are no longer only something I read about in books or the news. What can be done to improve the lives of these villagers? The scale of these problems, especially education, is massive. Over half of India’s population lives in rural areas—this amounts to over 600 million, about twice the population of the entire US. It is amazing to imagine the sheer number of people in India, let alone how the country can have possibly create enough jobs and resources to sustain everyone. The more time I spend here, the more I agree with the statement that India’s future and development will have a huge influence on the world in the coming decades.

After our visit to the manufacturer, we had a buffet lunch at a very nice nearby hotel. Walking into the air conditioned lobby as a man held the door for me felt very familiar—when I have traveled to India before, this is the type of accommodation that I have generally stayed in. I feel that my current stay in India is much more authentic, at least in terms of dealing with the heat, than when I have been here before. Though, as I mentioned, I am still living in one of the more comfortable accommodations in the city of Mumbai. Lunch was good but not especially remarkable other than the “spicy potatoes” starter. These potatoes tasted just like home—they were wedge-cut, salty, and perfectly fried. They looked just like the type of fries you see under heat lamps at Safeway but tasted like the fries from a good burger joint.

After lunch, we met a friend of Professor Sardeshpande’s down the road at a restaurant for a quick drink. We ordered sol kadhi, a pink drink made from coconut milk, kokum (a fruit that gives the drink its color), and some spices including chili. It was great—refreshing, hydrating, looked pretty, and came with a little kick.

It has taken a long time for me to get used to drinks that are not sweet. Many drinks in India are absurdly sweet—soda, tea, an incredibly sugary “fruit” drink they serve in the mess that I tried only once—but many more are also salty, sour, or spicy. Many masala sodas and glasses of chaas (buttermilk, served about twice a week in the mess) later, I am starting to acquire the taste for these drinks. Usually when I drink chaas in the mess, the first couple sips are a shock to my taste buds, and then I enjoy the rest of the glass. I was happily surprised to find the first sip of my chaas last week not shocking, but refreshing. Growing up, the thought of drinking buttermilk was almost unheard of, but here it is common. Maybe I will try and recreate the drink when I return home this summer.

On the 22^nd, I took a rickshaw with Professor Sardeshpande’s driver, Ambroth, to a neighborhood about 5km away from campus called Bandhup to buy some bearings for an experimental setup I am building in a lab on campus. The traffic, as usual, was horrendous, so we decided to get out and walk the last kilometer to the shop. The shop was fairly difficult to find—no one knew where it was when Ambroth mentioned the name to passerby and other shopkeepers. Eventually we found the shop and purchased the bearings. We decided to take the bus back to campus; while waiting at the station, Ambroth, who only speaks a little English, said “It’s very hot. Climate change.” This small exchange gave me a surge of optimism concerning the environmental problem facing the world; if the Indian population is aware of climate change, maybe their leadership can help save the world from imminent disaster as their influence in the world economy continues to grow. I realize that this is just one person out of over a billion who mentioned climate change, but regardless it gave me inspiration that maybe people here care about the issue more than the average person in the US because heat is such a huge part of life in India.

Last Friday, I went with Shahnawaz, his friend Vamshay, and Jesper (new student from Denmark) to get some streetfood in downtown Mumbai, about 1 hour away by local train. Shahnawaz and many other Indian students have mentioned “Moma Delhi Road” as a common destination for tourists and celebrities alike, the best place for street food in the city. I assumed that the spelling was as stated in the previous sentence, but my friends’ Indian accents had fooled me again. The area is called “Mohammad Ali Road,” and is a Muslim section of town. I had been going about my days for weeks thinking that the spelling was something like “Moma Delhi;” I wonder what else I am still spelling incorrectly in my head.

Shahnawaz had a list of a few places to eat that a friend of his had recommended. We first had some small fried balls of a beef and vegetable mixture, served in a newspaper cone. It did not look much like beef, but there was definitely some discernable meat flavor. Four young boys around the age of 12 sat on small stools near a huge mound of the mixture, staring at me as they absentmindedly rolled ball after ball of food. An older man then fried them in hot oil and served them up in newspaper.

By far the best thing we ate was tandoori chicken from Bismillah Corner. Subconsciously thinking about Bohemian Rhapsody, we ordered some beef skewers and tandoori chicken and sat on small stools at a short stainless steel table. A few plates of onion, spicy green chutney, and lemons were placed before us at the table. We watched our food being cooked on the grill and watched our poori being fried in the large pan of oil behind my seat. In all of my travels, this tandoori chicken was one of the best things I have ever eaten. It was spicy, flavorful, hot, and was perfectly complimented by the onion, chutney, and lemon. Tandoori chicken in the US is usually very dry and I have never really liked it. In India, it is usually very good; but this chicken was on another level. I will be returning here again before I leave Mumbai for sure. My perception of the food might have been somewhat influenced by the great company I was in and the awesome atmosphere of eating outdoors at a small shop on a crowded street, but this is all part of the eating experience. This chicken passes the legendary paneer butter masala from the street food restaurant in Bangalore from 2014 and tops my list of favorite food I have had in India.

For dessert, we had a couple different milk sweets, similar to pudding. One was called phirni and the other I think I have correctly identified after a quick Google search as kesar rabdi. Both were deliciously creamy and served in small earthen dishes. The beauty of these dishes is that thay are made from dirt; they are all natural and decompose very quickly after small animals and ants have finished off any bits of food, as I assume they do. We also drank some milk flavored with rose and watermelon. The rose flavor is somewhat common among sweet milk drinks here, and it is usually too overpowering for me. This drink, unfortunately, was no exception. I did enjoy the bits of watermelon in the glass. It was chilled with ice, which I am certain was made with filtered water and will not make me sick.

To finish our night, we took a cab to the marine drive and sat by the water for a while. It was incredibly similar to the Malecon in Havana, Cuba, except no one was drinking rum. This is one area of the city where street carts and vendors are not allowed, so it was peaceful and just the right amount of crowded to be comfortable.

Outside CST (main railway station) on the way back, we had some lime masala soda. The soda was good, but the entertainment of watching the man make the soda was much better. He would place the point of a knife under the bottle cap of the soda water and slam it upward with the palm of his hand, shooting the bottle cap twenty feet in the air. A few seconds later, we would hear the distinct clinking sound of the cap hitting pavement. The man never even glanced up to see where his cap had landed, just immediately started squeezing the limes. The sidewalk was far from deserted—I wonder how many people get hit on the head with a bottle cap from this vendor every day. When they do, they probably just take it in stride; there are so many unexplained and random things that happen every day in India that a harmless bottle cap falling from the sky is probably an unusual but unsurprising occurrence for a Mumbai local.

Upon returning to campus, the dogs loved me more than ever before. They were barking and followed me all the way from my rickshaw to the elevator. I think it was probably the bag of leftover chicken I was carrying. Luckily, they stopped when I entered the elevator—they have either been trained not to go inside or are afraid of it. It had been three hours since the chicken had been cooked, but it was too delicious to throw away, so I ate it anyway, hoping I would have minimal gastrointestinal consequences the following morning.