Sunday, May 04, 2008

A Taste of Paradise

Food is a sin, you know. I just realized it again the other day when my hands were all greasy with some superb butter and I was licking, almost biting off my fingers, the food was that great.
The best friend Manju and I had limped across to this great Punjabi joint a little off Commercial Street. I say limped across because I have been nursing a torn ligament a few days now and my stubbornness has been demanding that I royally ignore the doctor’s orders and walk across the city. Anyway, I limp over and we ask for aloo paranthas. I have probably had them a hundred times before but my severely hungry stomach was not prepared for what was coming.

The best way people to eat aloo paranthas, take it from me. There were these aloo paranthas in front of me, a bowl of curd of the side of the plate. The curd was duly seasoned with two pinches of salt and a big dash of pepper powder. Mixed it. Dipped a piece of the bread, put it in my mouth and let out a sigh of happiness. More to come. A bowl of butter is brought in. Manju puts a huge blob on to a piece of parantha on my plate. I see it melt with sinful delight. There is achar or pickle on the side. I break a piece again, butter drips down from it, I further catch a bit of butter again between the piece, a bit of pickle and a generous bite from onion that has been soaked in vinegar and beetroot juice. And that people, was my first taste of heaven! A dieter’s nightmare, or probably the ultimate indulgence, all downed with sips of Thums Up! A bit of pickle on the tongue and a sip of the drink, that’s a high there!

Even as I type this, I can see the butter slowly melting on the parantha, I see a picture of how life should be lived. At Lalitha’s Parantha Point, near Commercial Street, very inexpensive, must must visit everyone.