Punjab Sweet House, Pali Naka, Bandra (W). Without a shadow of doubt. I am willing to bet good money on this. The guy here makes the most awesome Pani Puri I have ever had. And this is a fact that no one yet has debated.
I'd like to think that I have had a lot of Pani Puri in my life. Across the country - Bombay, Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, Lucknow, Jaipur (the worst), Chennai, Bangalore, I've been to famous chaat guys a la elco arcade, and chaat guys that are well-kept local secrets, in some godforsaken gully or market, nothing has come even close to the guy at Punjab Sweet House.
He is one of the few guys who doesnt count how many puris you have had. The standard plate is 6 Puris for 20 Rs. [This may be expensive by some standards, but one has to account for the fact that the shop is located at Pali Naka. Also they claim to use only mineral water and icelings (branded ice made from purified water) in all their chutneys/pani. So one can't really begrudge them the 20 rs.] But our man at PSH keeps handing out the puris and you gratefully kep gobbling it up, hoping that he doesnt realise. After about 8 - 9, he asks "Saab, aur chahiye?" And by then you're just so happy all you want to do is hug this man. Of Course i dont know whether he does this for everyone who goes there.
The icing on the cake is the dishful of Pani he gives you. As I mentioned earlier, they use Iceling to keep the Pani cold. Not only does this give the Pani Puri a different taste, but its also the most refreshing thing ever. The cherry on the icing is the sukha puri. This guy starts making the sukha puri even before you have finished swallowing the last puri. The sukha puri has everything. Aloo, boondi, sev, chaat masala, the perfect end to a perfect Pani Puri.
I know this was a pretty pointless post, but I thought that Punjab Sweet House deserved some appreciation, considering how many times I have eaten there. The best part is when he recognises you even though you have been in another city studying for 2 years, or been working somewhere else, and still forgets to count the number of puris he has given you. :)
For anyone who hasn't yet been there, I strongly recommend that you head over to Punjab Sweet House at Pali Naka and have some Pani Puri.
P.S. - They do not share any profits with me.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Sunday, February 8, 2009
The Shahs in Chennai
This weekend I saw 2 fabulous plays by the Theatre group - Motley. The first one was a play i had heard a lot about when I was in Bombay - "Ismat Aapa Ke Naam" and the other was "Dear Liar".
Ismat Aapa ke Naam, is a selection of 3 stories by the famous and controversial writer Ismat Chugtai. The way this was performed was not a run-of-the-mill dramatisation of a story (don't get me wrong... i love just regular plays too). These were staged in the form of stories told by a story-teller. Naseeruddin Shah described it perfectly at the start; It was like a mother telling a story to her children, wherein she is the narrator and also becomes every character. In IAKN, each story-teller played narrator and all the characters in the story.
The first story, performed by Heeba Shah, (Naseer's daughter - no he is not a bosom buddy, but its just shorter to type Naseer) was called Chhui Mui (nothing to do with the Preeti Jhangiani/Abbas song or with Daler). In Chhui Mui, Heeba went effortlessly from a nervous 16-year-old to the loud and impatient 70-yr-old mother of the house. She also skilfully played the part of another woman, who forced her way into the aforementioned characters' compartment in the train, braved the old lady's abuses, gave birth to a baby, mopped up the mess and jumped off the train with her baby, leaving her co-passengers flabbergasted and secretly impressed.
The next story, narrated by Ratna Pathak Shah was Mughal Bachcha. MB spoke briefly of the lost glory of the Mughal's, whose pride was ground into the dust by the British. The story revolved around the exceedingly beautiful and fair Gori Bi, and her marriage to Kale Miyan. Apart from suffering at the hands of the British, Kale Miyan had to endure taunts at his wedding about how he would taint his beautiful white-as-milk bride if he touched her. Ratna Pathak was a treat to watch as she played the coy Gori Bi as well as the loud and rude Kale Miyan with ease.
The performance of the evening came from Naseer, in Gharwali - the last story of the night. Gharwali was the story of Lajo, a maid-servant who was "generous with her affections" towards men and of Mirza, a prudish and hyprocitical storekeeper. Naseer delighted us all with his "bashi-bazouks, billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles" type dialogue delivery for Mirza and with the suggestive, free-spirited portrayal of Lajo. All in all, a fantastic evening!!
Last evening, i went for another play. To Ratna Pathak and Naseeruddin Shah's credit, it was the day after they had performed IAKN, and they did a bloody good job of this one too. "Dear Liar" was an enactment-cum-narration of the correspondence between George Bernard Shaw and a famous actress of his time, Beatrice Stella Campbell (The first actress to play Eliza Dolittle). Both actors gave the audience a stellar performance. Once or twice they fumbled with lines, recovering quite well. Considering they had done an Urdu play just the previous night, it was amazing to see them fit into their new characters with such ease. The play was about 2 hours long and it made one happy and sad for both characters. I find it a great pity that GBS and Stella didn't get married. Although, I do believe that it was this distance that made their relationship as exciting as it was.
If any of you ever get a chance to see these plays, don't miss it for the world.
As an afterthought..... I paid 350 rs. for balcony tickets. (Nosebleed ki mummy, as a friend of mine put it). Those were the cheapest tickets and the most expensive were 2500. I think its a shame to have to pay so much to watch a play, no matter who the actors, production company or what the venue is. (P.S. Prithvi rocks!!)
Ismat Aapa ke Naam, is a selection of 3 stories by the famous and controversial writer Ismat Chugtai. The way this was performed was not a run-of-the-mill dramatisation of a story (don't get me wrong... i love just regular plays too). These were staged in the form of stories told by a story-teller. Naseeruddin Shah described it perfectly at the start; It was like a mother telling a story to her children, wherein she is the narrator and also becomes every character. In IAKN, each story-teller played narrator and all the characters in the story.
The first story, performed by Heeba Shah, (Naseer's daughter - no he is not a bosom buddy, but its just shorter to type Naseer) was called Chhui Mui (nothing to do with the Preeti Jhangiani/Abbas song or with Daler). In Chhui Mui, Heeba went effortlessly from a nervous 16-year-old to the loud and impatient 70-yr-old mother of the house. She also skilfully played the part of another woman, who forced her way into the aforementioned characters' compartment in the train, braved the old lady's abuses, gave birth to a baby, mopped up the mess and jumped off the train with her baby, leaving her co-passengers flabbergasted and secretly impressed.
The next story, narrated by Ratna Pathak Shah was Mughal Bachcha. MB spoke briefly of the lost glory of the Mughal's, whose pride was ground into the dust by the British. The story revolved around the exceedingly beautiful and fair Gori Bi, and her marriage to Kale Miyan. Apart from suffering at the hands of the British, Kale Miyan had to endure taunts at his wedding about how he would taint his beautiful white-as-milk bride if he touched her. Ratna Pathak was a treat to watch as she played the coy Gori Bi as well as the loud and rude Kale Miyan with ease.
The performance of the evening came from Naseer, in Gharwali - the last story of the night. Gharwali was the story of Lajo, a maid-servant who was "generous with her affections" towards men and of Mirza, a prudish and hyprocitical storekeeper. Naseer delighted us all with his "bashi-bazouks, billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles" type dialogue delivery for Mirza and with the suggestive, free-spirited portrayal of Lajo. All in all, a fantastic evening!!
Last evening, i went for another play. To Ratna Pathak and Naseeruddin Shah's credit, it was the day after they had performed IAKN, and they did a bloody good job of this one too. "Dear Liar" was an enactment-cum-narration of the correspondence between George Bernard Shaw and a famous actress of his time, Beatrice Stella Campbell (The first actress to play Eliza Dolittle). Both actors gave the audience a stellar performance. Once or twice they fumbled with lines, recovering quite well. Considering they had done an Urdu play just the previous night, it was amazing to see them fit into their new characters with such ease. The play was about 2 hours long and it made one happy and sad for both characters. I find it a great pity that GBS and Stella didn't get married. Although, I do believe that it was this distance that made their relationship as exciting as it was.
If any of you ever get a chance to see these plays, don't miss it for the world.
As an afterthought..... I paid 350 rs. for balcony tickets. (Nosebleed ki mummy, as a friend of mine put it). Those were the cheapest tickets and the most expensive were 2500. I think its a shame to have to pay so much to watch a play, no matter who the actors, production company or what the venue is. (P.S. Prithvi rocks!!)
Monday, January 26, 2009
Slumdog Millionaire
I had read about Slumdog Millionaire when they had screened it at the Dubai Intl Film Festival. I downloaded this film and watched it a few weeks back. Although it was a fun film, I cannot for the life of me imagine why this film won the best film Golden Globe and why it is nominated for the best picture film at the Oscars.
True, I haven't watched all the other films that have been nominated or that have been omitted, but anyone who has watched slumdog will agree with me on a few points.
1. The acting/ dialog delivery was sub-par. Dev Patel was not at all apt for this role. If you look at actors like Ben Kingsley, Russell Crowe, Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, John Malkovich, Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, etc etc.... all have had impeccable dialog delivery and accents in their films, whether they had to play a Mahatma Gandhi, a gun slinger in Arizona, a Publicity Agent, a Stepford wife, French Royalty or even a bunch of Pirates. Dev Patel did not look or sound at all like anyone who has lived in Indian slums his whole life.
2. The story....OMFG....What slum kid who gets a gun says "The man with the Colt 45 says shut up"??? - And from that incident, Jamal figured that Samuel Colt invented the revolver??? (The "gunmaster G-9" bit was genius, albeit a bit much... considering that you need to be a mithun fan to know about that.)
Apart from that, the blind beggar boy identifying the 100$ note... yea right! The KBC host making fun of a chai-walla on air - a bit much to believe. In understand the aim was to make the audience hate Anil Kapoor's character, but it can be done in other ways.
I guess there are many ways to poke holes in this film. Lets get tot he bottomline. Does it entertain? Yes it does. But when you watch even fantasy films like Pirates of the Caribbean, or The Dark Knight, you realise that actors in "non-real" films make so much of an effort to be true to the character, and a slumdog millionaire gets nominated for an oscar for that sub-par execution and acting. If you look at the other films that got nominated - Frost/Nixon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Milk, The Reader, you will notice that all of these films has a best actor or best actress nomination. Some awesome films like The Dark Knight, Revolutionary Road, Changeling, The Wrestler have been left out from the best picture category and it is really appalling to see Slumdog get a nomination while these other are left out.
With all due respect to ARR, the music of Slumdog is barely average. His work in Hindi and Tamil films has been miles ahead of the stuff he has done here. Even in this category, the Academy managed to leave out the Bruce Springsteen song from "The Wrestler".
I must admit, I have not seen all the films mentioned above, but I will have watched them all by this weekend. And if I stand corrected after that, I shall post again and hail Slumdog as the king. As of now, I feel changeling is miles ahead of slumdog.
An afterthought to the post - WTF was the bollywood song & Dance picturisation of Jai Ho all about??
True, I haven't watched all the other films that have been nominated or that have been omitted, but anyone who has watched slumdog will agree with me on a few points.
1. The acting/ dialog delivery was sub-par. Dev Patel was not at all apt for this role. If you look at actors like Ben Kingsley, Russell Crowe, Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, John Malkovich, Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, etc etc.... all have had impeccable dialog delivery and accents in their films, whether they had to play a Mahatma Gandhi, a gun slinger in Arizona, a Publicity Agent, a Stepford wife, French Royalty or even a bunch of Pirates. Dev Patel did not look or sound at all like anyone who has lived in Indian slums his whole life.
2. The story....OMFG....What slum kid who gets a gun says "The man with the Colt 45 says shut up"??? - And from that incident, Jamal figured that Samuel Colt invented the revolver??? (The "gunmaster G-9" bit was genius, albeit a bit much... considering that you need to be a mithun fan to know about that.)
Apart from that, the blind beggar boy identifying the 100$ note... yea right! The KBC host making fun of a chai-walla on air - a bit much to believe. In understand the aim was to make the audience hate Anil Kapoor's character, but it can be done in other ways.
I guess there are many ways to poke holes in this film. Lets get tot he bottomline. Does it entertain? Yes it does. But when you watch even fantasy films like Pirates of the Caribbean, or The Dark Knight, you realise that actors in "non-real" films make so much of an effort to be true to the character, and a slumdog millionaire gets nominated for an oscar for that sub-par execution and acting. If you look at the other films that got nominated - Frost/Nixon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Milk, The Reader, you will notice that all of these films has a best actor or best actress nomination. Some awesome films like The Dark Knight, Revolutionary Road, Changeling, The Wrestler have been left out from the best picture category and it is really appalling to see Slumdog get a nomination while these other are left out.
With all due respect to ARR, the music of Slumdog is barely average. His work in Hindi and Tamil films has been miles ahead of the stuff he has done here. Even in this category, the Academy managed to leave out the Bruce Springsteen song from "The Wrestler".
I must admit, I have not seen all the films mentioned above, but I will have watched them all by this weekend. And if I stand corrected after that, I shall post again and hail Slumdog as the king. As of now, I feel changeling is miles ahead of slumdog.
An afterthought to the post - WTF was the bollywood song & Dance picturisation of Jai Ho all about??
Monday, January 19, 2009
Happy New Year
Well, its been a not-so-great new year for me so far. An uncle passed away, the company I work for is in deep shit and the best friends are Rs. 10/minute phone calls away.
But hey, tally ho...chin up and all that jazz. It can't get much worse, can it? Oh man, that's just tempting fate! But wat the hell, I've been in a job I hate that pays crap, for a while now. Maybe if I lose my job it'll be a good thing. But the good thing is, I'm not wallowing in self-pity and depression. Sure things like these bum you out. The key is to have distractions. Friends are always around if I ask for them, my family is great, life is good.
Having said that, I feel the lack of something. Its not something I can put my finger on. But its one of those "feel nahi aa rahi" phases. I'd put it down to the 10 hours of dreary clerical work everyday. But I know thats not it. I have always been good at leaving the drudgery behind at office when I leave. I now find myself being intolerant of people, being a lot more sarcastic (as if i wasn't sarcy enough already) a lot more disinterested in people and things around me, enjoying time alone at home more, finding comfort in episode after episode of 'The Office' and 'How I Met Your Mother', without ever feeling the need to have a set of Barney, Marshall, Ted, Robin and Lily to fall back on. I don't know if its a good thing or a bad thing. (Yea i know i'm being contradictory now... coz earlier i spoke about having friends when i need them etc etc.... but thats the state of mind I am in) But thats what I feel right now.
Of course there always are exceptions. People who don't feel the sarcasm and don't see the irritability. That could be because either they are so close or special to me that they are above this. Or they don't matter enough. Its those in between who get caught.
I don't know why I'm overthinking this. Maybe its just that everything is happening at the same time and thats what is getting to me. Or maybe I'm just getting old.
But hey, tally ho...chin up and all that jazz. It can't get much worse, can it? Oh man, that's just tempting fate! But wat the hell, I've been in a job I hate that pays crap, for a while now. Maybe if I lose my job it'll be a good thing. But the good thing is, I'm not wallowing in self-pity and depression. Sure things like these bum you out. The key is to have distractions. Friends are always around if I ask for them, my family is great, life is good.
Having said that, I feel the lack of something. Its not something I can put my finger on. But its one of those "feel nahi aa rahi" phases. I'd put it down to the 10 hours of dreary clerical work everyday. But I know thats not it. I have always been good at leaving the drudgery behind at office when I leave. I now find myself being intolerant of people, being a lot more sarcastic (as if i wasn't sarcy enough already) a lot more disinterested in people and things around me, enjoying time alone at home more, finding comfort in episode after episode of 'The Office' and 'How I Met Your Mother', without ever feeling the need to have a set of Barney, Marshall, Ted, Robin and Lily to fall back on. I don't know if its a good thing or a bad thing. (Yea i know i'm being contradictory now... coz earlier i spoke about having friends when i need them etc etc.... but thats the state of mind I am in) But thats what I feel right now.
Of course there always are exceptions. People who don't feel the sarcasm and don't see the irritability. That could be because either they are so close or special to me that they are above this. Or they don't matter enough. Its those in between who get caught.
I don't know why I'm overthinking this. Maybe its just that everything is happening at the same time and thats what is getting to me. Or maybe I'm just getting old.
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