Majestic Madhya Pradesh

(This photo essay first appeared in the October 2019 issue of Travel 360, the in-flight magazine of Air Asia India)

Fork in the Road: Sarafa Bazaar—Indore’s Delectable Eat Street!

By Raul Dias

oversight (n)
an unintentional failure to notice or do something.

If there is one mantra that I’ve lived by all my life, then, that is, to come clean, admit one’s faults and be upfront. And now, more so than ever before, as I kick off something new and exciting such as this column that sees travel through that delicious prism called food! So, for me, its confession time.
While I may have eaten my way through everything from stewed silkworms in China to fried fruit bats in Mexico on my travels around the world, I’ve always given the cold shoulder to the street food of my home country—India. Blame it on an almost-zero spice tolerance level or on that old adage of the “grass is greener on the other side”, but I had never really tried to lose myself in the gullies and nukkads of India where an abundance of street-side treats can be found. Each more enticing than the other.
But all that changed a few months ago when I was literally dragooned by a group of friends into a night out of all things street food on a short trip to India’s cleanest city for a third year in a row, Indore in the wonderful state of Madhya Pradesh. And there is only one spot for such a feeding frenzy to take place at. By day, the 100-year-old Sarafa Bazaar is a busy market full of jewellery shops enticing patrons with gleaming necklaces and rows of stacked bangles. However, every night at around 11pm or so, it takes on another countenance. Yes, almost in a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde fashion Sarafa Bazaar transforms into an all-vegetarian street food haven like no other I’ve ever seen. Bangkok’s Khao San Road Market eat your heart out!
My very first stop is at the famous Joshi Dahi Vada whose proprietor Mr. Joshi is quite a food acrobat, I soon learn. Theatrically spinning a bowl of dahi vada in air and collecting it all back without spilling a drop, he makes sure you don’t leave without having a bite of his soft and tangy dahi vadas, sprinkled with lime, coriander and amchur. We next move on to try one of the bazaar’s signature foods—bhutte ka kees at a shop called Chhappan Dukan. Unique to this part of India, the divine bhutte ka kees is made from mashed corn smothered in ghee and spices and sprinkled with freshly grated coconut. On realising that I am a food writer, the shop’s owner insists that I try (for free!) another typically Induri dish called garaadu made up of deep-fried yam cubes anointed with a tangy chaat masala dusting.
Still on the savoury food trail, another dish I am literally forced to indulge in is the texturally brilliant dal bafna. Very similar to the Rajasthani dal baati, here the bafna ball is made with a mix of semolina and wheat flour and served with a dal that is spiked with mint chutney and mango pickle for a tangy hit. Served dipped in ghee, the bafna makes sweet love to the dal, resulting in a delicious coupling like no other.
Saving a little space for the sweet onslaught that is to come is a sensible move, as I find myself wolfing down a malpua-rabdi combination at the famous Jai Bhole Jalebi Bhandar that is soon chased by a mawa baati, which is a local take on a gulab jamun that sees this iteration stuffed with dried fruit and nuts.
It’s almost 1.30am as I waddle out of the still-bustling Sarafa Bazaar wishing and hoping that breakfast a few hours later at my five-star hotel could hold a candle to this kind of sheer street food brilliance…

(First published on 29th June 2019. Appearing every last Saturday of the month in The Free Press Journal newspaper, this column is all about viewing travel through the prism of food. https://www.freepressjournal.in/travel/sarafa-bazaar-indores-delectable-eat-street-2)

Notes from Indore

By Raul Dias

While other airports in India resort to a blend of wordless instrumental and folk tunes that serve as the ambient muzak, Indore’s Devi Ahilya Bai Holkar Airport relies on the mellifluous voice of singer Shantanu Mukherjee, a.k.a. Shaan. “Ho Halla”, which was Indore’s Swachhta Anthem song for the Minister for Urban Development’s Swachh Survekshan 2019, has now become a sort of battle cry in the Madhya Pradesh city’s cleanliness-fronted war. And for someone with a borderline cleanliness OCD like myself, spending a few days in Indore was like finding my own personal urban version of Valhalla.

“Swachhta aadat hai, swachhta utsav hai” (cleanliness is a habit, cleanliness is a celebration), goes a line from the aforementioned song, which was part of the Indore Municipal Corporation’s (IMC) cleanliness campaign that saw it clinch the title of India’s cleanest city for three years in a row now from 2017 to 2019. The song even plays as municipal vehicles go about collecting garbage from households. In fact, I was later told, it is the de facto and mandatory caller tune of the phones of municipal officials and elected representatives.

Tastefully Clean! 
Now, if Indore’s meandering, perpetually bustling Sarafa Bazaar street were to be a human being, it would most certainly be accused of having a split personality. By day, it is a warren of jewellery shops enticing patrons with gleaming necklaces and rows of stacked bangles.
However, every night at 10 p.m., it dons another avatar: that of a street food haven serving up everything from the typically Induri mashed corn and ghee snack called bhutte ka kees, to the molecular gastronomy-influenced ice paan that makes your breath go all frosty thanks to the addition of liquid nitrogen.
But it is also probably one of the only food streets in the world that’s totally devoid of any food detritus. I saw not a single styrofoam plate or plastic cup littering the ground. Every one of the 200-plus food stalls is provided with segregated garbage bins for both dry and wet waste. And once the feeding frenzy winds down way past midnight, municipal trucks with specially fitted, pressured water jets hose down the street, leaving it spotless for the commercial onslaught of the day ahead.

Seven Plus One

Interestingly, this newfound cleanliness zeal is not limited to the authorities alone. Indore’s citizens too have taken to the cause with fervour.

This is most evident at celebratory occasions like the ‘great Indian wedding’! Giving a cool new fillip to the saat pherasor seven pledges — each corresponding to a round of the sacred fire to solemnise the ceremony — is Indore’s version of the eighth pledge. With it, the newlywed couple is administered the oath of cleanliness. And here’s another uber cool initiative: dustbins are even distributed during such wedding ceremonies to guests as return gifts.
Speaking of dustbins, for the last two years, the IMC is believed to have distributed thousands of bottle-shaped dustbins — which neatly fit into the car door bottle-holders — to vehicle owners to encourage them not to litter on the roads. So chuffed was I to see them that I even picked up a couple to take back home for friends and family, each for a mere ₹35.
And as for one of India’s biggest problems, open defecation, the city has employed something known locally as ‘dabba gangs’ that patrol the city, discouraging open defecation and urging people to use the newly constructed public toilets that one can see everywhere in Indore.

Will it be a case of fourth time's a lucky charm for the nation’s cleanest city in 2020, or will it be ‘cleaned out’ of the competition? I’d wager a bet on the former.


(This article first appeared in the 7th April 2019 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 27 https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/travel/indore/article26743786.ece)