A friend loved this description in one of my mails, so storing it here.
Girmit - the North Karnataka version of the bhelpuri.
It tastes like it sounds (roll that sexy r!) - crunchy-soft, an unabashed flaunting of chilly and raw onion and lemon and still-crisp bhel, functional food served without any flourishes on a piece of torn newspaper on a rough wooden table. The food of real men (!), the weather-beaten men of the the land who have no time for frills and fancies, the men of the highway who can but stop briefly and eat light, in silence, still and contemplative, the sound of the engine still reverberating somewhere inside them, possessively holding them in its grasp.
Washing it down with a cup of strong over-boiled potent tea made in a dilapidated samovar, they are ready to stride out, back to their purpose, the journey. The girmit a mere pause, a tangy punctuation that briefly breaks the flow, the headiness of the road unfurling into the distance once again taking over all sensation, their eyes once again glazing over into the trance of moving ahead at great speed, with the wind for company...
Okay, this just means that I have cheap plebeian tastes, am just trying to pass off as an epicurean :) :)
1 comment:
I must say, Girmit(I never knew it by this name) is a delicacy - coming from someone who never really liked bhelpuri- I love to be surprised by the tang of raw mango bits, the crunchiness of the 'nippat' with mellow groundnut bits amid the 'crunchy-soft' puffed rice. Mom loves it. :)
Also the description of the trance of travel, that inertia- makes me sick :( * big time motion-sickness, I have *
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