PAV BHAJI

My parents are diabetic and quite cautious about what they eat during long train journeys. They carried this pav bhaji and simply made it in their hotel room at the stopover paired with lightly toasted pav, it gave them a familiar, flavourful dinner without depending on pantry food.

One day meetings ran through lunch and the cafeteria closed by the time I got free. I keep one pav bhaji pouch in my drawer for days like that ten minutes with the office hot-water dispenser, a couple of bread slices from the tea counter, and I didn’t have to leave the building hungry.

In Mahabaleshwar, the pav bhaji stalls were packed and honestly didn’t look very hygienic. We went back to our room, made this with the kettle and used local pav; the bhaji was thick, nicely tangy and we got that “hill-station street food” feeling without standing in a queue.

A sudden power cut stopped our induction stove mid-cooking, and ordering in showed a 70-minute wait time. We still had hot water in the flask, so I mixed this pav bhaji and paired it with leftover chapatis the bhaji had enough flavour to make even cold rotis feel like a proper meal.

During my backpacking trip, most hostel dinners were pasta or instant noodles and I was done with both. This bhaji pouch turned supermarket rolls into a nostalgic pav bhaji night the flavour was close enough to Mumbai stalls that my non-Indian roommates kept asking for extra spoonfuls.