Dream Trip 2008: September

Great Travel Moment

During an early morning walk in Kolkata, I watched pani-puri vendors prepare for catering to hungry clientele expected during the day and through the night. Each vendor's ingredients for this savory (deep-fried tiny balloons of flattened dough are punched, stuffed with potatoes or chickpeas and drenched in spicy water before serving the customer), rest precariously on the double-cone basket. Even the slightest disturbance - be it from a child playing ball or a wayward drunken reveler - could topple the vendor's entire day's earnings! Yet, I did not see even one such mishap later that day when throngs of people occupied this very same street.