Gol Gappas

The relationship between my parents and I became very strained after I moved out of their house. But on our annual trips back to India, eating Gol Gappas together is always a warm nostalgic experience.

After the foot-shuffling airport queues and the long-winded taxi ride back to my grandpa's place in Shalimar Bagh, the first thing we ask our relatives is where the best place for Gol Gappas is right now, because it always changes.

In India, people have street food so often that eventually you develop a local palate similar to knowing what the best restaurants around one's suburb are. One year it's the small hole-in-the-wall place on BF-block that no one knows unless they lived in the surrounding streets . At other times it's Bittoo Tikki Wala, the now-famous street food chain that is always packed, so once someone gets to the head of the queue they better eat as if they're trying for a world record. Sometimes it will be Haldiram's, an age-old established restaurant that doesn't have the street food experience, but just happens to be better than the others at the time, and is always the best for gut health.

We make sure to eat Gol Gappas later the same day if we land early, or the very next day, because on the one year we didn't have them the day after we arrived, we kept putting it off, and then didn't end up eating them at all before coming back to Australia! We joked about how we might as well have not visited that year, but I think part of us truly felt that, since we missed out on an essential annual travelling experience.

I must apologise. Here I am singing praises about this amazing food, even though I haven't even elaborated on what it is. Well to put it simply, it is the perfect bite sized food that results in an explosion of flavour and texture in the mouth.

If someone wants more detail than that, I completely understand. I will now describe to the best of my ability what a Gol Gappa is and what makes it so great. The base is a bite-sized round pastry pocket. The vendors crack open a hole at the top for the filling, usually a mixture of potato and chickpeas, cooked with spices then mashed together. The chutney, which varies regionally, goes on top, the tamarind-plum one being my favourite . This cute little feast is then dunked into a flavour mix(called 'paani', translated to 'water') of your choice. In Delhi most Gol Gappa stands have two options: sweet and spicy. Sweet is fine, usually the one I recommend to weak-tongued white people. But the spicy one, arguably the better, is what usually determines the quality of the whole thing. Every vendor has their artistically curated mix of herbs and spices, which they guard with their lives, because a good paani will wipe out all your local competition. Often workers will even open their secret side businesses using the stolen paani recipe to undercut their successful boss! After being dunked in this salacious solution, the Gol Gappa is lifted out, literally brimming with flavour, and handed over to me(I am now vicariously reliving the memories so that I can describe it most clearly, you're welcome). It is usually served in bowls made of dried leaves(traditional and eco-friendly!) to stop the dripping water from staining all your clothes.

And then I just put the whole thing in my mouth and eat it! But that's underselling it. The moment it enters my mouth, I taste the delicious deep fried pastry soaked with salt, sweet, sour and spice. Then I bite down. The sound of the crunch, the flavours of all the ingredients mixing together as I chew, the textures dancing on my tongue like an edible flash mob, is divine. And as I keep chewing, the more I experience how the different flavours compliment each other in a symphony of taste. It is those moments that make me grateful to the gods that I'm alive, and then I order another one. And another one. And so on till my stomach hurts and my mouth burns, so I have to cool it by panting.

Or until I run out of money I'm willing to spend. Many people ask for more paani to drink, partly because it's complimentary, mainly because it's delicious enough for me to consider drinking it instead of water everyday. Traditionally it also contains many ingredients that help digestion. But then again the water quality of some places may make that irrelevant.

In Adelaide, my family always gets excited when we find a restaurant that serves Gol Gappas. We like to think of ourselves as connoisseurs of Indian eateries, arbiters of their authenticity. I have lost count of the times we have stopped going to a certain place because my parents hated a single dish out of many consumed over the years. On the other hand, they are filled with childlike excitement when they find a place that serves street-style food such as parathas, chaat, and, you guessed it, Gol Gappas.

Everywhere has a different way of serving them. Some bring it on a plate ready to pop them into your mouth, others give you the paani to dunk it in yourself, but very rarely do they serve it in the small disposable bowls which you eat from while standing. They usually aren't as good as the ones in Delhi, but, simply because of their novelty, it is an exception to the never-go-there-again-because-of-one-bad-dish rule.

Lastly, there is guaranteed to be a Gol Gappa vendor at Indian festivals and weddings. Yes, one that gives it to you in small bowls to eat from while standing. I'm not sure where they come from, or if they only work events and nothing else, but I have never seen them elsewhere so I try to give them as much business as I can. Maybe it's this exclusivity, or maybe it's being surrounded by people that look more like me instead of white Australians, but the Gol Gappas these vendors serve are the closest things to the ones in Delhi.

Something that many people ask is, is there a way to make them at home? There is! Just as there are taco kits, Gol Gappa kits are available at Indian stores. I remember how excited my medical background parents were when they found that they can create Gol Gappas on their own terms(understandably, after the traumatic stomach experiences Delhi has to offer). That too in the most hygienic environment known to them: their own home.

Over the years we have experimented a lot with our recipe. We have tried different fillings, sauces, textures, paani, kits from different brands, all to arrive at what we like best(a secret which I continue to guard). Thanks also go out to our family friends, who have taught us better chutneys, their own recipes for the paani, and exactly how to cook potatoes so that they make the best filling.

Food is one of those diasporic refuges that really bonds people in our community. As something that engages all the five senses, and the four dimensions, inviting fellow Desi(what people from the Indian Subcontinent call ourselves) people over for a home-cooked meal can transport you back to the motherland like little else. After you leave one of these parties, it is always a strange transition back to the white majority world where most parents serve bland vegetables for dinner.

Another special role food has is connecting generations of migrants to each other. Families like mine experience a lot of conflict due to the children adopting very different philosophies and lifestyles because of the exposure and social reality they experience growing up in Western society. As parents end up having less and less in common with their children, food becomes an anchor for their relationship.

I moved out of my parents' house in my mid twenties, something they did not expect and were very against. In India, the norm is for sons to live with their parents well into their old age, and daughters go to live with their husbands(my own paternal grandparents passed away when I was a toddler, so our nuclear household was actually very similar to the West). Hence why my parents blamed themselves for bringing us into Australian society which they think taught me to "abandon" them(a tiny part of the blame rests with popular Bollywood movie Baghban which really villainized the children). The real reasons were a need for independence, privacy, dating freedom, and many other issues, most of which have thankfully been addressed now. But they still want me to spend more time with them than I want to. So, for my mother, inviting me over to have her food is one of her ways to get me to spend more time with her, dad and my little sister. To show that she loves me and that she's sorry. And for me to refuse can be taken as a lack of forgiveness. But she's smarter than that, and she knows if the food is tasty and special enough(which usually means that I can't cook it myself), I will very likely come over anyway. So every now and then, I would receive a text from her, "Hello boss. Gol Gappa party tonight!" followed by a lot of endearing emojis. I recently moved to Sydney to pursue my artistic ambitions. Many days I wish I could get that text so that I can respond with, "On my way, see you soon :-)" but it doesn't happen as much anymore since they live more than a thousand kilometres away in Adelaide.

It is now up to me to find new friends that I can invite over for my own Gol Gappa party.