Four dinners and an angioplasty

This is the first time I’ve come to Bombay alone, without any other members of my family. It’s been nice to have some freedom, but the tradeoff is I don’t have mom or dad to play social secretary, arranging lunches, dinners and tea with various branches of the extended family so that no one feels slighted. Left to my own devices, I’m torn between an intense desire to sleep all day and an equally intense desire not to hurt any family member’s feelings. So whenever someone tells me I “must” come over, I never say no – I usually just smile, nod my head and try to change the subject.

The pratfalls of such a strategy became evident yesterday, which will henceforth be known as Fat Friday. Unable to decline anyone’s invitation on my second-to-last night in Bombay, I wound up eating four dinners in four hours.

It started at 5:30 pm with dosas (for the uninitiated, just think “crepes”) on the street corner below my cousin’s flat. My cousin’s two sons had been raving about this dosawallah for days, so despite plans to be at dinner in 1½ hours, I went down for an impromptu amuse-bouche. Totally worth it. I firmly believe you can judge a city by its street food, and by that measure Bombay is the greatest city in the world – just think of pani-puri, roasted peanuts in those cool newspaper cones, spicy pavbhaji topped with buckets of cilantro, and chicken tikka rolls.

But they all pale next to the dosawallah of Nana Chowk. This guy knows his way around a crepe – people have been coming to his stand from all over Bombay for 20 years. In five minutes the three of us polished off five sada dosas with coconut and garlic chutneys. I was ready to drop all dinner plans then and there to try the dosawallah’s speciality – the Chinese dosa, with cabbage, tomato, onions, bell peppers, soy sauce and chili sauce. But I am an Indian son, and that sort of recklessness would be frowned upon.

One hour later I found myself in the living room of my dad’s younger sister. This visit was supposed to be a quick Diwali formality, but of course you can’t leave an aunt’s house without eating, so when I wasn’t looking I had a plate thrust under my nose piled with muthia (think soft veggie cutlets), mint chutney and sweets. I pleaded with her – we were going to her daughter’s house for dinner next, did she want all that effort to go to waste? – but it was no use. I left feeling overfull and slightly nauseous.

Less than 90 minutes later, we sat for dinner at my other cousin’s house, where the growing tension in my stomach was relieved somewhat by the antics of her one-year-old daughter Aashnaa. As the girl played, laughed and mugged for digital cameras, I was made to put away a paratha, a bowl of vegetable soup and a thick slab of black forest cake.

It was 9:00 by the time I got to the very sleek All Stir Fry, one of those Asian-fusion places that popped up like zits in the States in the 90s and are hugely popular in Bombay. I had left my dad’s side of the family tree for dinner with my mom’s younger sister and her family. We ordered fried sweet potatoes and dumplings as starters and huge stir-fry plates, washed down with Kingfisher beer (naturally). I was feeling distinctly woozy by this point but my aunt and cousin hadn’t had enough, so we stopped for dessert on the way home – one order of mangoes with sweet cream, one order of triple chocolate cake.

And thus in the space of one evening I experienced a universe of food in Bombay. Now that the heart palpitations have subsided, I can say it was totally worth it.