Eat Street Musings Poem by Padmanabhan Ananth

From a narrow bustling one-way street
In an old part of this Garden City
It turns at dusk into a veritable food fete
For cheap but lavish eats - enter 'Khao Galli'!

Daytime grocers, stationers, other traders
On the busy road's either sides
At dark, turn into fresh-food vendors
To sell every veggie cuisine in town

South and North Indian foods aplenty
Chinese, Mexican, Italian - earnest attempts
To attract the techie tastes - a variety
With crisp ingredients fresh off stoves, ovens

As folks enter the mouth of the road
Their nostrils flare up, tongues get tickled
Soon food plates would be passed, emptied
And vendors' cash registers would ring aloud

The whole street would burst at seams
With multitude of hungry expectant stomachs
The young - seeking only the trendy variety
The old - none else but conventional and 'quality'

A dish grandma served you back an eon
One that you may have even forgotten
Will come alive with glory in this gully
And traverse merrily into your hungry belly

Rare tiffins: avare-bele* dosa to akki roti**
From baker's ovens: kara^ bun to dhabeli
Spicy masala dosas made with fresh ghee^^
Kal dosas served with multi-coloured chutney

American sweet corn roasted on coals
Added with wonder nuts and killer spices!
Ice creams with exotic jelly toppings
Colas cleverly mixed with local masalas#!

All these dished out at a throwaway price
That will sure make you sit up in surprise
To wonder if hawkers are at all making gains
Or their stated goal is to just top up tummies

I've made numerous visits to this Eat Street
To try out every variety - savoury to sweet
When done, I wished I'd hired a fork-lift truck
To safely haul me home with my belly bulk!
- - -
*Flat beans
**Leavened bread made out of rice
^Spicy
^^Clarified butter
#Spices