MughalSarai JUnction: Of Fresh-Fluffy-Fried Pooris
Mughalsarai Junction is a big, busy station located at the mid-point of the route between Kolkata and New Delhi, travelling east to west. We lived in East India with origins in Uttar Pradesh and every year the vacation was reserved to visit grandparents and other relatives in North India. Most trains from Tatanagar (Jamshedpur) to North India passed through this busy junction.
This memory is from the 70s. Those days we travelled only by 2nd class and I would love to sit by the window and see the world go by. It was also useful for espying things being sold on the platform. At that age, I would love to ogle at toys that I hadn’t seen before; these were unique due to the proximity to Banaras City (now, Varanasi). I would eagerly peer out before the train rolled onto the platform to catch sight of the vendor selling toys. Especially one that sold only the doll tea set in a small palm-leaf basket with a matching cover. I always bought two as one had to be for my BFF.
From those early train journeys, I remember we used to look forward to eating one of our meals at Mughalsarai junction. The station was famous for fresh deep-fried pooris with aloo-ki-rassedaar subzi. I don’t know if it was the fatigue of sitting on the train for long or wanting a break from home-packed food or the food spoiling in the summer heat, but the pooris were delectable!
Pooris are traditionally made with wheat flour, sometimes with a pinch of ajwain, or called kachoris if stuffed with urad daal or peas. But the ones found on this railway platform were simple and plain, fried and fluffy with a side of aloo-ki-subzi. This subzi was a runny potato curry with boiled potatoes – some broken into smaller pieces, some mashed to give body to the gravy. If you went in the right season, you’d even get fresh green coriander leaves sprinkled on it.
The food on railway platforms was always fresh due to the high turnover of passengers. Food was cooked on the spot and doled out directly from the cooking vessels. These food carts stationed on the platform used to serve zillions of travellers and the food was pretty safe and delicious. The food carts were mobile kitchens on rickety 3-wheeled carts where one could see the vendor furiously frying numerous pooris with the subzi bubbling alongside on a nondescript, soot-darkened aluminium dekchi with a lid that had lost its shape due to so much wear and tear!
Typically, the vendor would employ a young boy, maybe two, to run alongside the train as soon as it pulled onto the platform. These boys would take orders from passengers, deliver orders, and collect money. Some keen passengers would alight to quickly head to the nearest vendor to beat the rush and pick up their orders directly. But one was always alert to the whistle before the train’s departure or the green signal near the engine or the flag being waved by the train guard. One could not afford to miss the train, as getting to your destination on long-distance trains was impossible without a reservation. Something that hasn’t changed even today!
I remember, I used to be a nervous kid and my anxiety would peak when my father or my brother alighted at a station platform to fill water in the bottle/surahi, buy food, or pick up a newspaper/magazine. I would wait anxiously till I saw them board and kept peering out to scan the platform until I saw them safely back in the compartment. I remember troubling my mom, even whining, asking where either of them were and why they got off or why they had not got back in the train. If people recall, there used to be the Indian Bradshaw (train timetable that was heavy; one for each railway subdivision was released quite frequently during the year). I had learnt how to navigate the pages of this heavy book, checking stoppage times at each station which soon became the cue to start the worry!
Back to food! Each serving of poori aloo had 2, 3, or even 4 freshly deep-fried pooris with a bowl of steaming hot gravy served on the side in small leaf donas. Donas are bowls made with dried broad leaves sewn together with small pliable sticks. Even though I loved this meal, I recall that the curry used to be bubbling hot and spicy and the pooris chewy and quite oily. But only when the pooris were soaked in the potato gravy, the combination came alive delectably. The spices that were used in this curry were unknown and one could never replicate the taste at home.
We had no qualms about throwing these biodegradable leaf bowls out of the train window after we finished our meal which today would call for disapproving and angry looks from other passengers, and even my kids. We would call it ‘giving back to nature’!
