Aloo Muri Wala!!

Having met with an accident recently and being confined to bed for almost a week made me tax my brain a little more than usual as I did not have the liberty to carry out any physical task apart from the very necessary ones. This condition of mine made me go back to my growing up years spent in the beautiful abode of clouds- Shillong. I kind of remembered small little insignificant things that are somehow no longer cherished here.

We (all our contemporaries) were particularly fond of a street side food called aloo muri. Now this was made with small pieces of sliced boiled potatoes mixed with bhel which is refferred to as muri in the eastern part of India. Also the combination of different spices and raw mustard oil complimented handsomely with few spoons of tamarind water made it heavenly in taste.If permitted I could have offered it to the Gods as prasad. Even as I write down about it now my mouth has already become watery. All we needed was two rupees to buy this delicacy brought in by migrants from Bihar.

Now this was something which was not either appreciated or encoureaged at home to indulge in.There were many reasons that they gave to make us refrain from having it but the foremost was the cleanliness and hygiene factor of both the food and its seller. But believe you me the same dish if offered at a good restaurant or even prepared at home will never ever give you the taste that it gave when made by these street vendors. Thier black sweaty hands peeling the potatoes, in between scratching at different body parts, sometimes digging gold from the nose simulteneously or even preparing with a running nose-the combination of all these or even any one of these was actually responsible for giving it the unique taste.

I still remember the guy standing with his wooden box filled with all the stuff near the street corner and how we used to see him make the dish with our tounges sticking out.At times the dog nearby was put to shame seeing the length that our tounges come out in anticipation. We plainly ignored all other facts about him but concentrated only on what he offered as an end result of all his preparation.The guy did not change all these years nor did the taste that he generated out. I could not resist trying it out on my last visit.Different people liked it in different ways and he customised it accrodingly.I usuallly just liked the aloo without the muri or bhel as you may like to call it.

Why I remembered this suddenly is simply because lying on my bed on a hot summer afternoon I had nothing to do but stare at the walls around.I let my imagination and memories loose for some time and it moved around everything before finally resting on the aloo muri wala and immediately made me have the sudden urge to have the dish. But being immobile and confined to bed I only had the option to think of it but it was still enough to be able to make my mouth watery.

Long live aloo muri wala!!!