What you didn’t know about batata sandwich of the east
After spending 14 years of my life in National Capital Region, I had to pull my socks up to discover the beginning of my new job in Pune, India which was 900 miles away from what I thought was home for me. As I entered the Maharashtrian city that was once famous for Maratha wars and now for its hot semi-arid climate, I felt a strange longing to discover every length of it that I had always been unaware of. Coming from a Hindi speaking North Indian community, I was both welcomed and surprised by this new kind of city culture that was successfully disclosed now. My typical day of boarding metro trains, consuming momos after college, and sitting in forts was now replaced by waking up to the beats of giant drums, craving for Shrewsbury biscuits, and pacing with the clicking of Marathi tongues that often halted when my zero knowledge of the language failed it.
One of the days during my training in a school, I was told to get food from the vendor who stood outside at the interval. After gulping down the milkshake, my attention was caught by an unusual combination of bread and potato that my colleague was stuffing his mouth with. Dismissing the thought of wrongly acquiring the habit of staring at someone else’s plate, I paused and looked at it with wonder. It was a tiny, simple meal that consisted of a bread bun slit aside in two different directions and a deep fried patty put in between that was made with potato mash and chickpea flour. I later found out that the dish is called Vada Pav. I vaguely remembered the name from some fancy cafe in Delhi or perhaps, a Bollywood movie based in Maharashtra, but I never thought I would encounter it one day. Very obviously, the combination of Vada and Pav reminded me of burgers that consist of buns and a patty made of meat or vegetables placed in between. Yet it was none of the kind of meals I had ever had. As soon as I dug in my first bite, I experienced a flattering moment of bread mixed with the crisp and spices of patty flowing in my mouth. That was the day I started understanding the reason behind Maharashtra’s obsession with Vada Pav.
As I happily welcomed the deliciously exciting Vada Pav combo in my diet, I moved around in Pune looking at every street stall and indoor restaurant serving this blessed and inexpensive snack. Most of my memories in Pune have revolved around grabbing a plate or two of Vada Pav that I later found out was also served with different kinds of chutney (a spicy condiment made of fruits or vegetables with spices, vinegar, and sugar) and fried chilli at a lot of places including the tapri (a shanty tea stall strategically located at the corner of the street, near a college campus, office, or railway station) situated near my workplace where I was often found hanging out after school dispersal. Vada Pav, among other Maharashtrian dishes, holds a special place of importance in the hearts of Maharashtrians and is a native fast food to this state. Pav, being the staple bread of Maharashtra is easily found in every corner of the state. This is the wondrous, versatile form of bread that Maharashtrians conveniently team up with every form of the possible dish there is. Whether it is vada, omelette, keema (minced meat), misal or bhaji (two different Maharashtrian curries primarily made of potatoes, onions, lemons, and coriander), Pav goes with everything. The concept of making different kinds of pavs and buns, and teaming them with butter, popularly called Bun Maska is an everyday affair in the city; and Vada Pav readily creates a feeling capable of instilling significance and attachment among Maharashtrians, forming an important part of the Marathi culture. Ideally known as an evening snack, people also prefer having it for breakfast and lunch, and sometimes, at dinner as well.
Apart from Pune, the dish is famous in every city found in Maharashtra including the commercialized and popular city, Bombay which is now known as Mumbai. Similar to the effect that Vada Pav has on Punekars, it has been winning hearts of people living in Mumbai as well. It was Mumbai where it originated as a street food by a man called Ashok Vaidya who slid the piping hot potato patty between the pav and sold it at his stall outside Dadar Railway Station in 1966. In 2015, a short documentary titled ‘Vada Pav Inc’ based on Vaidya’s invention was selected for the Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival. The film shows how Vaidya’s family, even after his demise, has been selling Vada Pav for the last 17 years. This enterprise was a result of being inspired by the call of Balasaheb Thackeray, founder of Shiv Sena, a Marathi-Hindu nationalist party. He urged Maharashtrians to become entrepreneurs like the South Indians did by establishing Udupi restaurants. Most of the customers who grabbed these during Vaidya’s time were mill workers. Since it is a cheap snack that costs 5 to 10 rupees, most of the proportion of the buyers remain from the working class until today. Later, Shiv Sena actually took charge of the snack as its own and promoted it as a Marathi, working-class snack. Apart from its presence in giant food chains, it was encouraged to be made and sold by an astronomical amount of vendors in Mumbai by the party. Soon, the entire city of Mumbai was flooded with stalls selling Vada Pavs that subsequently created more number of jobs, and made Vada Pav successfully an authentic Marathi snack, which speaks of its giant importance in Maharashtra’s culinary heritage.
While I spent a long time believing that the authenticity of what the Maharashtrians call Batata Vada and Pav lies in Mumbai, my table turned around when I discovered that both pav and potatoes were gifted to India by the Portuguese. Before the British came to India with white bread, Portuguese had managed to establish a culture that grew around consuming buns or pavs. The inception of pav in India came out of a simple incident of frustration that Portuguese had when they came to Goa in the 16th century. They blended with the culture and cuisines of Goa including digging in a meal of rice, pickle, and fish but they wanted to get back to eating bread that they consumed in Europe. They started baking bread buns or pavs and used them as a substitute for rice. Soon, most of the Goans developed the culture of relying on pavs for food and before they knew, the ‘pav- culture’ quickly flooded the streets of Mumbai and other parts of Maharashtra as well. As consumption of pavs expanded in Mumbai, it wasn’t very late to mash potatoes the Portuguese way. Just like pav, the Portuguese introduced Goa to a vegetable called potato before the British brought the crop to West Bengal. ‘Batata’ as the Portuguese called it, soon became a hit in both Goa and Mumbai and so, the Marathis started using the word for potatoes in their regional language.
Despite being a staunch example of the western concept of a sandwich, the ‘Bombay Burger’ as it is also known as, is significant to Marathi culture. An estimated number of 20 to 30 million Vada Pavs are sold every day in Mumbai. Within decades, the Batata Sandwich of the East has managed to touch every inch of Marathi sentiment. The snack not only rescues our day when we are unable to cook but also opens the pathway to warmth and affection, especially during monsoon when one often finds themselves at loss of words before they get their hands dug in a hot, spicy plate of Vada Pav with a steaming cup of tea. It’s mildly unlikely for the people to not just see it as a snack but much beyond symbolizing hope, care, empathy, courage, and love. The phoenix-hearted snack, which already originates from a story of established accomplishment in the history of Maharashtra, has the ability to make people rise from the ashes. Whether it is the brave story of Sohani who with his friend Subodh, earned 4.4 crores rupees selling Vada Pavs in London after losing his job, or the heartwarming tale of a Mumbai based Vada Pav Seller Mahesh Ahiwale who pledged to donate his one-day earnings to the welfare of soldiers- it is such stories and beliefs that make Vada Pav what it is today. Standing true to the widely used quote “Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder”, its people have developed an inspiring lens that crosses its ordinary culinary value and celebrates its sensitized worth on World Vada Pav Day on August 23 every year.
Despite its conflicted history and politics, Vada Pav remains a source of inspiration and compassion, as it moves beyond being known as just ‘food’. This simple sandwich of the east has weaved a wide variety of challenging stories and beautiful learnings for the world. Every time a Batata Vada swims in the gigantic pan of heated oil, a powerful experience is created in some corner of the world. Perhaps, this is where the collective strength of the ‘Vada Pav culture’ lies.
During my winter break in 2017, I met my friend in a Mumbai-inspired fast food joint in New Delhi, India who ordered a plate of Vada Pav for 100 rupees. The shock on my face was a given as I pitched my voice high in disbelief wondering how could that sad plate of bun and patty even deserve to be sold at that high a price. As I told her that I had better ones in Pune, there was an unusual sense of belonging that I had seemed to have created with the city. I had never been a Maharashtrian or a Vada Pav seller yet this is what I always longed to discover that wedged among several parts of my heart.
