From left, sundried gawar and karela, and sundried yogurt-stuffed chillies.
One day, 43 years ago, Ulhasnagar resident Ashok Mirchandani was sitting at the corner of First Pasta Lane with his dad, spending a relaxed afternoon in Colaba, when someone came up to him and asked him a question that changed his life and the fortunes of his family: Do you know where I can buy good Sindhi papads around here?
Mirchandani decided to make these papads his business. A few weeks later, he set up shop at that corner, selling Sindhi papads and a handful of Sindhi pickles from a thela. He was 15 years old.
Barring family occasions, emergencies, and Sundays, Mirchandani has been at that corner, from 11am to 7pm, every day for the last 43 years. His merchandise has grown to include over 100 speciality items, all sold from the same cart about the size of a small desk. From Monday through Saturday, he travels to and from Ulhasnagar daily, undertaking a commute of five hours, to replenish stocks for his street stall, which he has named Ashok Papadwala.
He’s not the only one. There are similar stalls in each of Mumbai’s Sindhi pockets such as Chembur and Khar, and all of them go by similar monikers: the owner’s name followed by Papadwala (see Where To Buy, below). Even their inventories are almost identical – papads, pickles, dried rice- or vegetable-based wafers and other snacks that need to be fried before they can be eaten (kachrie), wadi (sun-dried spicy lentil nuggets used to flavour gravies and pulaos), lotus stems (bhee), and fresh lotus seeds (dodi).
This particular combination of food items is available only in these Sindhi Papadwala shops. Their supplies come not from factories, but from housewives in Ulhasnagar, who run product-specific cottage industries from their homes. One woman makes pickles, another one makes rice-based snacks, another salts and dries bhindi and karela on her building terrace or in her balcony, and so on. The owners pick up supplies from each of these homes, repackage them and carry them to their shops.
Folks who are not Sindhi, or haven’t been introduced to these edibles would not know what to do with many of them. They look strange, and methods of preparing them are not intuitive. What for instance, do you do with something that looks like a mud-covered perforated stem with furry ends (bhee), or a modak-shaped rice dumpling that looks like it’s been left out in the sun for weeks (fulwadi).
But more people should get to know about these shops. I’m not saying this because I am Sindhi, but because there’s so much adventurous sampling to be done, and especially because almost every shop I know of is shutting down after the current owner retires. The market’s gone cold, according to the owners. I’ve heard various iterations of the same set of reasons – the next generation doesn’t value these snacks as much; a call-centre employee earns more money than people in this business; it’s not a “cool enough” industry to enter or sustain; it takes too much tedious back-breaking work for what it gives. Already, some of them are beginning to dilute their inventory and stocking generic snacks like unbranded soya chunks.
Think about it, before the word artisanal became cool, these products already fit the bill. One shop’s Sindhi papad or wadi doesn’t taste like any other’s, because they buy them from different women who use their own version of the recipe and make them by hand. The best part is, if you ask the owners how to prepare anything from their shop, whether it’s kachries or wadi or bhee, they will give you detailed instructions, and even a recipe. Way before sun-dried tomatoes showed up in India and on fancy restaurants’ menus, we’d been eating salted and sun-dried bhindi, karela, and gawar (cluster beans). And we still should. They’re not as posh, but they’re tremendous fun, and it will be a shame if they disappear.
WHERE TO BUY
Ashok Papadwala
Mirchandani sells the spiciest “Amritsari” papad we’ve seen in the city; about half of it is cumin and black pepper. He has 12 other varieties of papad (Disco papad and Poona papad, anyone?) and is happy to explain the nuances of each. Try his gawar kachrie; dry chilli curd (chillies that have been stuffed with yoghurt and dried); ready-to-fry dried potato wafers; and Sindhi mung wadi. Skip the bhee, better stuff is found at Vashi Papadwala in Khar.
Outside Kailash Parbat, First Pasta Lane, off Colaba Causeway, Colaba. Tel: 93235 07147. Open Monday to Saturday, from 11am to 7pm; Sunday, closed.
Prakash Papadwala
Shankar Stores, known to Sindhis as Ochi Passari, is the only Papadwala-style pavement shop that has managed to move to a grocery store format. But naturally, they sell generic food products in addition to Sindhi items, and they’re more expensive. Across the street, Prakash Papadwala offers similar goods for cheaper prices. Sindhis come to him to buy “B Pipermint” and pudina arag, both edible tinctures used to treat indigestion. He also sells two confections that make the most of that beloved Sindhi combination of fried besan and sugar – sev chikki, and nakul (small gathiyas coated with fine, frothy sugar).
Opposite Shankar Stores, outside Sindhu Halwai, near Vrindavan restaurant, 3rd Road, Khar (West). Tel: 93232 90672. Open Monday to Saturday, from noon to 8pm; Sunday, closed.
Vashi Papadwala
Vashi Kishinchand Laungani sells some excellent bhee and dodi (fresh lotus seeds). In addition to all the Papadwala goods, he also offers ready-to-fry samosas from (popular Sion eatery) Guru Kripa, and heart-shaped, stuffed potato patties.
On the pavement in front of Punjab Sindh Paneer Centre, Durga Niwas, near Khar Telephone Exchange and Citywalk Shoes, Khar Pali Road, Khar (West). Tel: 93230 81472. Open Monday to Saturday, from 2.30pm to 9.30pm; Sunday, closed.
Shankar Papadwala
Vashi’s younger brother Shankar set up his Papadwala shop on the same pavement. At his stall, snag dried drumstick flowers; brine-based, mustardy onion pickle; spicy alu papad, and wheat laddus. His round, stuffed potato patties sell pretty well too, about 100 packets per day.
On the pavement in front of Punjab Sindh Paneer Centre, Durga Niwas, near Khar Telephone Exchange and Citywalk Shoes, Khar Pali Road, Khar (West). Tel: 93209 17563. Open Monday to Saturday, from 1pm to 9pm; Sunday, closed.
Roshni Bajaj Sanghvi is a Mumbai-based food journalist, a contributing editor at Vogue magazine, a graduate of the French Culinary Institute in New York City, and the restaurant reviewer for the Hindustan Times newspaper in Mumbai.