Street Food: India’s Unifying Glue

Malavika Rajesh

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES—Indians are big on food, a statement no one can contest. 

With creations like Punjab’s chicken tikka (small pieces of chicken marinated in a spice mixture) and Kerala’s sadhya (a feast with as many as 64 dishes), India’s kitchens have proven to be places of magic; spaces where spicy, tangy symphonies of colors and tastes are fused with hosts of international influences. From the India that takes up any excuse to ramp up the festivities to the India where one state is as diverse as entire countries are, food has become akin to magnificent art and celebrations.

To me, food acts as a binding force between each unimaginably different Indian neighborhood, a unifying glue to bond over. A paramount chunk of this glue is street food. 

Street food stalls are intimate parts of every bustling city and market in India. One can find everyone from sixteen-year-olds to sixty-year-olds all fervently waiting to get, say a pani puri (hollow puri filled with a mixture of flavored water, tamarind chutney, and chili) before the vendor closes up for the day. Vendors work with dazzling speed and great enthusiasm in dishing food that is intense on the taste-buds and easy on the pockets. 

One might argue the street food of a particular state represents their culture and history. Punjab’s chhole bature (a combination of masala and fried bread made from maida) is tantalizingly scrumptious and hearty like the ancient Punjabi warriors themselves. Tamil Nadu’s colorful roadside kaalan (cabbage and mushroom in an onion-tomato base) is an ode to its vibrant landscape. 

Although street food was forced to temporarily close during COVID, it has now returned, complete with training in social distancing and sanitation. 

The love for street food transcends borders, genders, creeds, and socioeconomic statuses. Food and family are India’s biggest obsessions - its street food gives us a generous serving of both. Wash down each blindingly colorful food variety with chai (tea) and you’ll find that you’ve never been more satisfied. Conversations on everything, from politics to pandas to poetry bloom over two plates of chaat (a savory snack) or some steaming hot idli sambhar (rice cake with vegetable stew), and new friendships and everlasting bonds are born. Perhaps it is the portion of love vendors serve with the food that makes it so scrumptious; perhaps it’s the recipes that have been passed down from generation to generation. Perhaps it is both that make Indian street food unique and unforgettable.

Take a look at the vada pav (a vegetarian fast food dish). More than two million of these are consumed every day in Mumbai, India’s city of dreams. While it remains just a snack to me, to thousands, perhaps millions of daily workers, cheap, quick, delectable street food like vada pav serves as an entire meal. To them, it tastes of Mumbai itself, of the hopes and aspirations that they want to achieve. They might forget the person who served them the vada pav, but they will never forget its taste and the feeling of fulfillment it gives them. Linking millions every day across borders, cultures, and backgrounds, street food is truly India’s unifying glue.