The Bajji Bonda Temptations

Dear Friends,

Yesterday as I got off the auto on a main road I crossed over and went into the famed Adyar Bakery to buy some wheat bread and stuff.

The aroma of deep frying of savories wafted through the air from a nearby tiny shop just adjacent to this super store cum bakery.

The bajji and bonda kadai has been there since the past 30 odd years. Its still functioning from the same side-lane off the main Sardar Patel Road.

The moment we smell of the stuff all the advise from our doctors to keep cholestrol down goes vanishing into thin air. Off we head towards to see what is frying in the pan for the day. I go there very, very occasionally. Yesterday I was wondering why. I came away from work sooner than normal.


Standing amidst a sea of humans - all eager to buy anything hot and devour them in no time.

There were a host of them from the frying pan to the huge tray from where it was packed quickly against verbal orders from all around.

There were molaga (mirchi or chilli) bajjis, bondas (with and without stuffed potato curry), medu vada, cutlets, pakoras, onion vadas and some sweets too like badushahi.

All of the savories are made from the bengal gram flour with little variations and consistencies in mixing the dough. The vada is made from urad or green dal.

The sweet is made from refined flour or maida as we call it.

The common factor here for the wonderful taste is the oil in which all these are deep fried.

They bring one big pan of oil to a boil then start off with the batches of sweet for the day. Then continue to deep fry all the savories one after the other in the same hot oil for as long as there are people asking for stuff. By 9pm they close shop.
Its transfat, its reused oil, its darkish oil, its bad for our heart and is full of bad cholestrol, etc., etc, Yet our heart yearns for such kind of things. Our feet drag us there. The aroma is over powering to resist. We throw all caution and good advice given by our doctors and well wishers and have a dig at these.
If this indulgence is once in a while then its ok but for those who have this compulsion it gets difficult as the blocks in arteries can never be cleaned whatever excercises we may work at every day. Like actress Shabana Azmi said in a recent interview that putting on weight for roles demanding is fun and reducing is possible later but whatever happens to the greasy deposits along the blood streams which no excercising can take away. This is a valid point.

Take care and walk away from deep fried items if you can.

Mahalakshmi.