Just another Saturday night.

This morning, I called my lady love to a rendezvous with my candidate (for those who came in late, I am a team member for a potential Member of Parliament from Pune in the GE2024), thinking I’d be done in a jiffy and then, give her some attention, but one thing led to another, and Missy and I couldn’t get a chance to spend some time together.

Anyway, I invited her over later in the evening and asked if she’d like to chill at the club and have a drink or two. Turns out that when she came, the other lovely (and loving) lady in my life, my mum, decided she wanted to chat, and we spent an hour fixing some family photos and giggling about how beautiful Maa looked back in 2005. I maintained that she looked as, if not more, beautiful today to me, but she said the one man she would’ve liked to hear it from not being around, she doesn’t feel it. So, we decided to chuck the club and sit with the beautiful lady and talk of life.

Later, when the young senior had retired to her bedroom, we two sat with a drink in the balcony, looking at the sky (the moon’s crescent is absolutely gorgeous tonight) and planning a fantasy motorcycle trip (we can’t afford one till mid-March at the vey least, being totally packed to the gills with work) when we suddenly felt peckish.

Now, normally when we have to decide what to order, it is a solid hour of discussion and Zomato scrolling, before we can agree on anything. Surprisingly, tonight was that rare occasion when we both said, ‘Vada-Paav’ simultaneously. Of course, for those who don’t know yet, Missy prefers only the vada, and she’s quite picky about it, given that she was born and raised mostly in Karjat, the home of the Diwadkar Vada (though she looks down on it as too commercial, and prefers another, as I am assured, do most Karjatkars who sneer at outsiders going gaga over mediocre stuff), but I need the vada, the paav, the chutneys (both, the sweet-sour, dark tamarind one and the pungent, bright orange garlic one too), and the fried salted chillis, without which the experience is somehow diminished.

Anyway, we start looking for the goods on the app when we run into rasmalai (my absolute favourite Indian sweet) and gulab jamun (Missy’s weak point). We also see that the vada-paav combo (₹100 in most other places on the app) is a mere ₹60 here. So, we order two. Turns out, that ₹60 includes 3 pairs.

And that, ladies & gentlemen, is how we ended up with 6 vada-paavs, 6 gulab jamuns, and 6 rasmalai pieces dipped in gloriously sweet flavoured milk and topped with dry fruits.

Buon appetito, amici miei.