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Eating divine Parsi breakfast at Parsi Dhaba #GirlyRoadTrip Day 1
Our breakfast pit stop came highly recommended by Davino, a friend who is passionate about Harleys and biking. The Google Aunty, who was the 4th woman on the road with us, was not very good at locating the Parsi Bakery, which we had been told was in Talaseri. Trusting her blindly, we landed up at the local police station and the folks we asked for directions clearly thought we were a tad gone in the head!
With a few hits and misses and much determination, we did find the wonderful Parsi joint a few kilometres ahead at Verwada. ‘Parsi Da Dhaba’, with the tag line ‘Chills and Grills’ is quaint, simple and authentic. We were the only customers there. We downed a breakfast of Kheema Ghotala (scrambled minced lamb meat and egg, spicy and yum, accompanied by pav, a special soft bread), Parsi French Toast and cheese toast washed down with good old chai and spent an hour lounging in the sun under flower-laden mango trees, watching and hearing two ladies sweep sweep sweep the dried leaves off the ground (this was an incessant and peculiar sound, it tickled us so much and we just couldn’t understand why so much sweeping was required!).
Not the one we ate, just to give you a general idea. Can you believe we were so hungry we forgot to photograph the divine food?
This is also where we all got on the same page on social media, deciding to adopt the #girlyroadtrip hashtag that I was already using and reaching out to our networks for advice, feedback and with updates about our adventure.
Quaint Parsi bakeries & the heritage feel: Pune wanderings- Apr 19, 2012
On Tuesday morning, after the exhausting long jaunt to Sangli the previous day, Nipesh (my colleague at mHS) and me were up and raring to inhale a new set of experiences in Pune. My friend Varsha had promised to spend some time showing us around and Nipesh’s curioisity about Pune’s Parsi bakeries set us off on a most enjoyable jaunt to Main Street via leafy, quirky Koregaon Park. Full of colonial buildings and exuding a quaint old world charm, we walked around carrying the load of Shrewsbury biscuits Varsha had bought us to take back home. Here are a few clicks from that morning depicting the old and the new, capturing (I hope) the flavor of the laid back excitement we experienced that morning!
Pune is littered with these flamboyant pieces of contemporary architecture. It is clearly a developer city, with each brand desperate to make its mark contributing such wonders (hear the sarcasm drip, folks!) to the cityscape....
For us, coming from Delhi, this was hilariously funny!
Used to be standard clothes when I grew up in Mumbai; now its rare to see people wearing the traditional cap and the shirts with the loose paijama
The infamous chappal stalls outside the Osho Ashram in Koregaon Park simply did not match upto the Sarojini Nagar and GKI chappal waalas #snobbishdilliwali
Could not believe these were for sale too....Nippo (fond nickname for Nipesh) suggested these were the discarded footwear of the gora ashram-ites that they leave behind when they return home...blessed with hash, love and free #@!....
Nostalgia for what used to be the only means of private transport for middle class Indians when we were growing up! Dad drove a grey Lambretta and then a bright green Bajaj Chetak!
A heritage movie theater, refurbished and saved from being torn down and eliminated....it was aptly named Victory once the legal battles were done and it could re-open!
Twine in many colors at the legendary Kayani Bakery
This Parsi lady in the unchanged Kayani Bakery was so totally apt, it was almost as if my camera conjured her up!
Nippo outside Kayani Bakery....the smile says it all!
Crumbling old mansions all around.....
Another Parsi bakery called Marzorin. Varsha took us crazy architects to it because it had "an old staircase and lovely flooring" and because she went there as a college kid 🙂
Me, experiencing Marzorin's magic....Nippo obliged by getting behind the lens!
In the end, the real fun was the catching up! Varsha and me posing....
ramblinginthecity 