Femisnist Critique of Sapphire's 'My (Lamenting) Ode to Puchka'

Before you read this dear reader ( if you are reading this at all, that is) you have to read Sapphire's 'My (Lamenting) Ode to Puchka' at http://sapphiredrops.blogspot.com/. Only then will this make sense to you.

Puchka is a street snack of Kolkata belonging to the family of pani puris and gol gappas. It is a small wheat ball, deep fried, really crisp. So what puchkawallas do is that they prick a hole on that ball and stuff it with mashed potato which in itself is mixed with salt, rock salt, tamarind juice, lemon juice, fried jeera powder, channas/chola/beans and fresh dhonepata/dhaniapatta/coriander leaves. After stuffing these balls with this potato concoction they then dip it in tamarind water which has been prepared with masala and then they serve you in a shal patta (leaf cups). Even thinking about it makes my mouth water. You have to stand in a row in front of the puchkawala and he goes clockwise or anticlockwise depending on his position from behind his stall.

By now you must have guessed this is a food of extreme taste--once a puchka goes inside your mouth you immediately are assaulted by tikha (hot) and khatta (sour). Apart from that you have to be really coordinated in your eating, you have to know just when to munch and when to swallow the water. One mistake and the puchkas have the capacity to burn your taste bud and the water can enter the wrong pipe.

For some reason, it is a predominantly women's snack. A few brave men have learnt to enjoy the taste but on the whole it is still female dominated. Who said is it easy to break gender domination?

Men complain that women usually force feed them puchkas, but men forget is that we, the women usually like doing things together so naturally if defies our logic that he will be standing while 'I' will be eating. But women like me have learnt the hard way how resistant men can be to good things in life. So we prefer puchka eating with girl friends who are way more fun.

Sapphire says "And talking about standing and watching you when you eat it, believe me you do not look cute when you are trying to stuff your mouth with more food than you can chew and tokjol running down your chin and dripping all over. Thats not the end of it! You want the phuchkawala to add more of every spice that make up the unholy concoction. Believe me my friend, it is such a turn off to have a date drooling over spicy roadside junk for half an hour and her breath reeking of rock salt and tamarind. You smell sultry. Do you think any of the above does anything to add to your grace and poise? And then you expect me to look at you as the most adorable piece among all of God's creations."

Trust men to try and find sensual pleasure/poise/grace in so tiny a thing as puchka eating. Oh when will men grow up? For your information dear men when we, the women, eat puchkas we are already in the throes of immense pleasure and the last thing we think is whether the man beside us is giving us lovely dovey looks or thoughts. For those 10 minutes our mind becomes blank of all thoughts and we are gripped by puchka fever.

So men if you cannot participate, kindly back off and let women be just themselves and enjoy their puchkas in peace.