The weather in “namma Bengalooru” is turning chilly and cold. This is the best time have all those mouth-watering chats and hot Jalebis.
Talking of Jalebis brings up fond memories for me from one of my innumerous trips across India when I was younger. My father was working for the KPTCL (earlier KEB) and we would do 2 trips every year in our school holidays.
During one of these trips – it was a piligrimage through North India, we went to Allahabad in Uttarpradesh, which is one of the holy places and figures in most of the Piligrimages. In the ancient times, it was called as Prayaga. This is also one of the places where the Kumbh Mela happens – the other 3 being Haridwar, Ujjain & Nashik. This city is situated at the Triveni Sangam – a confluence of the rivers Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati.
So, to come back to the Jalebis We had gone to this place because of its holiness. We had to bathe in the river at the point of the Sangam (where the 3 rivers met). We were taken by boat to this point, where we could get into the water and take bath (or rather just immerse ourselves once and get out on to the boat) the water was very shallow here.
After the bath, we had a long way to walk to the lodge where we were staying and we were simply very tired and hungry and the task of walking such a distance was very daunting indeed!
My mother, brother and sister had already walked off and my father and I were left behind when we saw a guy making hot Jalebis by the river. Both of us were so happy at the prospect of eating that would give us the stamina to go the remaining distance. We went to the vendor and bought 1/2kg of fresh-hot jalebis. We ate them (literally gobbled them up like there was no tomorrow) and relished every single bite we took.
This Jalebi eating experience has stayed so fresh in my memory even after almost 20 years. This is also one of the memories that we father-daughter share till date.
Every time we see Jalebis we go back in time on the memory lane to relive it!!
