The Last of the Aloo-Chewra Originals
FOOD IS AN INHERENT part of any culture and what could illustrate a lifestyle better than street food! We do not exactly have a street food culture in Sikkim so to speak. What we do have in the name of street food and which can be said to be indigenous to Sikkim (and perhaps to a few surrounding places like Kalimpong and Darjeeling) is ‘aloochewra’. There have been imports like the puchka, the chaat, the roll and even the samosas, but I bet, apart from the aforementioned places one cannot hope to find ‘aloo-chewra’ in the concoction we savour, anywhere else.
58-year-old Nagina Sahu is one of the few surviving ‘aloo-chewra wallahs’ after the
Chaanawala Baje who passed away nearly a decade ago. Nagina Sahu is a living paradox in this age of Dominoes, Café Coffee Days, and the lot. A hut by the roadside at Tibet road, with no signboard or any indication of an eatery inside, is where he
sells this mouthwatering snack. He has been doing so ever since he was a child,
which makes it almost about 45-50 years!
His father Narayan Sahu, who is now 103 years old and living in Bihar, came to Sikkim around 50 years back from Motihari in Bihar.
Around the same time when the Chaanawala Baje came; “just a gap of two months or so” is what Nagina claims. Nagina Sahu followed his father into Sikkim at the young age of 11 and ‘would run around naked’ as a kid. He fondly remembers Enchey
Kothi Amla giving him clothes to wear at the time. After staying at Enchey Kothi for
about 12 years, they moved to the current location i.e opposite the IPR office at Tibet road. The rent for the current accommodation started with Rs 5 per month and now it is Rs 40.
As you enter his hut, the first thing one spots is the huge ‘bhatti’, the ‘chulha’ made of mud, on the right side of the room. This chulha is almost as old, perhaps even older
than Nagina Sahu! With the unavailability of firewood or coal, he now uses it only sparingly with whatever scraps he gets from the neighbourhood carpenters. The small room has two beds lined together in an L shape. One of them looks like it
would collapse any moment, but magically manages to hold for yet another day.
Apart from aloo-chewra he also sells the other favourite sweet snack ‘khurma’ which again is a class apart from what you get at other places. It’s light and crispy, where you can hardly see the sugar coating unlike the soggy ones with blobs of white all over. Tibet Road, he reminisces, was a jungle back when he arrived. Khacchars
[mules] transporting loads to and fro Tibet would walk by every night (the only time that they were allowed to ply) and one could hear the clinking of the bells hung around their necks. The area was a sisnu ghaari (a thicket of nettle bushes) and a peach tree was also there he recalls. A few scattered houses and foxes howling the night away is how he remembers the time. Goru gaadis [bullock carts] were used to carry load when there weren’t many cars and as a kid he would run down to MG Marg to collect the dung for fuel.
The last movie he watched was about 20 years ago at Denzong Cinema Hall. It used to be 5 anna for the front stall and 2.8 anna for the balcony then, he recalls.
He started by selling aloo-chewra (at 2-3 paisa per plate) at West Point Senior
Secondary School at Tathangchen. His father would prepare the aloo and he would haul his stall to the school. That is how he continued for a long time. Now, he can no longer carry it all the way to the school so he sells exclusively from home. He makes the masala himself steering clear from readymade powders which ensures the quality and taste of his product.
Around 4 in the evening is the time when mostly students come to his shop and around 7 it is the shoppers or shopkeepers from MG Marg who drop in. Dorjee Doma from Chandmari has been a regular since her student days at West Point almost 20 years back. She says, “He is a good man and the aloo chewra here is really tasty and his preparation hygienic. I came here today from Lall Bazaar just for the aloo chewra
even though I could have taken a taxi home from there itself.”
With a smile on his face Nagina exclaimed that even his own son eats aloochewra
four to five times a day! His son is in high school now and 3 of his 4 daughters are married in Bihar. When asked how he would take it if his son married a local from Sikkim, he says he would not throw him out of the house but he would have to accept it. Acceptance has come with the acculturation that is to say that Nagina Sahu no longer believes in the caste system, was fed beef once by the Enchey Kothi Amla, cooks chicken and mutton separately when in Bihar while the rest of the family is strictly vegetarian, but says, “I would never wear anything else but my lungi even if I was paid Rs 10,000 for it”.
After working for ten months in Sikkim, he usually has enough to go back to his village for a two-month break. Nagina is content with his life so far. He has lived a hand to mouth existence, but never left wanting. He has never seen any other place in Sikkim apart from Gangtok. He has seen half pants and gogo pants walk down the
Tibet road. He used to pay Rs 7 from Siliguri to Gangtok for a jeep ride. He shares a unique relationship with his customers, customizing each plate of aloo-chewra with a “you are not supposed to eat chilli, I can’t put that for you” or a “that’s enough, your mother will kill me if you eat any more”.
He will also be the last one in his family to continue this saga of the aloo chewra that Sikkim so loves…
source:sikkim now
FOOD IS AN INHERENT part of any culture and what could illustrate a lifestyle better than street food! We do not exactly have a street food culture in Sikkim so to speak. What we do have in the name of street food and which can be said to be indigenous to Sikkim (and perhaps to a few surrounding places like Kalimpong and Darjeeling) is ‘aloochewra’. There have been imports like the puchka, the chaat, the roll and even the samosas, but I bet, apart from the aforementioned places one cannot hope to find ‘aloo-chewra’ in the concoction we savour, anywhere else.
58-year-old Nagina Sahu is one of the few surviving ‘aloo-chewra wallahs’ after the
Chaanawala Baje who passed away nearly a decade ago. Nagina Sahu is a living paradox in this age of Dominoes, Café Coffee Days, and the lot. A hut by the roadside at Tibet road, with no signboard or any indication of an eatery inside, is where he
sells this mouthwatering snack. He has been doing so ever since he was a child,
which makes it almost about 45-50 years!
His father Narayan Sahu, who is now 103 years old and living in Bihar, came to Sikkim around 50 years back from Motihari in Bihar.
Around the same time when the Chaanawala Baje came; “just a gap of two months or so” is what Nagina claims. Nagina Sahu followed his father into Sikkim at the young age of 11 and ‘would run around naked’ as a kid. He fondly remembers Enchey
Kothi Amla giving him clothes to wear at the time. After staying at Enchey Kothi for
about 12 years, they moved to the current location i.e opposite the IPR office at Tibet road. The rent for the current accommodation started with Rs 5 per month and now it is Rs 40.
As you enter his hut, the first thing one spots is the huge ‘bhatti’, the ‘chulha’ made of mud, on the right side of the room. This chulha is almost as old, perhaps even older
than Nagina Sahu! With the unavailability of firewood or coal, he now uses it only sparingly with whatever scraps he gets from the neighbourhood carpenters. The small room has two beds lined together in an L shape. One of them looks like it
would collapse any moment, but magically manages to hold for yet another day.
Apart from aloo-chewra he also sells the other favourite sweet snack ‘khurma’ which again is a class apart from what you get at other places. It’s light and crispy, where you can hardly see the sugar coating unlike the soggy ones with blobs of white all over. Tibet Road, he reminisces, was a jungle back when he arrived. Khacchars
[mules] transporting loads to and fro Tibet would walk by every night (the only time that they were allowed to ply) and one could hear the clinking of the bells hung around their necks. The area was a sisnu ghaari (a thicket of nettle bushes) and a peach tree was also there he recalls. A few scattered houses and foxes howling the night away is how he remembers the time. Goru gaadis [bullock carts] were used to carry load when there weren’t many cars and as a kid he would run down to MG Marg to collect the dung for fuel.
The last movie he watched was about 20 years ago at Denzong Cinema Hall. It used to be 5 anna for the front stall and 2.8 anna for the balcony then, he recalls.
He started by selling aloo-chewra (at 2-3 paisa per plate) at West Point Senior
Secondary School at Tathangchen. His father would prepare the aloo and he would haul his stall to the school. That is how he continued for a long time. Now, he can no longer carry it all the way to the school so he sells exclusively from home. He makes the masala himself steering clear from readymade powders which ensures the quality and taste of his product.
Around 4 in the evening is the time when mostly students come to his shop and around 7 it is the shoppers or shopkeepers from MG Marg who drop in. Dorjee Doma from Chandmari has been a regular since her student days at West Point almost 20 years back. She says, “He is a good man and the aloo chewra here is really tasty and his preparation hygienic. I came here today from Lall Bazaar just for the aloo chewra
even though I could have taken a taxi home from there itself.”
With a smile on his face Nagina exclaimed that even his own son eats aloochewra
four to five times a day! His son is in high school now and 3 of his 4 daughters are married in Bihar. When asked how he would take it if his son married a local from Sikkim, he says he would not throw him out of the house but he would have to accept it. Acceptance has come with the acculturation that is to say that Nagina Sahu no longer believes in the caste system, was fed beef once by the Enchey Kothi Amla, cooks chicken and mutton separately when in Bihar while the rest of the family is strictly vegetarian, but says, “I would never wear anything else but my lungi even if I was paid Rs 10,000 for it”.
After working for ten months in Sikkim, he usually has enough to go back to his village for a two-month break. Nagina is content with his life so far. He has lived a hand to mouth existence, but never left wanting. He has never seen any other place in Sikkim apart from Gangtok. He has seen half pants and gogo pants walk down the
Tibet road. He used to pay Rs 7 from Siliguri to Gangtok for a jeep ride. He shares a unique relationship with his customers, customizing each plate of aloo-chewra with a “you are not supposed to eat chilli, I can’t put that for you” or a “that’s enough, your mother will kill me if you eat any more”.
He will also be the last one in his family to continue this saga of the aloo chewra that Sikkim so loves…
source:sikkim now
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