Only In India (Part 3)

Would you believe that I haven't FELT like blogging for the past couple of days! I am like a compulsive blogger type person, so this is strange. I have actually been spending a LOT of time on the net, though. Half of it was to research for a project so that doesn't count. The other half? Well, when I'm not writing a blog, I'm reading blogs. Nothing new. :)

Anyway, so I thought I'd tell you about Golas today. I know that half of you who might be reading my blog already know about golas but personally I find it quite fascinating. I had my first gola with my parents at Juhu beach two years ago when I came to Bombay for college admissions. So I went ahead and googled it and it turns out there's not really much information on it (Sonu, Vini, Sharan, maybe you could write a paper on this! hee hee! :P) but here's what I found on the great Wikipedia that has random information on EVERYTHING.

The vendor places a big lump of ice on a machine, churns it into crushed ice and gathers it into an oval ball with his hand. A proficient poke with the wooden gola stick, a dash of the purplish-black syrup (known as the Kala khatta syrup) from one of the colourful bottles, a squeeze of some lime and a pinch of masala (a mixture of black salt, pepper and common salt) and there you are all ready to slurp the Kala Khatta. The Kala Khatta syrup is made from a fruit, called Jamun or Jambul. Its scientific name is syzygium cumini and is also called the Indian blackberry or the Java plum.

...a pretty comprehensive description, I would say. Except it doesn't tell you what you have to do with it so here's a picture of us to illustrate!

Sonu and Tina at the Gogola stand in Bandra

SLLLLLLUUUUUUUURRRRRRPPPPPPPP!

And there are many many more flavours besides kalakhatta (which is actually the best!). We ordered one kalakhatta and one watermelon. You get the idea. Basically its a desi version of ice-lollies except its highly unhygienic - they use their hands to compact the ice, you have no idea what water the ice is made up of, they stick a piece of wood in to hold it together (you don't know where that's come from either!) and even the syrups look highly questionable. But in India, the dirtier the cheaper and the tastier! And honestly after a while you just get immune to the bugs!

I still highly recommend gola to any of you that decide to come visit me from abroad (*hint hint*) and I'll take you to the Gogola stand on linking road in Bandra - they (profess to) use mineral water ice! And they use gloves and uber hygienic (but not eco-friendly) plastic 'sticks' and while you get a gola for 10 bucks on Juhu beach, they'll charge you 30 here but hey, you can't have everything!!

Sonu and me outside the salon/parlour in Dadar last Friday. I cut my hair, she dyed hers!