Eating Vada Pav in the rain

An excerpt from my newly published chapter in the anthology, Tāmaki Makaurau 2025: Essays on Life in Auckland.

I’ve been quiet here, but for a good reason. Something big has been brewing in the background — the kind of project that eats your evenings, your weekends, and every drop of creative steam you have. I’ve spent the past few months writing a book chapter about growing up in Auckland as a migrant kid who once hid her lunchbox and now teaches people how to eat vada pav in the rain.

That chapter — Home is where no one flinches — is now officially out in the world!!!

The book, Tāmaki Makaurau 2025: Essays on Life in Auckland, is an anthology edited by Damien Levi and published by Auckland Council Libraries. I’m deeply honoured to be the only South Asian voice in the collection, and quietly (okay, loudly) thrilled to finally call myself a published author.

I wanted to share one of my favourite moments from the chapter — a scene that captures how much Auckland, and I, have changed.

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In many ways, Tāmaki Makaurau has changed vividly from the city I grew up in. The change stares me in the face every day when I pack my kids’ lunchboxes.

Yes, they like chicken nuggets and hot dogs, but homemade dosas, Monaco or Parle-G biscuits and parathas with cheese are part of our weekly rotation too. When I first introduced these to their boxes, I was afraid. Afraid to hold the line and insist they eat it when their mother, the hypocrite, had rejected any lunchbox item that gave away that she was Indian. But the push-back never came. In fact, when their friends came for a playdate, they asked if I could make everyone dosas!

The place where I notice it the most? In the way people show up at my Indian food walks in Sandringham.

Curious. Open. Hungry—not just for food.

On a chilly Saturday last June, we stood huddled under umbrellas near the Mumbai Vada Pav and Chaiwalla Bhai food trucks. The air was thick with the smell of cardamom and deep-fried goodness. I rushed to explain why I loved vada pav so much, assuming, wrongly, that my guests were just being polite. That they’d rather escape the rain.

That the smell might be too . . . Indian-y. No. Instead, someone asks, “What’s the batter made of?”

“Ground chickpea flour,” I reply.

“Oh—so, that’s besan, right?”

Another guest asks, “Is it vinegar in the red chutney that makes it sour?”

“Nope,” I smile, sharing a secret. “Tamarind.”

I wasn’t being quizzed, I realise. They wanted to know. To hear why I think vada pav—hot, deep-fried potato patties tucked inside pillowy bread, doused in sweet-spicy chutneys and garlicky peanut powder—tastes best in the rain.

You know who surprised me most? My people.

These food trucks sit in a very Indian part of Sandringham Road. No matter the time, you’ll find loud Indian families laughing over thermocol cups of chai, or someone shouting “Ek sandwich bas na!” to a cousin 50 metres away.

I’m always bracing for judgment. Watching out for a side-eye for bringing flatwhite drinkers—or worse, chai latte sympathisers—to a stall that only serves masala chai. The original milky, sugary, cardamom-y goodness. Straight out of their giant aluminium kettle. No soy. No lite. No milk froth fern.

Instead, two people tap my shoulder and say, “What lovely stories you tell. Thank you for sharing a part of us so nicely. I would never have explained chai so well. Next time, I will try too.”

[Mum joined one of my walks too.] She burst out laughing at my final stop. “A park bench?” she cackled. “This is where you feed people?”

It was the one by the steep yellow slide, decorated with a chipped red-and-white checkerboard plastic top. I ignored her wide eyes as I opened a giant plastic box, filled to the brim with lamb biryani and chicken 65.

I launched straight into my usual spiel—asking the crowd their theories on why chicken 65 is called what it is—before dishing out saffron-laced rice and cool, tangy raita to a circle of strangers.

Not caring who saw. Or smelled us. Or if they thought we were too much.

“Maybe she’ll feed you all akoori on the beach next,” Mum told my guests while we hugged each other goodbye. I blushed. Tomato red.

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Funny how life loops back on itself.

I spent my teens praying no one could smell my lunch. Now, showing people the Indian part of Tāmaki Makaurau (and sharing food-themed metaphors) has become one of my favourite ways to understand myself.

Writing this chapter made me realise how far I’ve travelled. From the girl who hid her lunchbox to the woman who proudly explains tamarind to a group of strangers and then encourages them to tie rakhis on each other outside an Indian grocery store.

If you’d like to experience this scene beyond the page, I run Indian food walks in Sandringham. We’ll eat vada pav in the rain (or sunshine), drink masala chai from giant kettles, and indulge in biryani on a park bench. There’ll be stories in every bite, and you’ll leave having discovered a part of Auckland that’s been hiding in plain sight.

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