[Urbanstudy] REMOVEABLE FEASTS? NOT SO FAST

[Rohan DSouza]

http://tehelka.com/story_main31.asp?filename=hub090607Removeable_feasts.asp

*REMOVEABLE FEASTS? NOT SO FAST*

* They clutter the streets. They spread disease and leave litter. And the
Supreme Court has had enough. Most Delhiwallahs wouldn't agree with the ban
on street food cooking, though. Photographer Sephi Bergerson kicks off
Tehelka's campaign in support of the capital's outlawed vendors*


<http://tehelka.com/story_main31.asp?filename=hub090607Removeable_feasts.asp#>
*Click here to view photo feature*
 *Sephi Bergerson* was born in Tel Aviv in 1965 and has been based in New
Delhi since February 2002. A winner of several international awards, and
former president of the professional photographers' association in Israel,
Sephi felt he needed a change and decided to move to India. His long-term
project documenting the street food of India was at the heart of his 'Made
in India' exhibition held at the Habitat Centre in 2004. His book Street
Food of India is scheduled for publication by Roli Books in February 2008. A
movie made for French TV's Channel 5 featuring the street food of Delhi
through Sephi's eyes, is scheduled for broadcast in France at the end of
next month

Everyone's agitated about chhole bhature and gol gappe being snatched from
their mouths. That matters, but what's catastrophic is the blow to the
small-time food seller and buyer. The woman who squats on the pavement
rolling rotis; the men whose heaps of rice and daal for three rupees a plate
feed countless rickshaw pullers; the coolies in Khari Baoli who subsist on a
five-rupee meal — what are they to do? Those who can't afford a roof over
their heads — the rehriwale, khomchewale, thelewale who provide a moveable
feast, and millions of their customers with meagre means, what is to become
of them? They aren't to make a living, and they're not to eat either. Who
benefits? Only the babus who'll earn more bribes chasing vendors off the
streets.

*Amita Baviskar*, *Food activist*

Street food has been part of our society for thousands of years. Can you
visualise someone cooking their seekh kebabs at home and then selling them
cold on the streets? If we can no longer have fresh cucumbers, tikkis,
chaat, I don't know what we are going to eat. McDonalds? The idea for our
city planners is not to remove poverty, but to remove the poor because they
are dirty. There's a vibrancy, an energy, a colour to street food. Everybody
eats it. I suppose everything will be like a hospital ward in time. And once
the street food's gone, another person who will lose his job is me, the
street food writer.

*Rahul Verma*, *Food critic*

GALI GLUTTON

*Kebabs*

Anything that makes you want to smell smoke must have something to recommend
it. Kebabs are more than just magic ionising at the nostrils; they are a
complete seduction of the senses, more complete than most other things of
flesh. Such a luscious invitation to succumb. Do so in public, have no fear.
We'll tell the Supreme Court they come straight off the fire, purifier of
all things.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20070612/8002a791/attachment.html