Chaat in Chicago

This Sunday evening after my wife got back from her customary shopping (Ouch!), we decided that we should go have some chaat in Chicago, which is about an hour's drive from where we live. For non-Indians: "Chaat" is an umbrella word for a whole bunch of hot Indian snack food that'll knock your socks off with the heat if you aren't careful. We also wanted to hook up with Parijat, a dear friend who was a junior in my college, and who is now completing his internship at GE.

Parijat comes from an pretty impressive line of soccer players. He is the nephew of P.K. Banerjee, former player and coach of the Indian national soccer team. His other uncle is Prasun Banerjee, a midfielder from the glory days of Bengali soccer. His father used to play for Eastern Railways. Parijat himself is a good player, but did not take up soccer professionally.

But all of that is not Parijat's claim to fame. His claim to fame is that he is an intelligent, mature, witty, and engaging young man who is a terrific friend of mine. Even though he was four years my junior in college when we met, the bond we formed was immediate. A bond of friendship that has endured to this day. Maybe I am getting old, but it somehow touches my heart in a way that I cannot explain when he introduces me to his friends with the words, "Hey so-and-so, this is my brother from Milwaukee." He does not say "friend"; he says "brother."

I have never corrected him.

Anyhow, we met up at one of those hole-in-the-wall chaat places on Devon Ave and sat there and jawed off till almost closing time. We got to talking about Sudip, another dear friend who is back in Bangalore and who, since he was absent and thus unable to defend himself, was mostly in the wrong. Parijat told us about some howlers that Sudip has pulled in the recent past and all of us nearly busted our guts laughing. We laughed till we were almost sitting on the floor and people in the shop were giving us strange looks.

The chaat, unfortunately, sucked. C'est la vie, as the French would say. And the French, I have observed, are usually right about these things.