The Vada Paoneers of Nagpur

Nagpur: For all you heathens who say that the aloobonda and batatavada are the exact same thing, Pramod Ghugre has a message: They. Are. Different. Ghugre will readily launch into a detailed – and convincing – exposition to back his claim. He’s clearly had practice: It’s something he did over and over again when he introduced vadapao to the city in 1991.
“It took me a good two years to get the message through,” he remembers, sitting amid a small crowd of breakfast eaters at the now-popular Ghugre Nashta Point at Mahajan Market in Sitabuldi. He set up the shop with help from his parents and elder brothers, and runs it now with his wife Prachi, son Pranav – a hotel management graduate – and a staff that has been loyal to him for decades. A second branch of the eatery started at Bajaj Nagar just eight days ago.
Call it first-mover advantage, but Ghugre has become pretty much synonymous with vada pao and made it into a viable snack option in the land of tarri poha and, of course, aloo bonda.
Okay, so, here’s the difference: The batata vada has no onion. Its crispy gram flour skin is just that, a thin skin, rather than a soda-plumped crust. The quantities of ginger, garlic, green chilli are different, and so is the form in which they are added to the potatoes during the cooking process. The vada is also far milder than the bonda, that has garam masala.
Ghugre has, of course, perfected the vada. The flattened patty is stuffed into a custom-made pao (it’s larger and more pillowy than the average pao, Ghugre explains) that has a light dabbing of tamarind sauce and the wet garlic chutney, a modification that was made to suit local taste buds. “People here found the vada pao with powdery garlic chutney, the way it is served in Mumbai, to be too dry,” Ghugre says.
Fans have dubbed the paste-like condiment ‘chumma chutney’, which is ironic, considering that its garlic content will put paid to any chances of the eater getting a kiss.
Ghugre claims he sells close to 1,000 pieces of the vada pao daily, although the shop’s other Maharashtrian savouries – sabudana vada and pudachi vadi – do briskly too. The busiest time – unmanageable crowds are always a nice problem to have for eating house owners – is just before Dussehra and Diwali. “After festival shopping at Sitabuldi, it is almost a ritual to eat at our place. Some 100-150 people are in queue during those days,” Ghugre says, with mock exasperation and genuine pride.
But it’s not just Nagpurians. “Even Punekars, who are notoriously hard to please, appreciate our vada pao,” he says, adding that known names from Marathi theatre, such as Dr Girish Oak, make it a point to visit the place whenever they are in town. And, during and after the winter assembly session, ministers and officials bulk-buy Ghugre’s sweets, especially santra barfi and satari pedha.
In fact, it was Ghugre’s father Janardan who introduced Satari Pedha to Nagpur 66 years ago. This variety, that originates in Satara, is firmer (because the khowa is roasted for a longer period), has a prominent flavour of nutmeg and a longer shelf life than regular pedha.
So you see, regular pedha and satari pedha are also not the same thing. They. Are. Different.