The Little Things I Miss

I haven't really felt homesick or anything since I left India, but there are some little things I miss from time to time, like:

• Roadside golgappe and bhelpuri. I mean, I do have easy access to these things over here, but you have to buy them packaged in a box and make them yourselves, or eat them at a restaurant where they taste the way they do at Haldiram's, which is not quite the same as the street chaat taste. Of course it is cleaner and more hygienic, but, you know, Indians develop such strong immune systems from eating all that roadside chaat! There was a Punjabi Dhaba we went to in Cambridge where the bhelpuri tasted just the way it should, but that's a little too far for us to go to too often.
• Being able to drive independently. This is temporary, of course, I should be able to get my full license soon and then I can do it again. But I used to just pick up my car keys and run off to any place I felt like running off to, all the time. I miss that a little.
• Hindi radio stations. I still have convenient access to Hindi music and do try to keep myself updated on whatever is new in Bollywood, but, well, it's not quite the same. If the radio is playing, it will play songs that you like, and ones you don't like, ones that you didn't know you liked, ones you absolutely love and haven't heard in a while, and get to hear again unexpectedly - now that always gave me a rush. Plus, when I listened to the radio in the car with my friends, I could hear their opinions on the music as well. That made a difference to me. I'm listening to Khudaya Ve from Luck right now, and I must say that it's an absolutely lovely song. I have been listening to this one song for about three hours now. I used to do that in India too, but then I grew tired of it and allowed the RJs to pick another song for me at random.
• Going out to watch Hindi movies. I still watch a lot of them, but there aren't too many places nearby where I can watch them on the big screen. I watched Barah Aana this weekend. It was a terrific, well made movie with some amazing performances. A DVD player does not do enough justice to the likes of Nasseruddin Shah and Vijay Raaz, does it?