My daughter would like to observe you,’ my mother announces brightly to the puchkawalla. I’m slightly alarmed by this spontaneous display of candour, though the puchkawalla’s expression doesn’t yield. As common as they are in Calcutta, puchkas weren’t an everyday feature of my adolescent years here. I associate them with the Durga Puja festival, when puchka stalls would magically appear on every roadside corner or alley leading to a pandal that contained the resplendent sculpture of a ten-armed goddess poised to slay evil.

A hungry semicircle would settle into the pull of the puchkawalla’s cart, arms outstretched with bowls made of patchworked leaves—a tableau of shiny new clothes and buoyant appetites so emblematic of this festival’s spirit. Using my thumb and index finger, I’d lift the bloated deep-fried ball of flour, tilt my head forwards to avoid spilling its miniature pool of potato and tamarind water, and crunch, savour and gulp it all down in one go before the next one arrived.

• Tags: India, Issue 26, Supriya Roychoudhury