Some of Vidya Balan’s iconic roles

Hum Paanch,

Vidya Balan plays a nerdy Radhika in the sitcom

Parineeta,

The actress made her Bollywood debut with this movie, opposite Saif Ali Khan

Lage Raho

Munna Bhai,

The role of an RJ was essayed by Vidya in this film opposite Sanjay Dutt

The Dirty Picture,

The actress essays the role of controversial actress Silk Smitha

Vidya plays the character of Krishna, a kidnapper’s seductive widow

Kahaani,

Vidya broke stereotypes playing a pregnant protagonist

Does anybody remember the original toasties? They were made with a contraption that looked like a cross between a sandsi (as we called it in Gujarati: like kitchen pliers), which we used to pick up hot bartans and a little steel pouch. The pouch was at the end of the pliers and opened up.

You oiled the inside of the pouch and put a slice of bread (in those days, usually Britannia or something similar) on one side and then topped it with a filling. You finished the sandwich with a second slice of bread, shut the steel pouch and held it, with the long, plier-like part of the toastie-maker over a gas flame.

You turned it around so that both sides were cooked evenly but there was no fixed timing for how long each sandwich would take. I used to judge it by the little crusts of bread, which never quite fit into the pouch and stayed outside, touching the flame directly. When they got black and burnt, I knew that the toastie was ready.

The toastie-maker was, as the description suggests, a low-tech home implement. It only received a boost when the Sea Lounge at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai put toasties on the menu. The toasties were still there, the last time I went to the Taj, several years ago. Under the reign of chef Hemant Oberoi, in the early part of this century, they added some new fillings to the toasties including a delicious keema ghotala (a Mumbai street dish of keema with scrambled egg).

GREEN REVELATION Cold cucumber sandwiches came with a slathering of kothmir chutney