If you were to take a strip out of the bazaars of Mumbai, Karachi, Chennai, Lahore and Delhi, toss them up, add a spice of America to them and allow them to cool in the Chicago air, you would probably end up with a segment of Devon Avenue (also known as Devon Street). Although this very long road harbors a myriad American and ethnic locations, there is a whole portion … about a mile or so … which is dedicated to grocery stores, restaurants, bakeries, delis, sweet shops, garment outlets and other marts of the Indian sub-continent. 60 years after partition, sections of India and Pakistan are seen juxtaposed, albeit in a country half way across the world.
To the sheer delight of the desi (i.e. from the Indian sub-continent) students at Medill IMC, Devon Street is very conveniently located on the Chicago Transit Authority’s bus route 93. The bus, which runs about every half-an-hour or so, picks you up right next to Engelhart Hall (the graduate student dorm) and drops you on the California-Devon Street intersection in about 20 minutes and charges you a $2 fare.
For the food connoisseurs, Devon (or shall we affectionately say Desi Street) offers a variety of treats: from South Indian dosas to Lahori tikkas to North Indian samosas and dahi vadas to Bengali basmati to Indian rajma to Pakistani mithai to parathas, daals, spices, curries, halwa puris, naans, biryanis and much more. You can even buy pre-cooked, frozen meals to avoid the hassle of cooking at home. Basically the point is that almost any item that can be purchased in the sub-continent can be found on Devon. Oh, and did I forget to mention the sari boutiques, Indian jewelry outlets, the masjids, traditional bridals, entertainment rentals and desi barber shops. And let me just add that true to desi tradition, everything appears to be fairly economically priced…something which even Prof. Ed Malthouse attests to.
To phir chalo Devon chalein (So then let’s go to Devon).
……….Ateeq Abdul Rauf
i love biriyani!