Indian or Pakistani Street Food Party

There's a huge trend of street food in the Indian subcontinent, which also includes countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and a couple others. When visiting, it's always fun for me to try their amazingly flavorful food that can't be found in restaurants. This food is also bound to make any foreigner ill every time because it's very unhygienic, but that doesn't stop anyone from eating on the streets anyway! It's been almost a decade since I had the chance to visit the subcontinent, and I missed this experience a lot! So I thought...why not bring the street food (or "thaylay waalay" as it's known in Urdu) to my own home! I began planning out a party.

I looked in many places for decor ideas, but of course, it was impossible to find something in the US. I found out soon enough that I'm going to have to do everything myself at home. 

I thought about what I should do for the theme and it didn't take long to remember that the thing that stood out the most in the streets there are the buses. Each bus was a unique piece of art, hand-painted and different from the others:

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I found a secondhand toy bus at Goodwill for a dollar, which was a perfect price considering I just needed it for 1 day. It was a lot of fun designing it to make it like the above picture. Close up pictures to follow.

Also, some of my friends brought over food as well, so just wanted to thank them for making it special! 

Here are the pictures, most speak for themselves. Enjoy!

Cold bottles are served like this on the streets.

"Thaylay waalay! Lug gayee tou rozi na lagi tou roza" - "Street food! Sell it and it's my income, don't sell it and I have to fast" (sounds better in Urdu!) 

This chalkboard was a DIY project that I made a post about here.

And here's the bus project. I decorated it and added favors inside newspaper cones. In the Indian subcontinent, newspaper cones are used for street food for things like hot salted peanuts. Instead of that, I added all sorts of candy from India and Pakistan that I bought at local Indian stores.

Behind every bus, truck and rickshaw, there are funny quotes. Here's a Pakistani one:

"Rabb ne chaaha tou manzil tuk pohnchaadoon ga. Aankh lag gayee tou Rabb se milwa doon ga":

"If the Lord wishes, I will take you to your destination. If my eyes close (from sleep) I'll take you to meet Him instead". Not the best thing to read before entering a bus, but funny nonetheless!

And finally, some more rickshaw quotes I found online!

The party was definitely something unique, and it's something I feel that us Third Culture Kids should look into in the West to relive our culture! We also played Scrabble using Urdu words, and it was hilarious because we all spelled the words differently when transcribing into English! It was tons of fun, and definitely a memorable experience! I hope anyone looking for party ideas thinks about looking into their original culture and bringing that to their homes here! 

I didn't go into too much detail in this post because I didn't know if anyone would be interested. If you have any questions about anything specific, please write them below and I'll make sure to answer them as soon as possible!

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