Do not call it pani puri in Kolkata. The filling here is potato mashed with black salt, roasted cumin, green chilli and sometimes chickpea, and the water is tamarind-sour with mint and no sugar in it at all. The Delhi version tastes like dessert by comparison.
The transaction has a rhythm. The phuchkawala cracks a shell with his thumb, fills it, dips it, and puts it directly into the leaf bowl in your hand, and you eat it whole and immediately while he makes the next one. Stopping to talk ruins it.
The last one is the fauchka: a shell filled with just the water, given free, to finish. Ask for it and you will be treated as a local.
Six is a serving. Nobody eats six.
