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The port city of Mumbai is home to Bollywood, stock markets and billionaire industrialists and migrant workers who dream of making it big. Bringing them together is a soft but chewy bread called pav. It's a snack or meal for millions every day, but as air pollution increases, pav may soon be toast. NPR's Omkar Khandekar tells us more.
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OMKAR KHANDEKAR, BYLINE: Every morning, while Mumbai sleeps, the Yazdani Bakery staff wake up to knead the dough, cut it into little pieces and pop it into the oven...
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KHANDEKAR: ...To make a thousand pieces of pav. When the bakery opens, they fly off the shelves.
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KHANDEKAR: Pav is soft and fluffy, has a crusty top and a distinct smoky flavor. It comes in a stack of six, which is called a ladi. You eat it with a fried potato snack called vada or with a buttery vegetable mash called bhaji. Or use it to mop up curries, like food anthropologist Kurush Dalal does. Just don't ask him if it is healthy.
KURUSH DALAL: That's like saying how healthy is it to breathe air? Is it healthy to breathe air? We have to breathe air.
KHANDEKAR: About that air - in the last century, Mumbai has changed from a city of cotton mills to a metropolis of skyscrapers. The wood-fire bakeries have survived this monumental change, but their chimneys may now be the cause of their extinction.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: ...Slightly easier because the authorities here have begun to crack down on tandoors and wood-fired ovens.
KHANDEKAR: Early this year, the government's Pollution Control Board ordered all wood-fired bakeries to close by July, even though wood-fire bakeries only contribute to 3% of the overall pollution in Mumbai. That's according to a recent study by an environmental group. Ravi Andhale is the chief of the pollution control board that oversees Mumbai. He says every bit matters.
RAVI ANDHALE: We have to see that we can reduce at all the sectors. It will be a cumulative result, which will reduce the air pollution.
KHANDEKAR: But former town council representative Makarand Narwekar says what the pollution control board is doing is hitting the little guy.
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KHANDEKAR: He points out that the city's billion-dollar road construction project has been causing much more pollution in recent years.
MAKARAND NARWEKAR: The pollution that is emitted from these bakeries is nothing compared to the pollution that construction sites are contributing or the road repair sites are contributing.
KHANDEKAR: The lead author of the study that analyzed wood-fired bakeries says one reason why bakeries are being targeted is that it's just easier to solve that little slice of the problem. This is environmental researcher and consultant Hema Ramani.
HEMA RAMANI: As far as the construction, the infrastructure, vehicles, it's got a lot of complexities. That's why, you know, we said let's look at, you know, faster, quicker, smaller transitions that can happen, and then you move.
KHANDEKAR: She says bakeries can switch to natural gas or electric ovens instead. But the president of Bombay Bakers Association, Nasir Ansari, says that will increase the cost of pav by more than a half.
NASIR ANSARI: (Non-English language spoken).
KHANDEKAR: Ansari says it's the working class that eats pav most. For them, even a small price rise makes a huge difference. And bakers like Perzon Zend (ph) say pav needs the wood fire to give it that distinct, smoky crunch.
PERZON ZEND: In America, they smoke the chops and the smokiness is everything. It's like that, you get that smoky feel, yeah.
KHANDEKAR: He says, likewise, losing wood-fired pav would take away something intangible from Mumbai's heritage. Imagine a Texas barbecue without smoke.
Omkar Khandekar, NPR News, Mumbai.
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