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Dussehra Mela

Snacks To Savour In 2026

Dussehra 2026 is celebrated on Tuesday, October 20, marking the end of nine days of Sharad Navratri, and the local Dussehra melas in India are lit up by numerous lights, huge Ravana effigies, and food stalls with yummy food items. And the good thing is that you do not have to spend a fortune to enjoy the yummy foods at melas. Street vendors offer piping hot, tasty, and budget-friendly snack foods. Irrespective of whether you relish spicy chaat, crisp fritters, or sweet delicacies, here are the top seven you should try at melas.

A Dussehra mela cannot be complete without the tasty golgappe, which is essentially crispy hollow puris stuffed with spicy potatoes, chickpeas and tangy mint water. These puris are known as golgappe in Delhi, as pani puri in Mumbai, and as puchka in Kolkata. However, the excitement involved is the same in all cases. You will be served one puri at a time and will have to consume it in its entirety before it becomes soggy. A pack of six puris is one of the most inexpensive things available at a fair. You can ask the stall vendor for extra tamarind chutney if the heat of spicy water bothers you.

The aloo tikki is the unassuming star of the North Indian street food scene; it is a crispy golden potato patty cooked on a tawa (griddle). The vendors garnish it with a chickpea curry, creamed yoghurt, green sauce, and sweet tamarind sauce, and finally sprinkling roasted cumin seeds and chaat masala powder over it. “Chaat” means to lick in Hindi, and it refers to how the dish is eaten clean off the plate. Hot, filling, and inexpensive, it can be a substitute for a meal.

Jalebi is the sweet spirit of Vijayadashami. The morning of the festival in Gujarat starts with crispy fafda and piping hot jalebi, and you can spot queues at the shops even before dawn. The fermented batter of flour is squeezed into hot oil to create a spiral shape and fried to get a golden colour before dipping into hot sugar syrup. The best way to eat it is right from the kadhai. Since jalebi is sold in most cases on a per-quantity basis, you can afford a little of it.

Not many snacks can beat the samosa. This delicious, fried pastry with filling of spiced potatoes and peas comes in an equilateral triangle shape, and the crispy pastry bursts with a sound when the samosa is bit into. The food history of this delicacy has been traced back to Central Asia, where there was a dish made from a meat-filled pastry known as sanbosag. Later on, as the dish passed from one region to another, it underwent several changes, and vegetables were substituted in place of meat.

With the pleasant weather that comes at the end of October evenings, there is no match to the fragrance of the roasted bhutta with its smell of smokiness. The vendors roast the corn on live charcoal until it develops blisters and a charred look, after which they apply a mixture of lemon juice soaked in salt, red chilli powder, and rock salt. Adding an extra squeeze of lemon gives the treat an additional flavour. Corn contains lots of fibres, thus making it lighter compared to other fried snacks.

Kachori is a crispy doughnut filled with either lentil or onions. It is served hot at fairs alongside a tangy aloo sabzi and chutney. While Rajasthan boasts its pyaaz kachori, filled with onions, the Delhi and Uttar Pradesh regions prefer their kachoris to be filled with lentils and served with a potato curry dish. Just one serving is enough to satiate hunger, so splitting one saves money. Pair it with a cup of hot masala chai. Have it hot out of the kadhai, but have a glass of water handy too because the sabzi is generally spicy. 

The dahi bhalla is the perfect respite from the hot, fried stuff. First, the urad dal balls are washed thoroughly in water and then placed in curd that is whisked well, accompanied by sweet tamarind chutney, green chutney, roasted cumin, and red chilli. According to Wikipedia,  history of the dish reveals that curd-soaked lentil dumplings have been mentioned in medieval Sanskrit texts as well. The specialty of Delhi chaat stands out in it. This inexpensive dish is also available in leaf plates.