Rajesh Salve, 35 has vada pav for breakfast every day. For a monthly salary of Rs12,000, he works as a bodyguard. His friend, Santosh Shirodkar is a rickshaw driver. His most preferred lunch is vada pav. With an income of about Rs7000 a month, he says he has a vada pav “pretty often”.

The vada pav, a potato patty that is dipped in besan before being deep fried, is a snack considered to have originated in Mumbai. It is also considered to be the common man’s food.

Salve says, “A vada pav is not only cheap but also tasty. If I were to go for something else, lets say a sandwich, I would have to pay at least Rs20.” He also prefers the vada pav for its satiety value.

Shirodkar, who with Salve, is munching on a vada pav in the former’s rickshaw parked outside a vada pav shop, agrees. For him, a man on the go, time is also a crucial factor. “If I were to insist on going home for lunch every day, I would lose an hour or so. This way I am free in 15 minutes.”

Divakar Shetty, who has been running Thane’s Gajanan Vada Pav shop (in Vishnu Nagar) for the last 32 years is not surprised about these preferences. “If someone were to go to a restaurant and order (medu)wada sambar and a cup of chai, the person would end up paying around 100 rupees. Something like poli-bhaji would also cost around 40 rupees. A vada pav is cheaper and is also filling.” One vada pav at Shetty’s shop costs 10 rupees.

Shetty, who needs about 100 kilos of potatoes to keep his shop running every day, also has something else to say. “Previously, most of the people who came to my shop were auto-rickshaw drivers. But not anymore.”

Everybody, regardless of class, frequents his shop, he says pointing at the people around as we sit in his office inside the eatery. His customers range from those wearing a khaki pant and shirt to those wearing western formals.

Professor Agnelo Menezes, who teaches economics at Mumbai’s St. Xavier’s College has also noticed a change. He says the impression that vada pav is the common man’s food is correct but increasingly there is “co-option.” This means that though the poor depend on/have vada pavs, now the rich also consume it. In fact, he says that if the eliticising of vada pav with joints such as Jumboking continues, it may soon be out of reach for the common man. Menezes also says that he notices such a shift in most goods and services being offered today.

Amogh Aundhekar, Manager (National Operations) at Jumboking had this to say: “Jumboking is an Indian origin chain…which serves basic vada pav at affordable prices to the common man along with other varieties of vada pav which are very competitively priced in the market.”

Aundhekar says that a basic vada pav at their joint costs Rs12 and their most expensive vada pav, the Crispy Veg Jumboking, costs Rs30. He also believes that the "common man has the constitutional right to have a hygienic product at affordable prices."

To the question of who forms the largest part of their clientele, Aundhekar said the youth.

Jumbo King is a chain of vada pav joints that was established in 2001 and is inspired by “western models,” as per its website. Its first shop was opened on August 23, what we now celebrate as Vada Pav day.