Some years ago I discovered the fresh-made banana chip. It was not something serendipitous, except on a very personal level – after all, it was a delightful moment of discovery for me as an individual, though it was known of for a very long time by various friends, who then introduced me to it and needed to keep me stocked for many months until I made another discovery: my very own supplier. And, since I and my very own family and my various friends are all ardent supporters of the great banana chip cause, it was, in effect, manna from a heaven that smelled deliciously of fresh hot banana chips fried in a deep kettle of traditionally prescribed coconut oil. Now I have become so used to the concept that I can even discriminate between what is fresh and what has been done a few hours ago, whether the bananas came from a tree close to the Kerala border, or further down the coast (okay, so I may be stretching it a bit on that one, but you know what I mean!).
Perhaps one of the nicest things about buying fresh-made banana chips is watching the craftsman make them. And it is indeed a craft, combining artistry with manual dexterity with a certain instinctual knowledge of what, when, how and how much. The chappie who has his fryer set up in the vegetable market close to where we live is most talented in his own way, producing crisp, hot, perfectly salted chips within an amazingly short time, without much of a slip ’tween cup…well, frying pan, actually…and lip (mine).
The process begins with bananas, logically enough. But these are not the ordinary bananas, and not the plantains generally used to make chips of a kind or a vegetable dish, but the long, gently curved, tough skinned, hard fruit native to the state of Kerala. It is peeled, left ready on a large aluminium plate that covers the oil most of the time. The fire under the oil is started and, when delicate spirals of smoke waft up from the surface of the fat, my man picks up a crude plastic-based madeleine and runs the banana along its blade, so fast that I lose count of the slices created by the initial blur of action. The slices fall directly into the oil, sizzling as they touch it, and cluster on top, swirling a little, dipping into the liquid, doing their own little dance. Then the man sets down the cutter and whatever bananas may be left and with bare hands, dips into a bowl of water mixed with salt and turmeric powder and sprinkles some, with a seemingly hazardous gesture, over the cooking chips. There is a prolonged crackle and sizzle, hot fat spitting and sputtering as the spiced water makes contact. Then, with a wonderful flourish, he scoops out the done crisp morsels and scatters them into a vast metal colander to drain. “Careful, it’s hot,” he warns in his Malayalam-Tamil-Hindi patois, as I greedily reach for a few and pop them into my eager mouth, shocked by the burn but savouring every crunch of the fresh snack.
There is a special pleasure in the chip made thusly, even for someone who generally does not allow herself to indulge in junk food, especially of the salty kind. My uncle, in his infinite wisdom and with the devilish desire to shock a niece he does not yet see as grown up, told me once that a certain community of chip-makers from Kerala supply the salt by spitting into the oil. That story notwithstanding, the plain, lightly salted version – sprinkled with salted water from a pan, not with spit – is perhaps the best. I have sampled the cheese-flavoured, the tomato-flavoured, the pepper-flavoured, the chilli-flavoured, even the Manchurian-flavoured (“Ew!” is the most polite I can be about that last) fresh-made banana chip and conclude with a satisfied burp (expressed in a most ladylike manner, of course) that it is always the basic that wins the contest…not that there is one, of course!
Friday, August 31, 2007
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Eye know that!
In a drawer of my desk at work I keep a small plastic jar with a screw-on lid. It has been empty only right after it was washed of its original contents, which I don’t even remember buying, eating or cleaning out. It could have been peanut butter, except that I do not eat peanut butter, or it could have been some kind of sandwich spread, which seems a more likely case. But whatever it was, the jar was worth keeping – stout plastic, nice shape and airtight cap. Soon after it was ready for re-use, it was filled with saunf, aniseed, a mouth freshener that changed from being mint-coated to being plain roasted, since around that time I went off sugary-sweet stuff and stuck with the more natural, easy-to-store-and-less-hassle-to-find-when-you-run-out kind of mukhwas, as it is called in Hindi.
But I ran out of that at a perfect time – just when I rediscovered the childhood charms of the round sweets called bullseyes. I have no idea whether any bull would recognise them as kin, but I remember eating through vast quantities of them when I was very young, introduced to them by Father, who at that stage in his life was rather addicted to them. Bullseyes are black and white striped fairly strong mints (they also come in ghastly fruit flavoured red, orange and yellow stripes, but those need not be considered at all). They spark almost violently in the mouth if you bite into one too soon, since the outside sugar coating is rather deceptive and tends to lull the tongue into a kind of serenity and tasting torpor. If you bite just so as to crack the sphere in half, it is not so shocking; crush it into fragments and the mint feels stronger, sharper, more fiery, blasting through the soothing effects of a nice lunch to make your eyes water and your ears sing…or so it feels, sometimes.
A good mint is the best road to travel when you are done with a meal that includes a certain generous portion of garlic, onion or anything that leaves that after-smell in the mouth. Even as you savour that last tiny fragment of kebab or that tiny splinter of pickled onion that goes with it, you can practically hear the senses clamouring for something to wash it away, especially since you have that presentation in the small conference room in an hour and you know that even though the bet way to face down your critics without saying anything is to breathe out, your own sensibilities and the lessons your upbringing taught you will not allow you to be that crass. Unfortunate, but there it is. So you rummage frantically through your bag, your desk, your pockets…but no, no mints, no mukhwas, no toothpaste. You make a mad dash into the bathroom to rinse your mouth three or six times, scrub your tongue and do a vigorous gargle. All to little avail.
That is when your friends come in handy. In whichever group you fraternise with, there will be at least one person carrying some kind of mouth freshener. Look for mints, in whatever form, from the aforementioned bullseyes to perhaps that perfidious stuff called chewing gum. I have, on one memorable occasion, when desperation demanded, even licked a little of my mint-flavoured chapstick – which was a huge mistake, because it didn’t do anything for my breath and left my tongue feeling waxy and sticky. A clove helps a little and once you have wiped your eyes dry after the first unwary chew, even makes a potential toothache feel comforted. A mint also has a side-effect: the peppermint oil is said to be a good palliative for a headache and, believe me, that one does work pretty well.
So that is the way it goes. My small plastic jar is a repository of bullseyes that much of the office makes a beeline for, especially after a lunch served up by our admittedly awful in-house catering service. I think everyone that I speak to at work, and a few besides who have on occasion cast lascivious glances at my little stash, have dipped into it. Some demand it wordlessly, holding out a hand and waiting not very patiently for me to hold out my jar in answer. Some arrive at my side and stand there, smiling sheepishly and saying nothing, but expressing it all. And some just open my drawer and dip into the small plastic jar without so much as a by-your-leave, though usually after my leave has been by-ed a long time before.
But I ran out of that at a perfect time – just when I rediscovered the childhood charms of the round sweets called bullseyes. I have no idea whether any bull would recognise them as kin, but I remember eating through vast quantities of them when I was very young, introduced to them by Father, who at that stage in his life was rather addicted to them. Bullseyes are black and white striped fairly strong mints (they also come in ghastly fruit flavoured red, orange and yellow stripes, but those need not be considered at all). They spark almost violently in the mouth if you bite into one too soon, since the outside sugar coating is rather deceptive and tends to lull the tongue into a kind of serenity and tasting torpor. If you bite just so as to crack the sphere in half, it is not so shocking; crush it into fragments and the mint feels stronger, sharper, more fiery, blasting through the soothing effects of a nice lunch to make your eyes water and your ears sing…or so it feels, sometimes.
A good mint is the best road to travel when you are done with a meal that includes a certain generous portion of garlic, onion or anything that leaves that after-smell in the mouth. Even as you savour that last tiny fragment of kebab or that tiny splinter of pickled onion that goes with it, you can practically hear the senses clamouring for something to wash it away, especially since you have that presentation in the small conference room in an hour and you know that even though the bet way to face down your critics without saying anything is to breathe out, your own sensibilities and the lessons your upbringing taught you will not allow you to be that crass. Unfortunate, but there it is. So you rummage frantically through your bag, your desk, your pockets…but no, no mints, no mukhwas, no toothpaste. You make a mad dash into the bathroom to rinse your mouth three or six times, scrub your tongue and do a vigorous gargle. All to little avail.
That is when your friends come in handy. In whichever group you fraternise with, there will be at least one person carrying some kind of mouth freshener. Look for mints, in whatever form, from the aforementioned bullseyes to perhaps that perfidious stuff called chewing gum. I have, on one memorable occasion, when desperation demanded, even licked a little of my mint-flavoured chapstick – which was a huge mistake, because it didn’t do anything for my breath and left my tongue feeling waxy and sticky. A clove helps a little and once you have wiped your eyes dry after the first unwary chew, even makes a potential toothache feel comforted. A mint also has a side-effect: the peppermint oil is said to be a good palliative for a headache and, believe me, that one does work pretty well.
So that is the way it goes. My small plastic jar is a repository of bullseyes that much of the office makes a beeline for, especially after a lunch served up by our admittedly awful in-house catering service. I think everyone that I speak to at work, and a few besides who have on occasion cast lascivious glances at my little stash, have dipped into it. Some demand it wordlessly, holding out a hand and waiting not very patiently for me to hold out my jar in answer. Some arrive at my side and stand there, smiling sheepishly and saying nothing, but expressing it all. And some just open my drawer and dip into the small plastic jar without so much as a by-your-leave, though usually after my leave has been by-ed a long time before.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Leaf it all behind
The food I should traditionally eat, as a good Tam-Bram, tastes best when eaten off a banana leaf. Even I, with my extensively westernised upbringing and global-villager values, know that. Of course, the fact that it is far easier and convenient to eat off a regular glass, ceramic, pottery, stainless steel or even (I hesitate to mention it, but I did do this for many years in Delhi, but that was someone else’s kitchen equipment, I add hastily) melamine plate is undoubtedly true, but there is a special charm in going native. I revel in it, as long as ‘it’ is not a frequent occurrence.
I have no real objection to a banana leaf, per se. In fact, I quite enjoy the whole experience of eating off one. What defeats me is two simple and easily cured aspects of the whole exercise: sitting on the floor and that darned leaf midrib. The first is very, very personal, all about cranky knees and not being used to a very hard surface for a very soft bottom to spend an unwonted length of time resting on. The last time I sat on the floor, I eschewed the prescribed cross-legged position and chose to sit with my legs folded sideways on. I was frowned at ferociously by no less than seven and a half people – Mum stopped halfway to the desired effect as soon as she found someone else was looking meanly at her only daughter. Less elegant, more ungainly but far more comfortable and much easier to get up from. Folded cross-ways, I need the help of at least two people to rise – one to pull me up and another to unfold my unfortunately cramped knees and fast-asleep feet. Agony, thy name is a cold granite floor.
The midrib is another nightmare altogether, but one that involves me less than it does other people sitting adjacent or even opposite me. It is also a matter of some considerable embarrassment to me when I deal with the problem – the liquid content of my banana leaf tends to run furiously down the hollow half-tube that is the midrib, and impinges in to the eating space of those around me. A long time ago, when I was very young, I was at dinner at a very traditional wedding, where we all had to sit down on the floor for a meal (my knees were more kind to me then). Dressed up in my pavadai-chokka and pretty jewellery, with lots of flowers pinned firmly on to my scalp ( a short hairdo may have been chic, but was not conducive to the whole floral adornment scenario), I sat with the men (it was pre-pubertal, so the sex divide did not apply to me), next to my father, and was given a considerable amount of help from his marvellously scientific logic to help dam the tide of rasam that crept inexorably along, slowly and then gradually torrentially down that benighted midrib. Father showed me how to create a small weir from a mound of tightly squeezed rice, the gluey carbohydrate absorbing the liquid at a pace that kept up with my eating.
I trued to use that technique some years later, when at a friend’s wedding, where the dinner was traditional style. I sat with Mother this time, dressed in a carefully pinned sari and even more carefully pinned hair, now long enough for flowers to be woven in rather than stapled to my head. My knees were still benevolent and I was able to lean over the swathe of silk and bend by head to my food. But the midrib problem persisted, and I could see Father a few rows down, with the other men, signalling me to do the dam thing. I smiled and worked the trick as successfully as before.
The more recent instances of eating off a banana leaf have been when I was nicely arranged in a chair at a table. Somehow it is not the same; food even tastes different, never mind that it is all the same and has been for generations now. But my knees are now and for the more western seating arrangement, I thank the powers that be…and the catering arrangers, of course.
I have no real objection to a banana leaf, per se. In fact, I quite enjoy the whole experience of eating off one. What defeats me is two simple and easily cured aspects of the whole exercise: sitting on the floor and that darned leaf midrib. The first is very, very personal, all about cranky knees and not being used to a very hard surface for a very soft bottom to spend an unwonted length of time resting on. The last time I sat on the floor, I eschewed the prescribed cross-legged position and chose to sit with my legs folded sideways on. I was frowned at ferociously by no less than seven and a half people – Mum stopped halfway to the desired effect as soon as she found someone else was looking meanly at her only daughter. Less elegant, more ungainly but far more comfortable and much easier to get up from. Folded cross-ways, I need the help of at least two people to rise – one to pull me up and another to unfold my unfortunately cramped knees and fast-asleep feet. Agony, thy name is a cold granite floor.
The midrib is another nightmare altogether, but one that involves me less than it does other people sitting adjacent or even opposite me. It is also a matter of some considerable embarrassment to me when I deal with the problem – the liquid content of my banana leaf tends to run furiously down the hollow half-tube that is the midrib, and impinges in to the eating space of those around me. A long time ago, when I was very young, I was at dinner at a very traditional wedding, where we all had to sit down on the floor for a meal (my knees were more kind to me then). Dressed up in my pavadai-chokka and pretty jewellery, with lots of flowers pinned firmly on to my scalp ( a short hairdo may have been chic, but was not conducive to the whole floral adornment scenario), I sat with the men (it was pre-pubertal, so the sex divide did not apply to me), next to my father, and was given a considerable amount of help from his marvellously scientific logic to help dam the tide of rasam that crept inexorably along, slowly and then gradually torrentially down that benighted midrib. Father showed me how to create a small weir from a mound of tightly squeezed rice, the gluey carbohydrate absorbing the liquid at a pace that kept up with my eating.
I trued to use that technique some years later, when at a friend’s wedding, where the dinner was traditional style. I sat with Mother this time, dressed in a carefully pinned sari and even more carefully pinned hair, now long enough for flowers to be woven in rather than stapled to my head. My knees were still benevolent and I was able to lean over the swathe of silk and bend by head to my food. But the midrib problem persisted, and I could see Father a few rows down, with the other men, signalling me to do the dam thing. I smiled and worked the trick as successfully as before.
The more recent instances of eating off a banana leaf have been when I was nicely arranged in a chair at a table. Somehow it is not the same; food even tastes different, never mind that it is all the same and has been for generations now. But my knees are now and for the more western seating arrangement, I thank the powers that be…and the catering arrangers, of course.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
A yummy tangle
On my way to work every morning I drive past the branch of a well known sweet shop. Most days it is not too crowded – not between 9:30 and 10:30, at least – and I can see right through the store to the back shelves, where the chips and assorted other crunchies are stacked. And, in front, on open flames, a man sits before a large pan of hot oil or ghee and fries up batch after batch of brilliant orange jalebis, dunking them straight from the fat into vats of clear and sticky sugar syrup. Using another ladle, he lifts them, dripping sweet liquid, out into a large perforated dish to drain. And, almost as they are set down, they are bought up by eager customers, to eat hot and fresh on the way to work, or as a delicious breakfast with hot puris, warm milk or fresh cream.
When I was rather younger, we used to buy fresh hot jalebis from a small shop in South Mumbai. It was set in the depths of Navy Nagar, at one end of the city, just beyond which was a research establishment where Father often did his computer and library work and Mother and a very young me roamed the grounds or, when I was older, walked and argued about everything from food habits to dance styles to wardrobes to marriage. On the way home, we would stop the car close to the huddle of small shanty-shops and dive into the tiny alleyways to get to the sweetmeat seller and have a hot bagful of the yummies bundled up to take home. When I did my stint at the institute as a research scholar, I walked along the sea-promenade by myself, thinking my own thoughts and wondering idly whether the jalebi man would still be there. And, to my delight, I found that he was, and managed to take some home a few times. There were never any leftovers.
A jalebi is a delicious sweet fritter - for lack of any other appropriate description – that is a disc-like tangle of hollow flour-dough tubes that become filled with syrup as they soak. Since they are deep fried, they retain their crispness for a long while even when they are drenched. The syrup may be flavoured with rose water or with saffron, perhaps a touch of nutmeg and a soupcon of cardamom. The dough can be left au naturel - in which case the jalebis come out of their various baths a gentle pale gold colour - or with food colouring added - which makes them bright yellow or vivid flame orange.
Eating a fresh jalebi is a matter of drip and lick dry. But there are techniques that can minimise any of the turgid sap falling in sticky beads down your favourite shirt. The basic rule: Pick up a flat tangle and look for a loose end; there will be one. Either break it off – which means two hands sticky fingered – or bite into it. Hold the rest with the open end directed into your mouth, or upright away from your clothes. You can, if you are not finicky about making somewhat rude noises, suck on the end, to pull more of the syrup into your mouth. Then keep nibbling away at the rest of the web, making sure to keep any potential drips directed away from your clothes (you can lick the sweetness off yourself, but getting it out of your shirt is not the easiest route to travel unless you are close by a washing machine). While there is nothing yummier than a hot jalebi, an unblistered tongue feels better, trust me, so get your optimum biting temperature right.
Today the sweet shop I drove past every day was very crowded, with people buying like mad to celebrate Raksha Bandhan, the festival when sisters and brothers bond more than they do otherwise. And there were at least three separate jalebi makers hard at work, frying up piles of the bright orange tangles. I thought fondly of my adoptive brother, as long and as tangled, sometimes, as a jalebi with his long limbs and convoluted logic. But if you want to find your way to the best in the city, if the venerable gentleman and his establishment still exist, look for the small shop in the warren of Navy Nagar….
When I was rather younger, we used to buy fresh hot jalebis from a small shop in South Mumbai. It was set in the depths of Navy Nagar, at one end of the city, just beyond which was a research establishment where Father often did his computer and library work and Mother and a very young me roamed the grounds or, when I was older, walked and argued about everything from food habits to dance styles to wardrobes to marriage. On the way home, we would stop the car close to the huddle of small shanty-shops and dive into the tiny alleyways to get to the sweetmeat seller and have a hot bagful of the yummies bundled up to take home. When I did my stint at the institute as a research scholar, I walked along the sea-promenade by myself, thinking my own thoughts and wondering idly whether the jalebi man would still be there. And, to my delight, I found that he was, and managed to take some home a few times. There were never any leftovers.
A jalebi is a delicious sweet fritter - for lack of any other appropriate description – that is a disc-like tangle of hollow flour-dough tubes that become filled with syrup as they soak. Since they are deep fried, they retain their crispness for a long while even when they are drenched. The syrup may be flavoured with rose water or with saffron, perhaps a touch of nutmeg and a soupcon of cardamom. The dough can be left au naturel - in which case the jalebis come out of their various baths a gentle pale gold colour - or with food colouring added - which makes them bright yellow or vivid flame orange.
Eating a fresh jalebi is a matter of drip and lick dry. But there are techniques that can minimise any of the turgid sap falling in sticky beads down your favourite shirt. The basic rule: Pick up a flat tangle and look for a loose end; there will be one. Either break it off – which means two hands sticky fingered – or bite into it. Hold the rest with the open end directed into your mouth, or upright away from your clothes. You can, if you are not finicky about making somewhat rude noises, suck on the end, to pull more of the syrup into your mouth. Then keep nibbling away at the rest of the web, making sure to keep any potential drips directed away from your clothes (you can lick the sweetness off yourself, but getting it out of your shirt is not the easiest route to travel unless you are close by a washing machine). While there is nothing yummier than a hot jalebi, an unblistered tongue feels better, trust me, so get your optimum biting temperature right.
Today the sweet shop I drove past every day was very crowded, with people buying like mad to celebrate Raksha Bandhan, the festival when sisters and brothers bond more than they do otherwise. And there were at least three separate jalebi makers hard at work, frying up piles of the bright orange tangles. I thought fondly of my adoptive brother, as long and as tangled, sometimes, as a jalebi with his long limbs and convoluted logic. But if you want to find your way to the best in the city, if the venerable gentleman and his establishment still exist, look for the small shop in the warren of Navy Nagar….
Monday, August 27, 2007
Cooking from the books
Some time ago I found three rather interesting cookbooks, which I wanted to write about. Here it is...
RUSH HOUR COOKBOOK
Bapsi Nariman
50 GREAT RECIPES – TIFFINS
Master Chefs of India
50 GREAT RECIPES – SHARBATS
Salma Hussain
Cookbooks are always a good gift to give - and get - especially if they are large sized, with delicious photographs, pages that can be wiped free of masalas and dripped sauces, and a print that can be easily seen through cooking steam without too much squinting or swearing from the cook-aspirant. And if the recipes within this tempting package are easy to follow, it makes the whole package a very edible one indeed.
Cookbooks also need to meet other criteria – they should lie flat when opened to a particular page, they should be neatly edited so that all the ingredients are identifiable – to the grocery store-keeper, if not to the wannabe chef and they should have recipes that list all the ingredients used and use all the ingredients listed. After all, this genre of literary expression is not a mystery or thriller (where, oh where and when did that dangblasted ketchup go into the peas that were brought to a boil?), but a culinary procedure that will result in, hopefully, something that can be eaten without health hazards!
Bapsi Nariman’s Rush Hour Cookbook for Good Housekeeping manages to do all this and more. While it would be regarded with some disdain by the expert DIY cook, it is perfect for the harried house-person, wife or husband, singleton or au pair equivalent, who wants to make something hatke without too much work, foraying beyond the realm of roti-sabji-dal to more exotic stuff of which rave reviews are made – from Gazpacho to Bouillabaisse, Carrots Vichy to Florentine Eggs, Cheese Scones to Sole Veronique. Of course, that same harried individual may want to know how to make Dalia, Sali Boti or Pakoras, too, all of which and more are catalogued carefully under separate and self-explanatory headings. Of course, like every cookbook, there is a gentle element of mystery attached to recipe names – Eggless Egg Salad, for one, is a stumer, while Wonderful Fried Potatoes invites investigation, as much as Halved Tomatoes suggests a challenge that must be met. Nariman adds tips, handy hints and serving suggestions to the package she presents, along with cute anecdotes and an occasional historical vignette that make for that special lagniappe (something extra) any chef likes reading when waiting for a pot of something to boil – never watch it, remember!
The 50 Great Recipes series is all about simple to make, easy to eat foods that are familiar, along with the everyday adaptations that bring the foods into a modern context, rather than relegating it to the storage shelves of tradition and ‘grandma used to make’ family history. The Tiffins volume is a good example of this. The multi-grain adai, for instance, conventionally served up with home-made white butter, is pictured with obviously processed butter. Murukku is machine spun, not hand twisted like Atthai would create at Gokulashtami time. And sambhar incorporates the standard masala mix instead of the carefully added individually roasted and powdered spices that always gave that spicy lentil stew its typical and delicious flavour. Which makes it all very doable and convenient. But authentic? Shut up and eat!
The same series serves up 50 Sharbats by Persian scholar, food historian and hotel consultant Salma Hussain. She sips her way across the country, from the tartly refreshing Kokum Sharbat of Maharashtra to the Panna of the central plains to the Jaan-e-Bahar of the north. She also does an international hop, with a glug of hibiscus juice from Egypt, a swig of lassi (Ayran, a yoghurt and milk drink) from Turkey, a glass of Good Luck Punch via Africa and a sweet slurp of Apple Milk from Malaysia. And as she drinks her way through the list, she explains how one can be cooling, the other laxative, a third digestive and yet another, energy boosting. Easy to create, easier to swallow and healthy, to boot! How can you possibly lose with this one!
RUSH HOUR COOKBOOK
Bapsi Nariman
50 GREAT RECIPES – TIFFINS
Master Chefs of India
50 GREAT RECIPES – SHARBATS
Salma Hussain
Cookbooks are always a good gift to give - and get - especially if they are large sized, with delicious photographs, pages that can be wiped free of masalas and dripped sauces, and a print that can be easily seen through cooking steam without too much squinting or swearing from the cook-aspirant. And if the recipes within this tempting package are easy to follow, it makes the whole package a very edible one indeed.
Cookbooks also need to meet other criteria – they should lie flat when opened to a particular page, they should be neatly edited so that all the ingredients are identifiable – to the grocery store-keeper, if not to the wannabe chef and they should have recipes that list all the ingredients used and use all the ingredients listed. After all, this genre of literary expression is not a mystery or thriller (where, oh where and when did that dangblasted ketchup go into the peas that were brought to a boil?), but a culinary procedure that will result in, hopefully, something that can be eaten without health hazards!
Bapsi Nariman’s Rush Hour Cookbook for Good Housekeeping manages to do all this and more. While it would be regarded with some disdain by the expert DIY cook, it is perfect for the harried house-person, wife or husband, singleton or au pair equivalent, who wants to make something hatke without too much work, foraying beyond the realm of roti-sabji-dal to more exotic stuff of which rave reviews are made – from Gazpacho to Bouillabaisse, Carrots Vichy to Florentine Eggs, Cheese Scones to Sole Veronique. Of course, that same harried individual may want to know how to make Dalia, Sali Boti or Pakoras, too, all of which and more are catalogued carefully under separate and self-explanatory headings. Of course, like every cookbook, there is a gentle element of mystery attached to recipe names – Eggless Egg Salad, for one, is a stumer, while Wonderful Fried Potatoes invites investigation, as much as Halved Tomatoes suggests a challenge that must be met. Nariman adds tips, handy hints and serving suggestions to the package she presents, along with cute anecdotes and an occasional historical vignette that make for that special lagniappe (something extra) any chef likes reading when waiting for a pot of something to boil – never watch it, remember!
The 50 Great Recipes series is all about simple to make, easy to eat foods that are familiar, along with the everyday adaptations that bring the foods into a modern context, rather than relegating it to the storage shelves of tradition and ‘grandma used to make’ family history. The Tiffins volume is a good example of this. The multi-grain adai, for instance, conventionally served up with home-made white butter, is pictured with obviously processed butter. Murukku is machine spun, not hand twisted like Atthai would create at Gokulashtami time. And sambhar incorporates the standard masala mix instead of the carefully added individually roasted and powdered spices that always gave that spicy lentil stew its typical and delicious flavour. Which makes it all very doable and convenient. But authentic? Shut up and eat!
The same series serves up 50 Sharbats by Persian scholar, food historian and hotel consultant Salma Hussain. She sips her way across the country, from the tartly refreshing Kokum Sharbat of Maharashtra to the Panna of the central plains to the Jaan-e-Bahar of the north. She also does an international hop, with a glug of hibiscus juice from Egypt, a swig of lassi (Ayran, a yoghurt and milk drink) from Turkey, a glass of Good Luck Punch via Africa and a sweet slurp of Apple Milk from Malaysia. And as she drinks her way through the list, she explains how one can be cooling, the other laxative, a third digestive and yet another, energy boosting. Easy to create, easier to swallow and healthy, to boot! How can you possibly lose with this one!
Friday, August 24, 2007
A mug’s game
For some strange reason, I never really like drinking regular chai-style tea on any ordinary day, though I do so at work, more to keep awake than for any nudge from my gustatory synapses. The stuff from the machine is too sweet and too frothy and too strong, the bitter aftertaste coming through the overdose of sugar and whatever spices may have been added. On days when deadlines breathe heavily and persistently down my neck, I get myself sparked with a touch of caffeine and tannin and glucose, pushing away the Sandman and staying more awake than I would like to be at such times just in order to get through to the end of the day.
But – and I cannot understand why, even when I keep trying to analyse it – when I am at home for a whole day (less often than I would like, really), I crave that hot cup of chai. And not any ladylike cup either, but one of my favourite giant mugs, of which I have a nice collection that Father usually glowers at, especially when he thinks that I am aware of his actions (I almost always am, but lets him know only once in a while). Just after the maid is done cleaning the house and I am done getting is back in order, sorting out my cooking for the day and thinking about what new I can do with vegetables that seem to make too-frequent trips to my refrigerator, I start getting edgy. The number of yawns per minute that emerge from deep within me increases and the day weighs astonishingly heavily on my eyelids and brain. I try and read a newspaper, but find my head nodding steadily downwards, that black fug that is sleep missed clouding my reactions.
That is when I get up, pat Small Cat affectionately on her pretty little head and march into the kitchen. A small round stainless steel pot is filled with water and set on a lit burner. As it begins gently heating, I choose the mug I want to sip from – my favourite is a large blue and yellow op-art creation with a big handle that is perfectly placed for grabbing and lifting between chops of onion and stirs of sizzling potatoes. As tiny bubbles start forming on the surface of the water, I work quickly to add first a spoonful of sugar – more because the doctor said I should than because I want it – a pinch of chai masala that was bought around the time the dinosaurs went extinct and a small spoonful of chai leaves.
Thereupon hangs a different tale. The chai was bought for the maid when the maid was a different woman, not existentially, but physically. She drank sweet hot tea every morning and wanted it strong, not the usual mildly flavoured water that we prefer. So we got the dust tea, the kind that brews dark and almost syrupy. But the maid soon left (spurred on by my enthusiastic farewells) and a new one came along who was not just younger and more efficient, but who spurned tea with a curled lip and the disdain of a girl who is more used to soda-pop than old-fashioned tea. So, being of the rather frugal sort in some ways, I have been drinking my way through this disgustingly hefty beverage which, in spite of its lack of elitism, does do the job it is meant to: keep me awake.
As soon as the water boils, the tea leaves (or dust) are thrown in and the gas turned off. Then comes the part that I always get wrong. If I catch it in time and add milk and strain into my fabulous mug, it is too hot for me to drink. If I leave it until it cools enough to sip comfortably, it gets too strong and the bitterness makes my tongue cringe. So I have developed a method that will, when admitted, have me excommunicated from the legion of tea drinkers – I strain it into my trusty mug and then add a little cold water. And then slurp, with great pleasure….
But – and I cannot understand why, even when I keep trying to analyse it – when I am at home for a whole day (less often than I would like, really), I crave that hot cup of chai. And not any ladylike cup either, but one of my favourite giant mugs, of which I have a nice collection that Father usually glowers at, especially when he thinks that I am aware of his actions (I almost always am, but lets him know only once in a while). Just after the maid is done cleaning the house and I am done getting is back in order, sorting out my cooking for the day and thinking about what new I can do with vegetables that seem to make too-frequent trips to my refrigerator, I start getting edgy. The number of yawns per minute that emerge from deep within me increases and the day weighs astonishingly heavily on my eyelids and brain. I try and read a newspaper, but find my head nodding steadily downwards, that black fug that is sleep missed clouding my reactions.
That is when I get up, pat Small Cat affectionately on her pretty little head and march into the kitchen. A small round stainless steel pot is filled with water and set on a lit burner. As it begins gently heating, I choose the mug I want to sip from – my favourite is a large blue and yellow op-art creation with a big handle that is perfectly placed for grabbing and lifting between chops of onion and stirs of sizzling potatoes. As tiny bubbles start forming on the surface of the water, I work quickly to add first a spoonful of sugar – more because the doctor said I should than because I want it – a pinch of chai masala that was bought around the time the dinosaurs went extinct and a small spoonful of chai leaves.
Thereupon hangs a different tale. The chai was bought for the maid when the maid was a different woman, not existentially, but physically. She drank sweet hot tea every morning and wanted it strong, not the usual mildly flavoured water that we prefer. So we got the dust tea, the kind that brews dark and almost syrupy. But the maid soon left (spurred on by my enthusiastic farewells) and a new one came along who was not just younger and more efficient, but who spurned tea with a curled lip and the disdain of a girl who is more used to soda-pop than old-fashioned tea. So, being of the rather frugal sort in some ways, I have been drinking my way through this disgustingly hefty beverage which, in spite of its lack of elitism, does do the job it is meant to: keep me awake.
As soon as the water boils, the tea leaves (or dust) are thrown in and the gas turned off. Then comes the part that I always get wrong. If I catch it in time and add milk and strain into my fabulous mug, it is too hot for me to drink. If I leave it until it cools enough to sip comfortably, it gets too strong and the bitterness makes my tongue cringe. So I have developed a method that will, when admitted, have me excommunicated from the legion of tea drinkers – I strain it into my trusty mug and then add a little cold water. And then slurp, with great pleasure….
A mug’s game
For some strange reason, I never really like drinking regular chai-style tea on any ordinary day, though I do so at work, more to keep awake than for any nudge from my gustatory synapses. The stuff from the machine is too sweet and too frothy and too strong, the bitter aftertaste coming through the overdose of sugar and whatever spices may have been added. On days when deadlines breathe heavily and persistently down my neck, I get myself sparked with a touch of caffeine and tannin and glucose, pushing away the Sandman and staying more awake than I would like to be at such times just in order to get through to the end of the day.
But – and I cannot understand why, even when I keep trying to analyse it – when I am at home for a whole day (less often than I would like, really), I crave that hot cup of chai. And not any ladylike cup either, but one of my favourite giant mugs, of which I have a nice collection that Father usually glowers at, especially when he thinks that I am aware of his actions (I almost always am, but lets him know only once in a while). Just after the maid is done cleaning the house and I am done getting is back in order, sorting out my cooking for the day and thinking about what new I can do with vegetables that seem to make too-frequent trips to my refrigerator, I start getting edgy. The number of yawns per minute that emerge from deep within me increases and the day weighs astonishingly heavily on my eyelids and brain. I try and read a newspaper, but find my head nodding steadily downwards, that black fug that is sleep missed clouding my reactions.
That is when I get up, pat Small Cat affectionately on her pretty little head and march into the kitchen. A small round stainless steel pot is filled with water and set on a lit burner. As it begins gently heating, I choose the mug I want to sip from – my favourite is a large blue and yellow op-art creation with a big handle that is perfectly placed for grabbing and lifting between chops of onion and stirs of sizzling potatoes. As tiny bubbles start forming on the surface of the water, I work quickly to add first a spoonful of sugar – more because the doctor said I should than because I want it – a pinch of chai masala that was bought around the time the dinosaurs went extinct and a small spoonful of chai leaves.
Thereupon hangs a different tale. The chai was bought for the maid when the maid was a different woman, not existentially, but physically. She drank sweet hot tea every morning and wanted it strong, not the usual mildly flavoured water that we prefer. So we got the dust tea, the kind that brews dark and almost syrupy. But the maid soon left (spurred on by my enthusiastic farewells) and a new one came along who was not just younger and more efficient, but who spurned tea with a curled lip and the disdain of a girl who is more used to soda-pop than old-fashioned tea. So, being of the rather frugal sort in some ways, I have been drinking my way through this disgustingly hefty beverage which, in spite of its lack of elitism, does do the job it is meant to: keep me awake.
As soon as the water boils, the tea leaves (or dust) are thrown in and the gas turned off. Then comes the part that I always get wrong. If I catch it in time and add milk and strain into my fabulous mug, it is too hot for me to drink. If I leave it until it cools enough to sip comfortably, it gets too strong and the bitterness makes my tongue cringe. So I have developed a method that will, when admitted, have me excommunicated from the legion of tea drinkers – I strain it into my trusty mug and then add a little cold water. And then slurp, with great pleasure….
Thursday, August 23, 2007
A meal in one
Happy VP day!Today, the newspapers tell me, is Vada Pav Day. Which is, in itself, a triumph of clever marketing and the best way to gentrify a snack that is a Mumbai street speciality that everyone from the Common Man to celebrated chef Anthony Bourdain has nibbled on. I pass a name-brand outlet (one started by the company that started the hype of today being a special day) every day and often wonder what it would be like to wander in, order one of the many versions on the vast roster of food available and then eat it as a meal or just an in-between or whatever I feel like calling it.
I had never heard of a vada pav until I started working in Mumbai, soon after I got out of college abroad. Since I am rather a fusspot – in many ways, but about food in particular – the local-found delicacies were all strange to me, foods I had never eaten, had never wanted to eat and would probably never eat…except for the friends I made. One of them, in particular, a very tall and lanky gentleman who straightened out the tech-mess that the websites I worked on invariably got into, decided that I had had enough of being a sheltered darling and needed some toughening up. He began with the locally available thali, then worked me into puri-bhaji from a nearby streetside eatery and then, almost as a grand finale – or my farewell from the newspaper office I had spent so long in – the vada pav from a small café just down the road. But I was rather daunted by the fact that the plate he lovingly placed in front of me was home to a large, soft white-bread bun, stuffed with what I knew as a batter-coated deep-fried bonda, rich with potatoes, onions and green chillies, and cushioned by a thick layer of brilliant red powdery chutney that seemed to hold all the fire of a full-of-life Vesuvius on an especially grumpy day generations ago. I quailed.
Some years late, I was re-introduced to the vada pav. This time, it was in a more upscale dining establishment in Delhi, actually a franchise of a fast food chain of American origin. I had insisted I wanted to try the vegetarian offering just introduced to the country and was told that it was just like a vada pav. Which made me even more determined to bite into it. It came, nicely wrapped in labelled waxed paper, with a tiny plastic dish of ketchup to make it slide down faster. I had asked for mine with cheese, and it clung to the roof of my mouth with the first bite and, I suspect, would never have let go if I had not swallowed some of the hot coffee I drank in those days. It was called a ‘veggie burger’. It was a vada pav with painfully pedantic good manners. And about the most disappointing thing I have ever eaten.
So today I should celebrate the existence of something I have rarely been in the neighbourhood of. Which is a pity, since most of Mumbai seems to thrive on it. One of these days, I tell myself, I shall live dangerously, dive in the deep end and go all out. All for the sake of culinary experience and the chance to wish people “Happy Vada Pav Day!” and really mean it.
I had never heard of a vada pav until I started working in Mumbai, soon after I got out of college abroad. Since I am rather a fusspot – in many ways, but about food in particular – the local-found delicacies were all strange to me, foods I had never eaten, had never wanted to eat and would probably never eat…except for the friends I made. One of them, in particular, a very tall and lanky gentleman who straightened out the tech-mess that the websites I worked on invariably got into, decided that I had had enough of being a sheltered darling and needed some toughening up. He began with the locally available thali, then worked me into puri-bhaji from a nearby streetside eatery and then, almost as a grand finale – or my farewell from the newspaper office I had spent so long in – the vada pav from a small café just down the road. But I was rather daunted by the fact that the plate he lovingly placed in front of me was home to a large, soft white-bread bun, stuffed with what I knew as a batter-coated deep-fried bonda, rich with potatoes, onions and green chillies, and cushioned by a thick layer of brilliant red powdery chutney that seemed to hold all the fire of a full-of-life Vesuvius on an especially grumpy day generations ago. I quailed.
Some years late, I was re-introduced to the vada pav. This time, it was in a more upscale dining establishment in Delhi, actually a franchise of a fast food chain of American origin. I had insisted I wanted to try the vegetarian offering just introduced to the country and was told that it was just like a vada pav. Which made me even more determined to bite into it. It came, nicely wrapped in labelled waxed paper, with a tiny plastic dish of ketchup to make it slide down faster. I had asked for mine with cheese, and it clung to the roof of my mouth with the first bite and, I suspect, would never have let go if I had not swallowed some of the hot coffee I drank in those days. It was called a ‘veggie burger’. It was a vada pav with painfully pedantic good manners. And about the most disappointing thing I have ever eaten.
So today I should celebrate the existence of something I have rarely been in the neighbourhood of. Which is a pity, since most of Mumbai seems to thrive on it. One of these days, I tell myself, I shall live dangerously, dive in the deep end and go all out. All for the sake of culinary experience and the chance to wish people “Happy Vada Pav Day!” and really mean it.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
The food file, day 1
Is this going to be more difficult than I originally believed? Perhaps, since I am never sure of something until it happens – isn’t everyone that way? I said that I would convert my blog into a food-focussed one, which has to begin today, as per my word, which for me is generally law. I like black and white in more shapes and sizes than the obvious, you see!
Ok, so my ode starts now…
Some years ago I lived and worked in Delhi, the city where chulhas never go out, or so I was told. Of course, that could have been a load of hogwash as far as I was concerned, since food there was too spicy and too meaty for my comfort levels, but it was delicious in parts, sort of like the egg of the much-maligned curate, whoever he was. At work, in an environment that was new to me and with people who were new to me in a city that was new to me, it was hard enough finding anything to eat, since after all the stories I had heard about going out alone and walking to wherever I wanted to go, the way I did in Mumbai, seemed to be true, after all. Whenever I went out of the office on foot, I was either followed or sung at, usually by types dubious enough to scare even me, who often went into risky situations protected by no more than my own innocence – or ignorance – and generally emerged unscathed, perhaps since I seemed so dumb about the whole thing (actually, I was, but don’t tell anyone that!)
Anyway, be all that as it may. Delhi managed to spark a passion for foods until then unheard of, unseen and untasted, but it also rejiggered the known with a certain exotic twist. Consider the onion bhajiya, for instance. What I had eaten was either made at home or, once, on a trip out of town with my mother, when any food that was not drenched in spices and incendiary to my rather nervous taste-receptors was entirely welcome. And both were mild, oniony and deep fried in clean, clear, untainted oil. Both were crisp fritters with the unexpected bite of an occasional chilli and the surprise crunch of a piece of ginger or a fragment of cashewnut. And both were delicious, devoured with passion and perhaps a touch of minty green chutney, demanded whenever the mood insisted.
So when I heard about onion bhajiyas sourced from the small dhaba below the building where I worked, I leaped up and commanded the office boy to go get me some. Everyone looked oddly at me, and one reporter asked me cautiously whether I was sure I could handle it. My boss, who walked in just at that juncture, took in the situation and suggested that I be allowed to undergo the experience at least once. I hesitated, vaguely suspecting that something was off-key in this scenario, but shrugged away my potential apprehensions and reinforced the order with some money. The office boy left. A tiny whisper of ominous mutter echoed around the room, but I had already shut myself into my office and didn’t really hear it.
And then the onion bhajiyas arrived. I offered them around, without really looking at them too closely. And when there was a unanimous headshake, I decided that something was indeed wrong. These people were not the kind that would refuse food, especially of the kind that is free. The bhajiyas looked okay, albeit a trifle darker and shinier than I was used to. But that was the Delhi light, I thought and lifted one cautiously, thinking it would be hot and so difficult to bite into. It was stone cold and oddly slick. The first bite snagged a chilli and I rushed to grab the water one of the trainees was thoughtfully holding out to me. Then the rest of the sensation-synapses caught up with my brain. Yes, there was onion in the bhajiyas, and a generous helping of green chillies, with no sign of any ginger or nuts. A kind of film of grease sat heavy on my tongue and coated my tonsils, making me cough. Between gasps, I called the office boy back to give the onion bhajiyas back to the dhaba, as my contribution to the survival of mankind in general and myself in particular.
Even today, every time I meet an onion bhajiya that is not home-made, I regard it with a certain justified suspicion. After all, post my one experience of eating these fritters deep fried in used car oil, I was not eager to do a rerun.
Ok, so my ode starts now…
Some years ago I lived and worked in Delhi, the city where chulhas never go out, or so I was told. Of course, that could have been a load of hogwash as far as I was concerned, since food there was too spicy and too meaty for my comfort levels, but it was delicious in parts, sort of like the egg of the much-maligned curate, whoever he was. At work, in an environment that was new to me and with people who were new to me in a city that was new to me, it was hard enough finding anything to eat, since after all the stories I had heard about going out alone and walking to wherever I wanted to go, the way I did in Mumbai, seemed to be true, after all. Whenever I went out of the office on foot, I was either followed or sung at, usually by types dubious enough to scare even me, who often went into risky situations protected by no more than my own innocence – or ignorance – and generally emerged unscathed, perhaps since I seemed so dumb about the whole thing (actually, I was, but don’t tell anyone that!)
Anyway, be all that as it may. Delhi managed to spark a passion for foods until then unheard of, unseen and untasted, but it also rejiggered the known with a certain exotic twist. Consider the onion bhajiya, for instance. What I had eaten was either made at home or, once, on a trip out of town with my mother, when any food that was not drenched in spices and incendiary to my rather nervous taste-receptors was entirely welcome. And both were mild, oniony and deep fried in clean, clear, untainted oil. Both were crisp fritters with the unexpected bite of an occasional chilli and the surprise crunch of a piece of ginger or a fragment of cashewnut. And both were delicious, devoured with passion and perhaps a touch of minty green chutney, demanded whenever the mood insisted.
So when I heard about onion bhajiyas sourced from the small dhaba below the building where I worked, I leaped up and commanded the office boy to go get me some. Everyone looked oddly at me, and one reporter asked me cautiously whether I was sure I could handle it. My boss, who walked in just at that juncture, took in the situation and suggested that I be allowed to undergo the experience at least once. I hesitated, vaguely suspecting that something was off-key in this scenario, but shrugged away my potential apprehensions and reinforced the order with some money. The office boy left. A tiny whisper of ominous mutter echoed around the room, but I had already shut myself into my office and didn’t really hear it.
And then the onion bhajiyas arrived. I offered them around, without really looking at them too closely. And when there was a unanimous headshake, I decided that something was indeed wrong. These people were not the kind that would refuse food, especially of the kind that is free. The bhajiyas looked okay, albeit a trifle darker and shinier than I was used to. But that was the Delhi light, I thought and lifted one cautiously, thinking it would be hot and so difficult to bite into. It was stone cold and oddly slick. The first bite snagged a chilli and I rushed to grab the water one of the trainees was thoughtfully holding out to me. Then the rest of the sensation-synapses caught up with my brain. Yes, there was onion in the bhajiyas, and a generous helping of green chillies, with no sign of any ginger or nuts. A kind of film of grease sat heavy on my tongue and coated my tonsils, making me cough. Between gasps, I called the office boy back to give the onion bhajiyas back to the dhaba, as my contribution to the survival of mankind in general and myself in particular.
Even today, every time I meet an onion bhajiya that is not home-made, I regard it with a certain justified suspicion. After all, post my one experience of eating these fritters deep fried in used car oil, I was not eager to do a rerun.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Decisions, decisions
It came to me like a flash in the shower this morning, which was rather awkward, since it happened between the soap and the rinse. Which meant that I was covered in fragrant bubbles, which is hardly the moment to have a serious thought of any kind. It seemed to be ignominious and imbued with a certain frivolity, which is hardly what that kind of thought deserved. I felt, for a small second, like I should leap out (Can you leap out of a shower?) and run through the house (nicely wrapped in a large towel, of course, so as not to shock the maid) yelling ‘Eureka’, or words to that effect. But, with some degree of difficulty, I restrained myself, telling me sternly that it would be silly and just because I thought I had a brilliant idea did not mean that I had indeed had a brilliant idea.
The idea was very simple and I am wondering why I did not actually get around to doing it before. I did try and focus once in a while, but then things came along and derailed all ideas of using a new idea and making it more interesting yet more adult and uni-directional. Instead, I have been wandering hither and yon, with some arbitrariness, no real direction and much fluff and fribble. But this time, for sure, I have determined firmly and with a no-nonsense resolve, that I shall stick to it, with a certain Superglue-based dedication. But you know me, something interesting comes along and I need to go forth and explore it, at least to find out where that road is going and how far I can travel on it.
Sigh. Yes, I know. I am not doing this deliberately, it is merely a way to make sure that it is something I really want to do and not just something I think I should do, which is worse than doing it and then finding out that I should never have done it at all. But I am sure now and I will do it, albeit with an occasional detour to things that come my way that could be fun which is just the kind of thing I have done all my life and will probably continue to do as long as I have that life.
Hehehehe. This is so typically me. Well, to cut a long and rather discombobulated story shorter than I can really make it become, I am talking about this blog. While I do not want to stop it, and enjoy it too much, since I have always been one to like talking a lot, as long as I cannot see anyone’s face while I am doing it, I think I will go on writing this blog for a while yet. But I think it is time to be less self-indulgent, as a friend of mine scorns, and find more meaningful focus. So I have decided, as of the eureka moment in the shower this morning, that I will henceforth steer whatever I write in the direction of food.
Now that matches up with two aspects of life as it is for me at the moment. For one, I have to regulate my food habits, having found that my blood sugar is too low for my doctor’s comfort and my never-ending vertigo could be exacerbated by that, and, for another, I have a veritable passion for food – if not eating it, at least making it. I read about it, I write about it and I think about it, which is in itself a sort of eating disorder, I firmly believe. And since this is what I am all about, to a great extent, why not share? So henceforth, we proceed all engines full steam ahead, on a new adventure: to create a food blog of sorts. What sort, we will find out, you and me.
Bon appetit!
The idea was very simple and I am wondering why I did not actually get around to doing it before. I did try and focus once in a while, but then things came along and derailed all ideas of using a new idea and making it more interesting yet more adult and uni-directional. Instead, I have been wandering hither and yon, with some arbitrariness, no real direction and much fluff and fribble. But this time, for sure, I have determined firmly and with a no-nonsense resolve, that I shall stick to it, with a certain Superglue-based dedication. But you know me, something interesting comes along and I need to go forth and explore it, at least to find out where that road is going and how far I can travel on it.
Sigh. Yes, I know. I am not doing this deliberately, it is merely a way to make sure that it is something I really want to do and not just something I think I should do, which is worse than doing it and then finding out that I should never have done it at all. But I am sure now and I will do it, albeit with an occasional detour to things that come my way that could be fun which is just the kind of thing I have done all my life and will probably continue to do as long as I have that life.
Hehehehe. This is so typically me. Well, to cut a long and rather discombobulated story shorter than I can really make it become, I am talking about this blog. While I do not want to stop it, and enjoy it too much, since I have always been one to like talking a lot, as long as I cannot see anyone’s face while I am doing it, I think I will go on writing this blog for a while yet. But I think it is time to be less self-indulgent, as a friend of mine scorns, and find more meaningful focus. So I have decided, as of the eureka moment in the shower this morning, that I will henceforth steer whatever I write in the direction of food.
Now that matches up with two aspects of life as it is for me at the moment. For one, I have to regulate my food habits, having found that my blood sugar is too low for my doctor’s comfort and my never-ending vertigo could be exacerbated by that, and, for another, I have a veritable passion for food – if not eating it, at least making it. I read about it, I write about it and I think about it, which is in itself a sort of eating disorder, I firmly believe. And since this is what I am all about, to a great extent, why not share? So henceforth, we proceed all engines full steam ahead, on a new adventure: to create a food blog of sorts. What sort, we will find out, you and me.
Bon appetit!
Friday, August 17, 2007
Style file
A friend of mine had a birthday today and I was thinking about all that I have looked at over the years that could appeal to a woman's heart and soul (and sole, too?). Unfortunately, I cannot give her any of this, but it is indeed a list to lech for, don't you think? It is Mumbai-centric, but then, so am I!
1) Naina Jhaveri’s Paithani saris – She is devoted to the cause and has done much to revive the ancient art. Gorgeous drapes in pure silk, with wonderful gold and, surprisingly, silver threads used in the weave gleam like sheets of pliant metal. A must-have for any woman.
2) Melange – Wendell Rodrigues is rarely found in Mumbai, but when he is, grab all you can get. His translucent fabrics and bare-dare cuts demand a figure in sternly controlled shape, but are worth all the pain of the burn.
3) Ensemble – Tarun Tahiliani drapes, Sreela Debi organzas and much more, all in brilliant jewel tones and wonderfully, timelessly embellished. The quality shows in the textiles, the details and the finish.
4) Minawala – Carved turquoise and diamond earrings, a floral-cluster ruby and diamond ring and drops of the most exquisitely cut and polished emeralds are to die for. But wear them before you do, you will live for ever, like a princess.
5) Satya Paul – Saris are the eternal fashion statement for women, but these silk wonders are one-of-a-kind. Soft, vivid or subtle and always a tactile experience, the drape is a great gift from that special friend...or yourself.
6) Aditi – Bags and minaudiers are desirable, but a pochette from Aditi’s boutique is a treasure. Using heirloom techniques and luxe fabrics, the batuas have a timeless appeal that can match any outfit, traditional or modern.
7) Rocky S – Fusion wear at its best, Rocky S’s designs combine the old and the new seamlessly, exotically. Try the crop pants with a choli-style blouse or halter-tunics with intricately embellished saris. Or opt for the fabulous form-fit of the jeans, worn with a delicately zardosi top. But make sure you are of the right configuration.
8) Rajesh Pratap Singh – A classic white shirt is a must for any wardrobe. And his are perhaps the best to be had, combining meticulous tailoring with a style statement that is almost conventionally modern. some of his pieces incorporate the traditional - flowers in phoolpatti kaam in graduating sizes down a crisp white kurta...heaven!
9) Roopa Vohra – Thewa may be an age-old technique, but it is a very modern take on traditional jewels. Wear a choker with delicately glinting diamonds or opt for a pair of drop earrings with turquoise beads…it all goes with jeans or a sari.
10) Rinaldi – Shoes are the finishing touch to any ensemble and no one understands that better than Rina Shah...and me. Beautifully decorated and exquisitely balancing form and function, her flats, stilettos, wedges and mojris combine class with current trend.
1) Naina Jhaveri’s Paithani saris – She is devoted to the cause and has done much to revive the ancient art. Gorgeous drapes in pure silk, with wonderful gold and, surprisingly, silver threads used in the weave gleam like sheets of pliant metal. A must-have for any woman.
2) Melange – Wendell Rodrigues is rarely found in Mumbai, but when he is, grab all you can get. His translucent fabrics and bare-dare cuts demand a figure in sternly controlled shape, but are worth all the pain of the burn.
3) Ensemble – Tarun Tahiliani drapes, Sreela Debi organzas and much more, all in brilliant jewel tones and wonderfully, timelessly embellished. The quality shows in the textiles, the details and the finish.
4) Minawala – Carved turquoise and diamond earrings, a floral-cluster ruby and diamond ring and drops of the most exquisitely cut and polished emeralds are to die for. But wear them before you do, you will live for ever, like a princess.
5) Satya Paul – Saris are the eternal fashion statement for women, but these silk wonders are one-of-a-kind. Soft, vivid or subtle and always a tactile experience, the drape is a great gift from that special friend...or yourself.
6) Aditi – Bags and minaudiers are desirable, but a pochette from Aditi’s boutique is a treasure. Using heirloom techniques and luxe fabrics, the batuas have a timeless appeal that can match any outfit, traditional or modern.
7) Rocky S – Fusion wear at its best, Rocky S’s designs combine the old and the new seamlessly, exotically. Try the crop pants with a choli-style blouse or halter-tunics with intricately embellished saris. Or opt for the fabulous form-fit of the jeans, worn with a delicately zardosi top. But make sure you are of the right configuration.
8) Rajesh Pratap Singh – A classic white shirt is a must for any wardrobe. And his are perhaps the best to be had, combining meticulous tailoring with a style statement that is almost conventionally modern. some of his pieces incorporate the traditional - flowers in phoolpatti kaam in graduating sizes down a crisp white kurta...heaven!
9) Roopa Vohra – Thewa may be an age-old technique, but it is a very modern take on traditional jewels. Wear a choker with delicately glinting diamonds or opt for a pair of drop earrings with turquoise beads…it all goes with jeans or a sari.
10) Rinaldi – Shoes are the finishing touch to any ensemble and no one understands that better than Rina Shah...and me. Beautifully decorated and exquisitely balancing form and function, her flats, stilettos, wedges and mojris combine class with current trend.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Babes’ day out
It was a long-deserved break for us. Father needed to get out of the house, Small Cat was better and could be left for a day and Nina was raring to go, as she normally is most of the time. As for me, between vertigo, low blood sugar and cabin fever, a day with the family was more than welcome. And, after some work meetings, assorted other errands and some degree of coordination, we all managed to meet, greet and, of course, eat.
The restaurant we chose for our day out was one of the newest on Mumbai’s haute and happening dining scene. Called Flamboyante, or something that sounded like that though it may have been spelled otherwise, it was an indoor-outdoor experience which, in other words, meant that half of it was in a courtyard open to the sky but sheltered under capacious overhead draping. People seemed to know where it was located in the vast and confusing shopping centre it called home, so we had to do no more than trot in the direction various security personnel suggested. And, finally, after a considerable amount of the aforementioned trotting, we got there, somewhat out of breath but undaunted and eager to get to the food.
Inside was not to be mentioned, since we wanted fresh air and space for mind-wandering. It was cool enough to be comfortable without air-conditioning. We chose a table strategically placed where we could look into the courtyard but were out of range of possible rain. Heels clicking on the wooden floor, we were led to our table, a fan positioned and switched on and solicitous waiters hovered, beaming broad smiles and whiffs of stress-sweat under synthetic shirts. Demanding water and the menus, I headed out to find the loo – that in itself was a fun trek; you had to walk halfway across the enormous complex to a door that was unlocked by a woman (or a man) wearing a special uniform and a cheerful mien. Sparkling clean facilities belied the damp heat and unmentionable smells just outside, where cleanliness was clearly very far removed from any trace of godliness.
Having made my expedition complete back at the table, I found Nina and Father sipping beer and telling funny stories, grinning at me in a way that made me sure that the tales were scurrilously about me. And I was right, as I usually am in these cases, knowing full well that whatever information had been divulged would be held against me regularly and at frequent intervals. I tried to glower, but faded gently into the background with my fancily named lemon slush as the buzz of conversation enveloped me in a gentle fug.
We ordered, the sweet little waiter-man not quite sure of his English and fumbling rather with everything from his semi-colons to his rendition of ‘spinach’. I beamed at him, which – Father and Nina continued with their scurrilousness – made him forget even more of his scanty language skills and we worried considerably about the order even after he carefully and painfully repeated it to us. Finally, with a collective sigh of relief, he trotted off kitchen-wards and left us to chat and speculate about what would eventually ensue on the table for our meal.
But it was fine. The food was not at all bad, good in parts and decent in all others, and served up hot and fresh. We started with spring rolls, sticky rice dim sums and tiny cannonballs of chicken something and progressed gradually through vegetable laced noodles, steaming hot fish in ginger wine, crispy-spicy lamb and a generous garden-full of crackling spinach. Then having loosened our waistbands a trifle, we segued into chocolate flan for me, mocha fudge and ice cream for Father and a large cup of espresso floating a neat ball of ice cream for Nina. Replete, we sat back, burped delicately and wondered what to do next, or whether we could do anything at all, considering the amount of food we had just gone through…or that had gone into us.
More than food, it was the fact that we were together after too long, laughing, talking, eating and not watching the whats, whos and hows in the course of the afternoon. I wish, for all of us, there will be more such days, where warmth, good food and happy company was all ours.
The restaurant we chose for our day out was one of the newest on Mumbai’s haute and happening dining scene. Called Flamboyante, or something that sounded like that though it may have been spelled otherwise, it was an indoor-outdoor experience which, in other words, meant that half of it was in a courtyard open to the sky but sheltered under capacious overhead draping. People seemed to know where it was located in the vast and confusing shopping centre it called home, so we had to do no more than trot in the direction various security personnel suggested. And, finally, after a considerable amount of the aforementioned trotting, we got there, somewhat out of breath but undaunted and eager to get to the food.
Inside was not to be mentioned, since we wanted fresh air and space for mind-wandering. It was cool enough to be comfortable without air-conditioning. We chose a table strategically placed where we could look into the courtyard but were out of range of possible rain. Heels clicking on the wooden floor, we were led to our table, a fan positioned and switched on and solicitous waiters hovered, beaming broad smiles and whiffs of stress-sweat under synthetic shirts. Demanding water and the menus, I headed out to find the loo – that in itself was a fun trek; you had to walk halfway across the enormous complex to a door that was unlocked by a woman (or a man) wearing a special uniform and a cheerful mien. Sparkling clean facilities belied the damp heat and unmentionable smells just outside, where cleanliness was clearly very far removed from any trace of godliness.
Having made my expedition complete back at the table, I found Nina and Father sipping beer and telling funny stories, grinning at me in a way that made me sure that the tales were scurrilously about me. And I was right, as I usually am in these cases, knowing full well that whatever information had been divulged would be held against me regularly and at frequent intervals. I tried to glower, but faded gently into the background with my fancily named lemon slush as the buzz of conversation enveloped me in a gentle fug.
We ordered, the sweet little waiter-man not quite sure of his English and fumbling rather with everything from his semi-colons to his rendition of ‘spinach’. I beamed at him, which – Father and Nina continued with their scurrilousness – made him forget even more of his scanty language skills and we worried considerably about the order even after he carefully and painfully repeated it to us. Finally, with a collective sigh of relief, he trotted off kitchen-wards and left us to chat and speculate about what would eventually ensue on the table for our meal.
But it was fine. The food was not at all bad, good in parts and decent in all others, and served up hot and fresh. We started with spring rolls, sticky rice dim sums and tiny cannonballs of chicken something and progressed gradually through vegetable laced noodles, steaming hot fish in ginger wine, crispy-spicy lamb and a generous garden-full of crackling spinach. Then having loosened our waistbands a trifle, we segued into chocolate flan for me, mocha fudge and ice cream for Father and a large cup of espresso floating a neat ball of ice cream for Nina. Replete, we sat back, burped delicately and wondered what to do next, or whether we could do anything at all, considering the amount of food we had just gone through…or that had gone into us.
More than food, it was the fact that we were together after too long, laughing, talking, eating and not watching the whats, whos and hows in the course of the afternoon. I wish, for all of us, there will be more such days, where warmth, good food and happy company was all ours.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Mera Bharat Mahan
I woke this morning rather navigationally challenged and vaguely aware that I needed to get both feet on the ground and my head back on my neck. This darned vertigo refuses to go away for good and while my sugar levels do need checking, I cavil, since being perforated is not my favourite activity in the world. Also, the timing of undergoing a session with the local Dracula-clan is a trifle awkward – between home, work and various other mind-bogs, I never seem to eat – or not – at the right times. So driving is out of the question, while the jury is still out on the walking part.
Be that, as Nina and I love to giggle about, as it may, today (never mind that it is not the date reflected in this blog; it is August 15 in my latitude as I write this) is a big day in the Indian time line. We have a tryst with – well, not quite destiny – but the Indian flag and all that it is slated to stand for. Unfortunately, that standing is kind of obscured by all that we have come to sit down under, from corruption to child abuse, from political combobulation to a rather shaky global image if examined for more than Bollywoodian interests.
I was telling my maid this morning that as long as she lives in this country – you never know where young people travel to these days; I half expect her to wander off and become a businesswoman in the Far East or somewhere – she should firmly believe that it is the best place to be and it is the best place, stop. She giggled happily, sure that once again her rather eccentric employer was being funny. But, at a deep-down, visceral level, I firmly believe in that age old and tiredly clichéd phrase: Mera Bharat mahaan. For me, it is. If it wasn’t, I would have made more determined efforts to escape it. As far as I am concerned, I am Indian, I am proud to be Indian and I would not, even considering all that my experience and travel and education and whatever else had shown me, want to be anything else.
The problem – if you can call it that – is very simply that I believe that India is the country that can give me all that I want and has made me all that I am. Yes, I realise the problems involved, from getting a driving license to making sure that the streets are clean to knowing that hunger and illiteracy and poverty to women’s rights to everything else are issues that need to be looked at more seriously than they are at the moment. There are also the extensively discussed and never solved matters of corruption and crime and violence and justice delayed, derailed and denied. There is pollution and pelf and potholes, traffic and trickery and touts, and everything that any country would easily and happily disown. But it is all a great and glorious part of the country that I was born in, that I have lived in much of my life and that I would not exchange for any other, no matter how strong the reasons.
This is not just jingoistic fervour, you know. Many years ago, my parents and I sat down and talked about it. For us, whatever the complex motivations and machinations, India was the best place to be. The main reason for this patriotic view was the fact that an Indian passport allowed entry into most of the world that we wanted to travel to. Simple. Nothing deeply embedded in the sub (or meta) text of that one. We used that privilege wisely and well and saw much of wherever we were interested in. An Indian identity implied a hugely exciting palette of experience that crossed state lines and coexisted with colour, taste, vibrancy and vigour, in a multicultural, multi-dimensional, multi-societal blend of almost-manic sound and a fury of emotion that could signify anything you wanted it to. And when you were ready, you could crawl back into your own identity and niche and go back to being whatever you wanted to, without too much effort.
Today, in spite of everything that plagues India, that excitement and freedom still runs strong through our collective being. It does in mine, as a person with my own individual set of constraints and freedoms and as a native of this country. Which makes me what I truly am: proud to be Indian.
Be that, as Nina and I love to giggle about, as it may, today (never mind that it is not the date reflected in this blog; it is August 15 in my latitude as I write this) is a big day in the Indian time line. We have a tryst with – well, not quite destiny – but the Indian flag and all that it is slated to stand for. Unfortunately, that standing is kind of obscured by all that we have come to sit down under, from corruption to child abuse, from political combobulation to a rather shaky global image if examined for more than Bollywoodian interests.
I was telling my maid this morning that as long as she lives in this country – you never know where young people travel to these days; I half expect her to wander off and become a businesswoman in the Far East or somewhere – she should firmly believe that it is the best place to be and it is the best place, stop. She giggled happily, sure that once again her rather eccentric employer was being funny. But, at a deep-down, visceral level, I firmly believe in that age old and tiredly clichéd phrase: Mera Bharat mahaan. For me, it is. If it wasn’t, I would have made more determined efforts to escape it. As far as I am concerned, I am Indian, I am proud to be Indian and I would not, even considering all that my experience and travel and education and whatever else had shown me, want to be anything else.
The problem – if you can call it that – is very simply that I believe that India is the country that can give me all that I want and has made me all that I am. Yes, I realise the problems involved, from getting a driving license to making sure that the streets are clean to knowing that hunger and illiteracy and poverty to women’s rights to everything else are issues that need to be looked at more seriously than they are at the moment. There are also the extensively discussed and never solved matters of corruption and crime and violence and justice delayed, derailed and denied. There is pollution and pelf and potholes, traffic and trickery and touts, and everything that any country would easily and happily disown. But it is all a great and glorious part of the country that I was born in, that I have lived in much of my life and that I would not exchange for any other, no matter how strong the reasons.
This is not just jingoistic fervour, you know. Many years ago, my parents and I sat down and talked about it. For us, whatever the complex motivations and machinations, India was the best place to be. The main reason for this patriotic view was the fact that an Indian passport allowed entry into most of the world that we wanted to travel to. Simple. Nothing deeply embedded in the sub (or meta) text of that one. We used that privilege wisely and well and saw much of wherever we were interested in. An Indian identity implied a hugely exciting palette of experience that crossed state lines and coexisted with colour, taste, vibrancy and vigour, in a multicultural, multi-dimensional, multi-societal blend of almost-manic sound and a fury of emotion that could signify anything you wanted it to. And when you were ready, you could crawl back into your own identity and niche and go back to being whatever you wanted to, without too much effort.
Today, in spite of everything that plagues India, that excitement and freedom still runs strong through our collective being. It does in mine, as a person with my own individual set of constraints and freedoms and as a native of this country. Which makes me what I truly am: proud to be Indian.
Monday, August 13, 2007
A shoe in
I left work at a surprisingly early hour on Saturday and found myself somehow, miraculously, at the shoe store I tend to frequent. Actually, to be honest, it was no miracle, but design – my friendly shoe-store man had managed to recreate a pair of fabulous tie-up sandals that I had brought back from one of my trips many years ago and had them all ready for me to try on and take home. They were originally white and silver. The new version is a gorgeous brilliant red, with the same silver inserts in the cut-out flower on the front. And the tie-thongs are soft and supple, ideal for wrapping around ankles that do get rather swollen and achy by the end of a long day.
But after I was done with the business at hand – or under foot, as the case may be – I paid the bill and walked out. Nothing special or noteworthy in itself, but a matter of much concern to those who know me well, or claim to, at least. I did not look at any of the other sole seductions on display; in fact, I was not in the least bit tempted to do so, which worries everyone who knew I was going to a shoe store, especially Father and my best-bud, Nina.
That, at this particular stage in my life, is not at all surprising. After all, for the past month or so I have stayed firmly off my high heels, staring wistfully at the three-inch sharp spikes that populate my shoe cupboard but staunchly avoiding even trying them on for that feeling of being in a beautiful world of higher (sic) thought. So all the sparkling stilettos and perilous platforms are neatly bagged in plastic or felt, to be purred over another day, when the world has stopped its spinning and the vertigo that has plagued me is far over and done with. For now, I stay with the more down to earth styles that are, admittedly, more comfortable on a long day and far more practical even from the vantage position of the back seat of an air-conditioned car.
And then, the day that I feel like I am firmly grounded and at peace with my sense of balance, I will find myself back in my favourite shoe store, trying on all the highest heels that they have in my size and, I hope, taking a few home with me to play with.
But after I was done with the business at hand – or under foot, as the case may be – I paid the bill and walked out. Nothing special or noteworthy in itself, but a matter of much concern to those who know me well, or claim to, at least. I did not look at any of the other sole seductions on display; in fact, I was not in the least bit tempted to do so, which worries everyone who knew I was going to a shoe store, especially Father and my best-bud, Nina.
That, at this particular stage in my life, is not at all surprising. After all, for the past month or so I have stayed firmly off my high heels, staring wistfully at the three-inch sharp spikes that populate my shoe cupboard but staunchly avoiding even trying them on for that feeling of being in a beautiful world of higher (sic) thought. So all the sparkling stilettos and perilous platforms are neatly bagged in plastic or felt, to be purred over another day, when the world has stopped its spinning and the vertigo that has plagued me is far over and done with. For now, I stay with the more down to earth styles that are, admittedly, more comfortable on a long day and far more practical even from the vantage position of the back seat of an air-conditioned car.
And then, the day that I feel like I am firmly grounded and at peace with my sense of balance, I will find myself back in my favourite shoe store, trying on all the highest heels that they have in my size and, I hope, taking a few home with me to play with.
Friday, August 10, 2007
The fountain of youth
Many years ago, I stared over the water of Lac Leman at the Jet d’Eau arcing high overhead. I was on a boat in the middle of the lake in the middle of Geneva, mercifully on a warm summer’s night. It could get very cold indeed at certain times of year, never mind if it was actually supposed to be hot and sunny at the end of June, and the chill seeped damply into your bones, took up residence and never really moved out. It was, in fact, the night of the Graduation Ball, the dance that signified the end of a certain innocence, the time when a student is pushed through that tesseract that divides adolescence from adulthood, sort of like Harry Potter had to cope with on Platform 9 ¾ at King’s Cross station in London. I, like all my friends, classmates and assorted strangers on that cruise, had been through a gruelling time with the roster of written exams, practicals and orals that made up the International Baccalaureate and was ready to do anything except study…except that I was too tired and mindless to manage more than a sweet and brainless smile at anyone who looked even vaguely familiar.
It was getting later and later and Anne, my best buddy at school, and I wanted to get home – I was staying over at her house that night, or what was left of it – and sleep the deadened sleep of the righteously educated. But we were stuck on that boat until at least 4 am, the time scheduled for us to float back to the pier and disembark. The music on the boat became dark and slow and steamy and couples could be seen as single, oddly-shaped silhouettes. Most of us were single, some of us were flirting desultorily and a few of us were non-drinkers, stone-cold sober in a sea of less than coherent almost-adults carefully babysat by teachers with no interest in the proceedings except to keep a supply of condoms, mouthwash and Dramamine close at hand.
The night was, like Geneva itself, a rather dull place to be. Until the moment when there was a clamour of loud voices, a shrill shriek and a splash that split the quiet moonlight. Someone had fallen off the boat into the lake. We all rushed to the rail-side on the various levels of the small ship and peered into the darkness. With typically Swiss precision, spotlights came on, a wee launch sped to berth alongside and the would-be-diver was fished out, swearing wildly and vowing revenge. If only anyone knew how he could beat himself up…after all, he had fallen in after overbalancing on a chair on deck, trying to serenade his girlfriend with Billy Joel’s You’re always a woman to me, which played endlessly on the jukebox in the school lounge back on shore.
Geneva is not the most exciting city in the world – I say that with a certain diplomacy only the Swiss can teach. While the day-lit streets bustle with the elegantly dressed business-person carrying snazzy mobile phones and Vuitton briefcases, clumps of djellaba-draped Arabs peer into store windows glittering with vast arrays of very OTT diamonds and backpack-laden students run for trams and buses through many lanes of traffic – dark-glassed limousines with diplomatic plates, sleek sportscars growling restlessly at red lights and lycra-sheathed bicyclists backpedalling in special lanes, at night little moves beyond an occasional stray dog or a rare vagrant looking for a warm grating. Around 10 pm, the roads are clear, the night is quiet and there is nothing to do, unless you are visiting a friend or hopping from diplomatic bash to diplomatic bash. But for me it was home, a place I lived in for a while, a place that has memories that go beyond an arduous school term, adolescent angst, a crush on an English teacher who made me read Lorca and Achebe and too many pain au chocolats downed at the corner bakery.
Many years after the Graduation Ball, I stared over the water of Lac Leman at the Jet d’Eau arcing high overhead. I was on a boat in the middle of the lake in the middle of Geneva on a warm summer afternoon in July. The famous fountain ran red, coloured in protest of the situation in Darfur, Somalia. And Billy Joel played retro over the cruise-boat sound system. There was room for excitement; the American tourists on board demanded it, the floral clock on shore indicated it was time for it. We all waited. But, with the precision engineering of the well-trained Swiss who insisted on making sure nothing untoward happened, no one fell overboard.
It was getting later and later and Anne, my best buddy at school, and I wanted to get home – I was staying over at her house that night, or what was left of it – and sleep the deadened sleep of the righteously educated. But we were stuck on that boat until at least 4 am, the time scheduled for us to float back to the pier and disembark. The music on the boat became dark and slow and steamy and couples could be seen as single, oddly-shaped silhouettes. Most of us were single, some of us were flirting desultorily and a few of us were non-drinkers, stone-cold sober in a sea of less than coherent almost-adults carefully babysat by teachers with no interest in the proceedings except to keep a supply of condoms, mouthwash and Dramamine close at hand.
The night was, like Geneva itself, a rather dull place to be. Until the moment when there was a clamour of loud voices, a shrill shriek and a splash that split the quiet moonlight. Someone had fallen off the boat into the lake. We all rushed to the rail-side on the various levels of the small ship and peered into the darkness. With typically Swiss precision, spotlights came on, a wee launch sped to berth alongside and the would-be-diver was fished out, swearing wildly and vowing revenge. If only anyone knew how he could beat himself up…after all, he had fallen in after overbalancing on a chair on deck, trying to serenade his girlfriend with Billy Joel’s You’re always a woman to me, which played endlessly on the jukebox in the school lounge back on shore.
Geneva is not the most exciting city in the world – I say that with a certain diplomacy only the Swiss can teach. While the day-lit streets bustle with the elegantly dressed business-person carrying snazzy mobile phones and Vuitton briefcases, clumps of djellaba-draped Arabs peer into store windows glittering with vast arrays of very OTT diamonds and backpack-laden students run for trams and buses through many lanes of traffic – dark-glassed limousines with diplomatic plates, sleek sportscars growling restlessly at red lights and lycra-sheathed bicyclists backpedalling in special lanes, at night little moves beyond an occasional stray dog or a rare vagrant looking for a warm grating. Around 10 pm, the roads are clear, the night is quiet and there is nothing to do, unless you are visiting a friend or hopping from diplomatic bash to diplomatic bash. But for me it was home, a place I lived in for a while, a place that has memories that go beyond an arduous school term, adolescent angst, a crush on an English teacher who made me read Lorca and Achebe and too many pain au chocolats downed at the corner bakery.
Many years after the Graduation Ball, I stared over the water of Lac Leman at the Jet d’Eau arcing high overhead. I was on a boat in the middle of the lake in the middle of Geneva on a warm summer afternoon in July. The famous fountain ran red, coloured in protest of the situation in Darfur, Somalia. And Billy Joel played retro over the cruise-boat sound system. There was room for excitement; the American tourists on board demanded it, the floral clock on shore indicated it was time for it. We all waited. But, with the precision engineering of the well-trained Swiss who insisted on making sure nothing untoward happened, no one fell overboard.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
The six yard dash
I wore a sari to work yesterday after a long time and attracted a lot of attention, most of it the good kind. It was my celebration of my mother’s birthday, a kind of modern family tradition, as it were. And it was a sari that my mother had bought me many years ago, but that I had never worn. I enjoyed every moment of the attention and revelled in the feminine feeling the drape gave me, even as I chafed under the confinement of yards of fabric – however beautiful - and wiggled as the formality of my own behaviour was dictated by what I was wearing. I am more a jeans and top kind of person, or even a salwar kameez person, one who is free to stride and sometimes run, to sit with my legs crossed yogi-style and kick off my slippers and perch on the window sill watching the rain outside and the chaos within.
I remember the first time I wore a sari – officially, at least. I had been wearing an attenuated version of it for a while before that for my classical Indian dance lessons, but that was more like a uniform and did not really count in the fashion stakes. It was the six yards of material folded almost in half lengthwise and then draped and tucked like a normal sari with the pallu wrapped tightly around my waist. That was almost like clothing oneself in a costume, with the pleats stitched into place and neatly fitted to curve around the figure and show off every movement without the accompanying non-Indian-ness of a leotard or a pair of pants and a tight T-shirt.
So wearing a really-truly honest-to-goodness sari was a novelty. I wanted to try it, even though I was dreadfully nervous about the whole thing. And the occasion came up, when I had to go with my parents to a wedding of a family friend’s offspring. Why not this one, my mother suggested, pointing to a sari I had coveted for years. It was my grandmother’s heavy silk wedding sari, a gorgeously rich creation in deep green and red – the body was green, checked in lines of almost-pure gold, the border a solid mesh of god and vivid red, the pallu a gleaming sheet of gold tinted red by the supporting threads. It was heavy, weighing me down and giving me a taste of what luxury must have been all those years ago. Draping it around my frame was easy, especially with a little help from both parents, though walking with it on was not. But it was a matter of pride – the combination of a rare heritage with a beauty that was timeless. And it made me feel like I looked beautiful, too, the gold in the sari echoed by the gold in my ears and around my wrists.
A few days ago I opened my mother’s closet, as I sometimes do, to gently touch her favourite saris and feel her smiling wryly at me, as she sometimes did. And I saw her mother’s wedding sari tucked into a corner of the sweet-smelling shelf. It was yellowing, the silk fragile and fraying, the gold weighing down the fabric with its ageless strength. No one can wear it now, shredded as it is, but it is a treasure even today. After all, for me, it is my history, personal and familial, holding memories of a time that I never knew and still could remember.
I remember the first time I wore a sari – officially, at least. I had been wearing an attenuated version of it for a while before that for my classical Indian dance lessons, but that was more like a uniform and did not really count in the fashion stakes. It was the six yards of material folded almost in half lengthwise and then draped and tucked like a normal sari with the pallu wrapped tightly around my waist. That was almost like clothing oneself in a costume, with the pleats stitched into place and neatly fitted to curve around the figure and show off every movement without the accompanying non-Indian-ness of a leotard or a pair of pants and a tight T-shirt.
So wearing a really-truly honest-to-goodness sari was a novelty. I wanted to try it, even though I was dreadfully nervous about the whole thing. And the occasion came up, when I had to go with my parents to a wedding of a family friend’s offspring. Why not this one, my mother suggested, pointing to a sari I had coveted for years. It was my grandmother’s heavy silk wedding sari, a gorgeously rich creation in deep green and red – the body was green, checked in lines of almost-pure gold, the border a solid mesh of god and vivid red, the pallu a gleaming sheet of gold tinted red by the supporting threads. It was heavy, weighing me down and giving me a taste of what luxury must have been all those years ago. Draping it around my frame was easy, especially with a little help from both parents, though walking with it on was not. But it was a matter of pride – the combination of a rare heritage with a beauty that was timeless. And it made me feel like I looked beautiful, too, the gold in the sari echoed by the gold in my ears and around my wrists.
A few days ago I opened my mother’s closet, as I sometimes do, to gently touch her favourite saris and feel her smiling wryly at me, as she sometimes did. And I saw her mother’s wedding sari tucked into a corner of the sweet-smelling shelf. It was yellowing, the silk fragile and fraying, the gold weighing down the fabric with its ageless strength. No one can wear it now, shredded as it is, but it is a treasure even today. After all, for me, it is my history, personal and familial, holding memories of a time that I never knew and still could remember.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Oh, whatta feeling!
Oh, what a glorious day! After a very wet – and that is a definite understatement – and dreary day yesterday, today dawned clear and cool, though not sunny or bright. There was an occasional sharp shower that drummed loudly on the awnings and broke off flower buds on the gulmohar tree with the tallest branches that peeped into my window. And as we drove in to work, clouds loomed, threatening to drown us with the moisture they held in store for…oh, no, not again, not another day of downpour!
The wind was wild against the windscreen driving over the bridge that connects the mainland with the island city where I work. Motorbikes steered slowly, more slowly than their wont, since one strong gust would have pushed them right over the railings into the water. And, through a bout of driving rain here and there, now and then, we saw people in sopping wet rain-gear filling the potholes that should not have been there if the folks concerned had done their job properly in the first place, before the dips and pits had time and place to form.
And then there was silence. The roads that we had splashed through yesterday, the streets that we had swum past and the holes in the road that we had dodged were all clear, if not completely dry. And there were babies playing happily in the muck left by the flood, women beating dirt out of clothes in the stagnant pools in the larger potholes and dogs splashing through the gutters after birds that had stopped by for a sip or fresh (well, in comparison) water.
As I got out of the car at the office steps, a cheeky blast of cool breeze sneaked its way under my sari and tried to blow it up over my head. But, being of a rather cautious mien, I managed to hold on to skirts and hair and bag and sang-froid as I ran into the shelter of the porch, thanking the powers that be for disallowing me the glamour of high spiky heels so that I could make more sure that my head was still firmly on my disconcertingly vertiginous self. If I had been less dressed-up, I would have perhaps considered taking a little walk around the block, since it was such a lovely day, but being more formally clad I resisted. I could look like a windblown urchin some other day.
The next time there is a fabulous day like this one has been, so far, I hope.
The wind was wild against the windscreen driving over the bridge that connects the mainland with the island city where I work. Motorbikes steered slowly, more slowly than their wont, since one strong gust would have pushed them right over the railings into the water. And, through a bout of driving rain here and there, now and then, we saw people in sopping wet rain-gear filling the potholes that should not have been there if the folks concerned had done their job properly in the first place, before the dips and pits had time and place to form.
And then there was silence. The roads that we had splashed through yesterday, the streets that we had swum past and the holes in the road that we had dodged were all clear, if not completely dry. And there were babies playing happily in the muck left by the flood, women beating dirt out of clothes in the stagnant pools in the larger potholes and dogs splashing through the gutters after birds that had stopped by for a sip or fresh (well, in comparison) water.
As I got out of the car at the office steps, a cheeky blast of cool breeze sneaked its way under my sari and tried to blow it up over my head. But, being of a rather cautious mien, I managed to hold on to skirts and hair and bag and sang-froid as I ran into the shelter of the porch, thanking the powers that be for disallowing me the glamour of high spiky heels so that I could make more sure that my head was still firmly on my disconcertingly vertiginous self. If I had been less dressed-up, I would have perhaps considered taking a little walk around the block, since it was such a lovely day, but being more formally clad I resisted. I could look like a windblown urchin some other day.
The next time there is a fabulous day like this one has been, so far, I hope.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Food for more thought
I was telling someone a short while ago that it was far more fun to think about cooking something than eating it. He was rather amazed, saying that that in itself was a sign of a craving for food and that I was allowed to eat what I cooked, but in limited amounts, to deal with what seemed to be an issue with blood sugar in my system. And I told him, with my usual insouciance and laissez faire air, that what I cooked was not in the least bit what I was interested in eating, never mind that it was generally delicious and often even identifiable.
And so it has almost always been. Right through the week I see food, not as something I want to consume, but as something I could create for others to eat. And so it was last weekend. I was taking a couple of days off to help Father with heavily bandaged Small Cat, who had just had an operation and wanted someone with her all the time or else she would cry sadly or stagger from room to room in search of someone who would cuddle and coochie with her. So I decided to get creative and make the usually irascible boss happy by feeding him something I had already told him I would make for him at some nebulous time in the future: banana bread. In fact, as I sat outside the vet’s surgery waiting for him to be done with Small Cat, Father strode out into the heat and rain to find all the ingredients for the baking task I had set myself for the next day.
So even as Small Cat lay half-asleep on my bed, occasionally cheeping feebly for attention, I sequestered myself in the kitchen and started measuring, mixing and, once in a while, swearing. I was making two batches of the banana bread, one for the office, one for home, and wanted each to be as good as the other, though they would obviously have different sentiments attached to each stir. I sifted flour and blended sugar and butter, I whipped eggs and mashed bananas, I tipped in nutmeg and a splash of brandy just for fun. And I sorted raisins and, in lieu of the walnuts that aforementioned irascible boss wanted, threw in handfuls of pine nuts, which I had carefully stashed away in the deepest recesses of my refrigerator. And, finally, the pan went, first once and then a second time, into the oven to cook while we got on with the rest of the day. The baked loaves came out of the oven dark gold-brown and redolent of nutmeg, bananas and sweetness and were carefully left on trays to cool, then wrapped in foil, one for eating that night with delicious vanilla ice-cream, the other to be carried to work.
And it was worth all the effort. The loaf I took to work was consumed faster than I could have read the recipe and what I made for Father and me is still being savoured, slice by fragrant slice. The ice-cream, however, is disappearing rather quicker, to help us deal with the heat of the in-between-rainbursts times.
And so it has almost always been. Right through the week I see food, not as something I want to consume, but as something I could create for others to eat. And so it was last weekend. I was taking a couple of days off to help Father with heavily bandaged Small Cat, who had just had an operation and wanted someone with her all the time or else she would cry sadly or stagger from room to room in search of someone who would cuddle and coochie with her. So I decided to get creative and make the usually irascible boss happy by feeding him something I had already told him I would make for him at some nebulous time in the future: banana bread. In fact, as I sat outside the vet’s surgery waiting for him to be done with Small Cat, Father strode out into the heat and rain to find all the ingredients for the baking task I had set myself for the next day.
So even as Small Cat lay half-asleep on my bed, occasionally cheeping feebly for attention, I sequestered myself in the kitchen and started measuring, mixing and, once in a while, swearing. I was making two batches of the banana bread, one for the office, one for home, and wanted each to be as good as the other, though they would obviously have different sentiments attached to each stir. I sifted flour and blended sugar and butter, I whipped eggs and mashed bananas, I tipped in nutmeg and a splash of brandy just for fun. And I sorted raisins and, in lieu of the walnuts that aforementioned irascible boss wanted, threw in handfuls of pine nuts, which I had carefully stashed away in the deepest recesses of my refrigerator. And, finally, the pan went, first once and then a second time, into the oven to cook while we got on with the rest of the day. The baked loaves came out of the oven dark gold-brown and redolent of nutmeg, bananas and sweetness and were carefully left on trays to cool, then wrapped in foil, one for eating that night with delicious vanilla ice-cream, the other to be carried to work.
And it was worth all the effort. The loaf I took to work was consumed faster than I could have read the recipe and what I made for Father and me is still being savoured, slice by fragrant slice. The ice-cream, however, is disappearing rather quicker, to help us deal with the heat of the in-between-rainbursts times.
Monday, August 06, 2007
The rain, it is plain…
…is the devil at work. It took me about three hours to get to work one morning last week. Which, for a 45-minute drive on a good day, is a rather long commute, even by rush-hour Mumbai standards. The reason for this is very simple: It poured all the previous, all night and all morning and was dripping sadly on all the roofs of this vast office complex throughout the day. So parts of the city which are under normal circumstances fairly badly affected by changes in weather were badly hit, with potholes, puddles and pedestrians galore, all of them sadly soggy and stroppy with it.
So we started out at the usual time, and drove about five minutes down the road in driving rain. And, as we emerged from the small stretch of subway that connected our street with the one that led to the main highway, the driver said with a sudden urgency in his normally lazy tone, “Madam, the wiper has stopped working.” Having just had the entire mechanics of the windscreen wipers changed just a few days earlier, I was, justifiably rather panic stricken and told him to go back home. Father was on the phone – on what seemed to be an interminable conversation – and I called from my mobile, then from the intercom at the gate and then, if I could have stood there in the downpour and yelled, I would have, but I couldn’t, so I didn’t. Then the chappie in charge of the building came along and did a bit of a twiddle with the wiper, it started chugging away merrily and that, as the story ends, was that.
But lightning forgot the rule and struck again in the same place that evening. As we drove out of the office complex towards home, it was drizzling grouchily, enough to make me want to hurry home, but not enough to worry too much about flooding and the downside of being the monsoon season. We were diverted, however, from our usual route and sent the long way home, which was fine, since we knew that that road would not have too many puddles, potholes or pedestrians galore, all of them sadly soggy and stroppy with it. But, just as we completed the turnaround, Small Car’s little nose skewing valiantly towards its normal berth, far away as it may be, the driver said, “Madam, the wiper has stopped working.”
It was déjà vu. I was sure it was the vertigo (now developed into another story with another twist which shall be told another day) at work and I was hearing things from my not-so-distant past. I knew it was, in fact, since the words were the same and the situation, uncannily similar. Then I woke myself up and looked at what was going on. The wiper on the driver’s side was indeed stopped, caught under the other in a glorious tangle. Stop the car, I wearily instructed, get out and untangle the damn thing. Aforementioned driver did so. He got back in and restarted…no go. The wiper sat there, obdurate, a pout to its lower lip – if it could have a lower lip, that is. But home was a-calling and we drove on, praying for no rain, please god, no rain.
Someone somewhere was listening. There was no rain. By the time we got home, it was starting to grizzle, threatening to drizzle, but apart from one fat splash that could have been a tree shedding its extra burden of water from overloaded leaves, there was nothing to cause me more than a subtle hint of worry. Maybe a wave of blackness as the world spun, maybe a distinct feeling that my feet were leaving the ground they should have been resting on, maybe a gentle reminder that all was not completely well with my semi-circular canals. But no more, no rain, no need for a wiper to work. And, having scheduled for the driver to take the car in to be fixed so that it could be wiped while I hung on to Father for a day of rarely-demanded reassurance of stability and watched the world go around with the knowledge that I was still on it, worked for me, even though it all didn’t quite work that way in the end. No reassurance, no hanging on, no knowledge. And no rain.
Or maybe it was the rain gods who did that.
So we started out at the usual time, and drove about five minutes down the road in driving rain. And, as we emerged from the small stretch of subway that connected our street with the one that led to the main highway, the driver said with a sudden urgency in his normally lazy tone, “Madam, the wiper has stopped working.” Having just had the entire mechanics of the windscreen wipers changed just a few days earlier, I was, justifiably rather panic stricken and told him to go back home. Father was on the phone – on what seemed to be an interminable conversation – and I called from my mobile, then from the intercom at the gate and then, if I could have stood there in the downpour and yelled, I would have, but I couldn’t, so I didn’t. Then the chappie in charge of the building came along and did a bit of a twiddle with the wiper, it started chugging away merrily and that, as the story ends, was that.
But lightning forgot the rule and struck again in the same place that evening. As we drove out of the office complex towards home, it was drizzling grouchily, enough to make me want to hurry home, but not enough to worry too much about flooding and the downside of being the monsoon season. We were diverted, however, from our usual route and sent the long way home, which was fine, since we knew that that road would not have too many puddles, potholes or pedestrians galore, all of them sadly soggy and stroppy with it. But, just as we completed the turnaround, Small Car’s little nose skewing valiantly towards its normal berth, far away as it may be, the driver said, “Madam, the wiper has stopped working.”
It was déjà vu. I was sure it was the vertigo (now developed into another story with another twist which shall be told another day) at work and I was hearing things from my not-so-distant past. I knew it was, in fact, since the words were the same and the situation, uncannily similar. Then I woke myself up and looked at what was going on. The wiper on the driver’s side was indeed stopped, caught under the other in a glorious tangle. Stop the car, I wearily instructed, get out and untangle the damn thing. Aforementioned driver did so. He got back in and restarted…no go. The wiper sat there, obdurate, a pout to its lower lip – if it could have a lower lip, that is. But home was a-calling and we drove on, praying for no rain, please god, no rain.
Someone somewhere was listening. There was no rain. By the time we got home, it was starting to grizzle, threatening to drizzle, but apart from one fat splash that could have been a tree shedding its extra burden of water from overloaded leaves, there was nothing to cause me more than a subtle hint of worry. Maybe a wave of blackness as the world spun, maybe a distinct feeling that my feet were leaving the ground they should have been resting on, maybe a gentle reminder that all was not completely well with my semi-circular canals. But no more, no rain, no need for a wiper to work. And, having scheduled for the driver to take the car in to be fixed so that it could be wiped while I hung on to Father for a day of rarely-demanded reassurance of stability and watched the world go around with the knowledge that I was still on it, worked for me, even though it all didn’t quite work that way in the end. No reassurance, no hanging on, no knowledge. And no rain.
Or maybe it was the rain gods who did that.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Bread and potter
I spent the last couple of days at home worrying about Small Cat, as you will know from yesterday’s blog – if you read yesterday’s blog, that is. The little beastie seems to be getting over the trauma of the surgery quite well, touch wood, and we hope she continues on this happy path until she is her usual, familiar, well-beloved mad self, charging cheerfully around the house, playing with Father, me and the various carpets, plants and blind-cords, stopping only to eat, drink water, visit her catbox and, of course, sleep, her hands and feet up in the air, her little round tummy bulging with her favourite biscuits and her tiny pink nose occasionally twitching with some joyous dream.
And as I worried and checked on her – and Father, of course – and responded to her tiniest squeaks, some of pain, some of demand, some just to check that we were awake and alert to her smallest whim or fancy – I cooked. It has almost always been something I do not just for necessity or pleasure, but for stress relief. And I went through the contents of the kitchen like a demented whirlwind, cleaning out refrigerator shelves and cupboards in my search for just the right ingredient to make whatever was already brewing in my head. And of that chaos came some delicious goulash, loaves of hot and spicy banana bread, soups, salads, curries and much else that was good to eat and even more satisfying to create.
But I will write about that tomorrow. For now, I gotta rush….
And as I worried and checked on her – and Father, of course – and responded to her tiniest squeaks, some of pain, some of demand, some just to check that we were awake and alert to her smallest whim or fancy – I cooked. It has almost always been something I do not just for necessity or pleasure, but for stress relief. And I went through the contents of the kitchen like a demented whirlwind, cleaning out refrigerator shelves and cupboards in my search for just the right ingredient to make whatever was already brewing in my head. And of that chaos came some delicious goulash, loaves of hot and spicy banana bread, soups, salads, curries and much else that was good to eat and even more satisfying to create.
But I will write about that tomorrow. For now, I gotta rush….
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