Month: February 2015

And after a long hiatus, I have a guest post today – am so excited! My dear, dear friend Priya, who’s stood by me through thick and thin and who I don’t ever have to turn around and see to know she’s batting in my corner, has contributed this story of how we met – 33 years ago on our first day in college.

I must tell you a little bit about Priya’s tiffin dabba here – a dabba that reached college along with her at 10.00 a.m. (Nizami timings for Nizam College those days!) and would go back into her bag at 10.15, suitably lightened – by Shreesha and me! I still miss your dabba, Priya!

Over to Priya:

I met Anu on the first day of College 33 years ago. A tiny waif of a girl with the proverbial 18 inch waist and glasses covering half her face, and I was to realise soon enough that her size was more than compensated for by a huge delightful personality! She was lost to the world, busy reading a book of poetry by Robert Frost and that made me stop right in front of her. Everything about her seemed perfect to me and I decided I had to be her friend. It is now 33 years later and I have found no reason to change my mind and I stand firmly by the wise decision I made that day!!

It was my good fortune that she collected oddballs and decided I would do too!

And speaking of friends lost, it was during one of those years, I had invited a group of college friends home for a meal. It was the middle of summer and since, at that time, I lived in an unknown area of the cantonment – army accommodation, known as Allenby Lines in Bolarum; very elaborate instructions to reach had been given to all my friends along with bus numbers and a map. Hyderabad summers being what they are – every one trooped in- hot and sweaty, but there was no sign of Anu. Finally a call made my fears come true. Sure enough, Anu had boarded a wrong bus and landed up at least a few kilometers away. It was a time of no cell phones, no cars either and a call from a PCO made one panic.

Luckily we were young and had no bones creaking yet, so I trekked in 40 degrees plus temperatures to rescue her. I drank only water for the rest of the day. The heat and the adventure had no effect on Anu and after all her troubles, cheerfully tucked into the various vegetarian dishes cooked, which was a rarity in our Hyderabadi home where the menu is usually the biryani, kabab and chicken variety! The dulmas were on the menu that day and are today! The picture is from the internet as I will only cook lauki when Anu is visiting!

Here’s to many more lunches Anu and dinners !!

Lauki ke Dulme (Stuffed Lauki)

• 1 long narrow soft lauki cut in 2 inch pieces and scooped out to form cups
• Moong dal soaked 1 cup or fresh paneer if you like!
• Onion paste of 4 medium onions
• Tomato puree of 3-4 tomatoes
• Ginger grated – a teaspoon
• Ginger garlic paste – 1 teaspoon
• Green chilies – sliced fine
• Green coriander – chopped
• Mixed whole spices – a few cloves, cardamom, a stick of cinnamon, pepper corns, jeera seeds
• Garam masala- ground
• Red chillies powder – to taste
• Salt –to taste
• Turmeric powder- a pinch
• Oil – a couple of tablespoons

Using a largish flat bottomed pan, heat the oil.

Add mixed spices to the oil, when the jeera starts spluttering add the onion paste and cook till done.

Add the ginger garlic paste and fry for a few minutes more.

Add the tomatoes,salt, the other spices and lower the heat and allow the gravy to cook.

In a separate plate, mix the dal with salt, red chillies, garam masala, some green chillies, green dhania, grated ginger and mix well.

Stuff this mixture into the lauki cups.

Check if the gravy is well cooked, then add the cups of lauki, keeping them straight.

Add water and cook covered on low heat.

Add more water if and when needed.

Check to see if the dal and lauki is cooked, it should be done in about 20 minutes.

The vegetable should be cooked but firm and the same with the dal.

Carefully lift each lauki cup onto a flat dish and then pour the gravy on the sides.

Sprinkle the green dhania and green chillies on top and serve.

And long live poetry, Priya!

There was an item in this morning’s Times which made my jaw drop a couple of inches… for a while, I thought maybe TOI was playing a practical joke on its viewers – then decided it couldn’t be! In which case, the news must be true! The Bareilly district administration, in its wisdom, apparently has decided to tackle the menace of “killer” dogs – which have killed as many as five kids in the last week, by – hold your breath – painting the “good” (their term, not mine!) dogs blue! So… the implication being, first they’ll catch all the dogs, wait for a while, watch their behaviour, getting whiny? Off with you to the red (seems an appropriate colour for ‘bad’ dogs) compound! Getting snappy? Growly? Sleepy? Dopey? All away to the bad dog enclosure. Let only Snow White stay here!

Good dog? Bully – sorry – blue for you!

Why blue? Maybe like the characters in Amar Chitra Katha where the gods were generally blue in colour – like Rama and Krishna. Ergo good doggy is a blue doggy! But, that’s not the end of it. How do they intend to do it? By pouring buckets of thick blue paint on them! No, I’m really not making this up! But… there are concerns that since the painting of dogs (I can’t quite believe i’m saying this!) is being done by the bucketful, the paint may enter their eyes and damage them – they don’t specify whether it’s the eyes of the dogs or the painters! My own preference would be for the admistrators who thought up the scheme to be the first guinea… dogs! It does get curiouser and curiouser!

Some wag in the village apparently objected – on the grounds that Holi (the festival of colours) is round the corner and with colours being sprayed around freely, what if we ended up with multi-coloured dogs? So the administration has an answer to that too – “We will mark the blue dogs with a cross. We will also try to modify their behaviour!”

Do you too feel like you’re slipping down the same hole that Alice went down?

So, if a pack of dogs is after you, do NOT take to your heels. Stop, turn back, look carefully for blue undertones under the pinks, yellows and oranges of Holi colours. Yay, here’s a cross – under the dog’s left ear – no, no, that’s not a cross – is this one i see here under his belly? Nooooo, that’s not a cross either! Oh my god, I think that’s his fangs closing in on my throat – my eyes are crossed – he’s so close!

Ta-dang! THE END! KHALAS! FINITO!

Fadeout to the colour of bloodshot skies – very appropriate.

P.S.: The villagers are “not convinced” reports the Times. They must be amused though!

While on the subject of dogs, I vote to outlaw the phrase ”a dog’s life” meaning a sad, unenviable, put-upon life. Most dogs I see as pets seem to lead rather enviable lives – pampered and petted and handfed with the choicest of titbits – my brother-in-law’s dog will eat dosa only if it has ghee and sugar to go with it and even then, only if you break the dosa into delicate bits and ever so gently tempt him with piece after piece! A dog’s life? I, for one, wouldn’t mind it – and the dog doesn’t even have to make the dosa himself! All prasadam from pujas is offered first to him – the doted upon younger ‘son’! Gotta admit, he is cute, though 😉

So, on a more practical note – well, more practical than what the Bareilly administration – till now it was famous in my mind for Mrs IG’s ‘safe seat’ for the elections and the song Jhumka gira re, Bareilly ki bazaar mein (meaning “the earring has fallen down, in the bazaar of Bareilly”): Does THAT make any sense to you? Hmmm… NOW, maybe the whole dog thing begins to make sense – the same administration must have written the song – same inanity – that’s it! Let’s look for a solution to the dog menace. Methinks feeding the dogs might help! Will contribute my vegetarian mite to these bloodthirsty hounds… with any luck they’ll turn Jain!

Also since Holi is round the corner, cool them off with this…

THANDAI

• Milk – 1 litre – preferably full cream milk
• Sugar 3 – 4 tbsp
• Saffron strands – a large pinch

MASALA PASTE

• Almonds – 20-25
• Poppy seeds (gasagasa/ kaskas) – 2 tsp
• Saunf/fennel seeds – 1.5 tsp
• Cardamoms – 5-6
• Peppercorns – 1/2 tsp
• Cinnamon – 1″
• Dried rose petals – a few or rose essence though I personally prefer kewra essence – 3 drops

Grind together to a very fine paste and set aside.

Boil the milk and add the sugar – a tbsp at a time, stirring till it melts.

Add the saffron and keep stirring.

Lower the flame, add the masala paste and continue to cook, stirring constantly. Otherwise lumps will form and the dogs might just spit it out!

Cook for about 5 minutes more. Switch off, chill and serve.

And who made the dogs blue? Who.? Who?

P.S.: I am in hiding till you get over the shock of this sacrilege on the lyrics of “Who let the dogs out?!!

Loads of reading, loads of playing Quiz up on the ipad and generally loads of being lazy without ANY feeling of guilt – the aftermath of an operation is not that bad except for the pain! A cousin lent me this unusual little book yesterday – an English translation of a very old Telugu tome called “Chinnanaati mucchatlu” – the closest I can think of in terms of translation is “Reminiscences of Childhood” – anyone out there who’s got a better word – please write in. It’s a sort of autobiography of Dr.K.N.Kesari – a late 18th century – to mid 19th century Ayurvedic physician and his story of rags to riches. It is a simply told tale – reasonably poor translation (!) but with a wealth of detail about South India as it was then and some strange customs extant among different communities. Our hero, a Telugu guy, ends up marrying a Namboodiri girl as his second wife – his observations are fresh and related with some gentleness but with some aavakai like punch!

It was like a walk down memory lane – not my lane but my great grandfathers’! Kept thinking of my maternal grandmother and trying to see the commonalities (not many!) between her life and the lives of many of the women who feature in his story. Though my grandmom was a regular contributor of articles and poems to the magazine that he started for women – called “Grihalakshmi”…

Some discussion on fb today led me to track down something that my grandmom – Nemali Chandramathi – had written and published in 1949, tracked down by my aunt – Malathi Mohan a few years ago. Ammamma was lucky to be born and married into a family which held women in high esteem and brought up their daughters to have a good sense of self-worth. In an age where she must have witnessed less happy women all around, no wonder Ammamma came up with this little gem – a rejoinder to Shakespeare’s Ode to Woman, Ammamma titled hers “Ode to Man”…

A Rejoinder to William Shakespeare by Smt. N. Chandramathi

WOMAN !

Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,

Thy head, thy sovereign.

One that cares for thee.

And for thy maintenance, commits his body

To painful labour, both by sea and land,

To watch the night in storms,

The day in cold,

Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;

And craves no other tribute at thy hands

But love, Fair looks, and trice obedience.

Too little payment for so great a debt!”

And the original, William Shakespeare, “Taming of the Shrew”:

MAN !

Thy wife is thy life, thy nurse, thy partner,

Thy friend, thy queen.

One that cares for thee.

And for thy children, by day and night,

In health and illness,

Whilst thou or on thy duty,

Away from home;

And craves no other tribute at thy hands

But love, kind words, and sympathy.

Too little a payment for so great a debt!

How’s those for period pieces – of two very different periods – separated by four centuries!

I think my grandfather was a very lucky man indeed!! A wife who thought so highly of men in general – can’t have been more than one born in those four hundred years between Shakespeare and her 😉

One of my favourites of my ammamma’s dishes was bread upma – which she transform into something quite magical! Today I’ve decided to go a step further and present my own take – a non-bread upma!

BORUGULA UPMA/UGGANI (to serve one large husband or two smaller ones 😉

Borugulu/murmura/puffed rice – 6 cups

Onions – finely chopped – 1 cup

Peanuts – roasted – 1/2 cup

Turmeric – 1/2 tsp

Red chili powder – 1/2 tsp

Green chilies – minced – 2

Coriander leaves – chopped – 2 tbsp

Lemon juice – 1 tbsp

Salt – 1/4 tsp (the puffed rice is already salty so you don’t really need more salt.

Sugar – 1/2 tsp

TO TEMPER

Oil – 1 tbsp

Mustard seeds – 1/2 tsp

Chana dal – 1 tbsp

Urad dal – 1 tbsp

Curry leaves – 2 -3 sprigs

Asafoetida – 1 pinch

Soak the puffed rice in water for no more than 2-3 minutes. Immediately strain out the water and squeeze out excess water with your hands. Set aside.

Heat the oil in a large saucepan. Add the mustard. When it splutters, add chana dal and urad dal. When they turn golden, add curry leaves and asafoetida.

Add onions and saute till they turn golden. Add all the other ingredients, turn over for 2-3 minutes  and serve – warm.

Super quick snack – man, woman or child – this is an ode to the tastebuds and the stomach!

Everyone goes through those rites of passage of growing up – trying the forbidden cigarette and the first glass of alcohol – whichever generation you belong to. I wonder what would happen to these if all the forbidden stuff – the “don’t dos” were removed from parental vocabularies! Kids would wear hangdog expressions and go about with a constant halo of depression – inwardly shrugging, “What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do?” I can smoke, drink, swear all I want and be no cooler than the kid next door sucking on his lollipop! How can I ever be “cool”?? Teenagers, please be aware that parents serve an important function – of administering anti-depressants like forbidding stuff and allowing you to break the “forbids” and be “uber-cool”!

In our own childhood, it wasn’t that there weren’t plenty of fruit available – Hyderabad is after all the land of cheap and plentiful fruit – but rather the thrill of stealing into the neighbours’ grape garden, tantalising the gardener with just a glimpse of our hides (which it was his duty to try and whip!) before scrambling over the fence to safety – no, we never got caught – ten and twelve year old legs are far too nimble for any forty plus OOOOLD guy to catch!

Imagine a world where parents allow everything – what a deprived childhood and adolescence kids would have!

My parents rarely expressly forbade anything – but rules were understood. And retribution swift and direct enough to deter us!

Despite that, obvious temptations did present themselves – one being smoking. My dad being a heavy smoker and me being allergic to nicotine did not kill the secret desire to blow smoke rings through a looong cigarette holder – how totally cool! And so, one day, a bunch of us – we were in the tenth standard then, i think – about fifteen-ish, met up at the home of a friend who had the luxury of having an outhouse in the back garden. Her dad, being a film producer, a lot of film props were stored in the outhouse. We had a glorious time trying on false moustaches teamed with glittery, sequined outfits and shiny plastic boots – i don’t think we could have thought ourselves cooler if we’d been at the North Pole!

The “boy” – it’s a wonder how many of the species existed in households those days – their jobs being to do odd jobs around the house while they learnt a trade – was bribed to go fetch us a packet of cigarettes – cheap ones obviously! Then we shut all the windows and doors and send out the boy again – cigarettes don’t light themselves, you know – you need matchsticks! Everyone lights up – never having had a particularly active Scouts and Guides movement at school, this takes some doing! And in two minutes flat, there is gasping, heaving and much retching as we flop about on the sofas trying to breathe! Some make it to the bathroom before puking, some….hmmmm…the hardier souls open the windows and doors and flap the curtains about to let some air in! There wasn’t one of us who wasn’t sick!

You think we’d have learnt our lesson, right? No, wrong!

Some years later, at my PG hostel mess, a cigarette salesman comes in, dressed to the nines as befits a salesman – selling to a bunch of scruffy students! There are two of us women sitting at the first table and a few guys at a table beyond us. The salesman passes us and moves to the table with the guys and whips out his packets of “Charms”.

“Gender”-ed ire is aroused. We beckon to him to come over. He comes over – warily and a bit nervous – this was 1985 after all! And for his pains receives a lecture on gender equality, his morals and so on! Poor chap – completely overwhelmed and sweating profusely by this time, apologises and offers us free samples! Nonchalantly, we light up, hiding our lack of expertise rather expertly! The effect is ruined within a few seconds as we run out of the mess, coughing our lungs out!

The salesman must have been devoutly grateful for his payback time! As were the roomful of guy students who got their laughs for the day!

What better way to hide those giveaway smells of smoking than mints? Or today, mint!

Here’s an all in one meal dish that freezes superbly and doesn’t need even bread to go with it!

 TURKISH MASOOR DAL SOUP WITH MINT (makes 10-12 cups)

• Masoor dal – 1 cup
• Onion – 1 medium – chopped
• Garlic – 2 cloves – optional
• Tomato – 2 large – chopped – about 2 cupfuls
• Carrot – 2 – peeled and sliced
• 1/2 cup rice – either Basmati or any fragrant rice
• Red chili powder – 1/2 tsp
• Salt
• Turmeric – 1/4 tsp
• Butter – 1 tbsp
• Dried mint – 2 tbsp (use any other dried herb for a different flavour)
• Jeera – cumin powder – 1/2 tsp
• Green chili – minced – 1 – to serve – optional
• Chopped fresh mint and coriander to serve – 3 tbsp
• Sugar – 1/2 tsp
• Cinnamon – 1″ stick.
• Thick yogurt to serve – 1 cup – whipped

Heat the butter in a large pan – I use a pressure cooker – large one. Add the butter and the sugar. When the sugar caramelises, add the onion and garlic and sweat, covered for 6-7 minutes till translucent.

Add the carrots, tomatoes, salt, chili powder, cumin powder, turmeric and rice and dal.

Add 5 cups water and cook for about 40 minutes till rice and dal are soft. You could cook it under presssure by adding just 3-4 cups water. 

Cool and puree – either in batches or using a bar blender – to a reasonably smooth puree. 

Add 4-5 cups more water and bring back to the boil. Add a stick of cinnamon at this stage for added flavour.

Serve out in bowls sprinkling minced green chili (if you like a bit of heat) and coriander and mint and a dollop of yogurt.

It’s a hearty soup and you don’t really need anything to accompany it with.

And if you’re still craving that cigarette, just smoke the tomatoes on the stovetop, peel and chop – there’s just the hint of smokiness!