Month: July 2015

“Ladki hai ek, naam Rajani hai

Rajani ki ek yeh kahaani hai… 

Rajani, Rajani, Rajani… “

I know, I know, I can’t sing a recognisable version of it so here’s one – more recognisable, not to mention more musical one! YouTube link.

…thus goes the jingle for a very popular serial aired in the eighties. The story is that of a woman – played by Priya Tendulkar (may she RIP) – a crusader for social causes – who simply cannot lie down under any injustice, any time, any place. She carries her many flags as stylishly as she wears her saree and was a huge inspiration to me in my teens.

Corrupt government bureaucrats, errant auto drivers, rude bus conductors, unfair school practices… whatever the cause, Rajani was bound to be there, wading in without a care to the consequences. I think this was what attracted me to her first – that devil-take-the-hindmost attitude. Already keenly alive to the many unfair practices in our country – from the time I was first unjustly punished by a school principal at the age of ten (yes!) for something I was completely innocent of, the sense of unfairness rankled deep within my soul.

Rajani showed me how to fight – though I must credit the first inspiration for this – my aunt – Malathi Mohan – who was a bit like the John Wayne of toilet papers – she’s rough, she’s tough and she don’t take no s*** from nobody! (That’s a BIG compliment, Pinni!)

Of the many such fights that I was involved in, one I remember  – a telephone conversation with a transport official – went something like this:

Me: Hullo, hullo… 

Transport chappie (hereinafter called TC, to make it short and pithy!): ullo, ullo… 

Me: (very politely): I am calling for information on the bus service to J.Hills. Could you list the timings of the buses from “X” stop to J.H between noon and 3.00 p.m. please?

TC: One minute, madam. (I hear paper being shuffled (this is the early ’80’s, remember and computers haven’t made an appearance anywhere yet)… and reels off some eight or nine different timings…

Me: Do you have any inspectors on this route?

TC: Why, madam?

Me: Because (and I take a deep breath before launching my tirade), I have just waited THREE whole hours for a bus and not ONE b…..d bus has turned up! 

I then proceed to give him several pieces of my mind, my opinion of the entire transport department and their ancestors who, I am positive, do not know the names of their fathers etc. etc.!

My dad, who’s been listening in on this and many other similar ‘coversations’, dubs me Rajani after my favourite TV character of the moment!

Well, I may no longer be so forceful in my expression of disapproval but the spirit of Rajani is still very alive in the soul!

Well, the spirit of the crusader still has to be fuelled! By the ‘correct’ kind of nutrition, right?!!

Like this awesome and unusual Gujarati dish called khatta moong…  (recipe courtesy my sister-in-law – Kalpana. Thanks, Kalpu!)

KHATTA MOONG

• Green gram (moong) – 1 cup – soaked for two hours and drained. Pressure cook till soft but the grains are still separate.
• Sour yogurt – 2 cups
• Gram flour or besan – 2 tbsp
• Sugar or jaggery  1/2 tsp (optional)
• Red chilli powder – 1/2 tsp
• Turmeric pwd – 1/4 tsp
• Grated ginger – one inch piece
• Sunflower or any cooking oil – 1 tablespoon
• Cumin seeds – 1/2 teaspoon
• Green chili – 1 minced.
• Asafoetida – 1 generous pinch
• 1 sprig of curry leaves
• Fenugreek or methi seeds – 1/2 teaspoon
• Salt to taste
• Chopped fresh coriander to garnish

Whisk together the yogurt and besan along with 1.5 cups water. Add the salt, sugar,turmeric, red chili pwd and asafoetida.

Heat the oil in a saucepan. Add mustard seeds. When they crackle add jeera, ginger and green/red chili. Add curry leaves.

Add the cooked moong and cook, covered for a couple of minutes.

Add half a cup of water and gently pour in the yogurt-besan mixture.

Cook for about four minutes and switch off. Garnish with coriander and serve with hot phulkas or jeera rice.

P.S: I doubt any of the saas-bahus of today’s TV viewing will serve as inspirations to any young woman! Long live Rajani!

“Look at this orange. I’ll cut it… thus… how much is there?” She proceeds to cut an orange into two pieces.

“One piece for each of us… but, but what will the other brother do? He won’t have any orange at all?!”

“Don’t worry about that! Just tell me what you see in each of my hands… this is… this is… ” prompts my mother…

Blank stare from pupil (aka self)… how can she think it doesn’t matter if one person doesn’t get at least half an orange?? And besides, why only half? There’s a whole basket of oranges behind her??! And why on earth is she cutting them? That is NO way to treat an orange – the juice runs out and goes waste – everyone knows THAT! Plus that smell is making my mouth water – I have to have that orange now!

Oh, I get fractions all right, I just don’t know what she wants! I’ve been out of school for three weeks, thanks to a bug and my mom is “helping” me catch up on stuff that I missed and insists on the orange routine to introduce fractions to this third-grader.

Now, if she’d tried introducing fractions through potatoes or onions or even better, karela (kaakarakaaya/paavakai/bitter gourd/bitter melon – the bane of every kid’s life), I probably wouldn’t have cared and would have figured out the minutest of fractions – in the hope that she’d be so pleased with my quick learning that she might let me off with a really tiny piece of the bitter curry at lunch! Or maybe even a zero portion!

Why does it even have to be food anyway? And fruit that too?? Couldn’t it have been anything else? Like a bug or a beetle? (Ok, in my defence, this was before I knew bugs had feelings!)… I did a little research among my contemporaries and found out that all of them had been subject to the same treatment – orange cutting or apple (for variety!) cutting – to be taught fractions by struggling parents!

Lesson one to all parents – please refrain from using desirable food items – fruit, chocolate bars etc. all fall under this category – to teach any child anything about maths! You are permitted to use stuff like paper (unless you have a very hungry child!), bitter gourd (even the hungriest child would rather go for the paper!) to teach halves and quarters and thirds! It is sheer cruelty!

Lesson two t0 all parents: If you have more than two children, teach thirds before you teach halves – you don’t want to teach them unfairness, do you?!

Lesson three ditto: Feed them first before you sit down to a lesson – you do not want them thinking of aloo cutlets as you cut potatoes into pieces! Also might be useful to teach them that potatoes are to be boiled whole for cutlets before peeling and cut potatoes are not good for cutlets – only curries!

And you thought you were teaching them fractions?

Better still, just give them whole fruit – do not cut – a philosophy I learnt from my mother – though I never did learn fractions from her! For the longest time, I thought everyone ate like us – one mango served along with lunch at each plate. You were free to cut it (though you ran the danger of being called a sissy!), tear the skin off with your teeth and bite into the flesh, squeeze the livin’ daylights out of it and suck out the resultant gooey juice or any which way you chose. The only processing that was done to that mango was washing it! Imagine my shock when I was served mango in a bowl – actually peeled and neatly cut with a little fruit fork to pick up the pieces with – at a friend’s home! God, how many fractions must have been taught in that home!

So feed them (the kids I mean) cutlets or oranges and apples and then have this healthy low cal whole finger food for yourself – you don’t want to teach yourself  fractions, do you?! This is inspired by Madhu Yerramsetty’s starter at a family dinner in California last month – thanks, Madhu!

CUCUMBER-ZUCCHINI-TOMATO STARTERS

• Cucumber – 1
• Zucchini – 1
• Tomato – 2-3
• Sprouts – 1 cup – steamed for 3 minutes (optional but desirable!), cooled and mixed with 1/2 tsp of cumin powder, 1/4 tsp chili powder, salt, 1 tsp lime juice, pinch of sugar, 1 pinch of chat masala
• Guacamole – mash with a fork – pulp of 1 large avocado, chopped onion, green chili, salt, pepper, lemon, 1 garlic clove, 1/4 tsp of sugar, red or green pepper, juice of 1/2 a lime.
• Chopped fresh mint to garnish

Slice the vegetables into thick-ish slices – about 1/4 cm thick.

Place a dollop of the guacamole on top. Spinkle half a tsp of sprouts on each and top with mint.

Serve immediately.

You don’t need to cut these into halves or quarters or eighths or whatever – just pop ’em whole into your mouth!