Author: anuchenji

“‘ullo… ‘ullooo…’ulloo… good evening, Ma’am. This is Adil from Pizza XYZ speaking. What can I do for you?”

“One large veggie pizza with everything you’ve got on it, one very garlicky wedgies, one totally non-garlicky wedgies (otherwise poor hubby gets none – being the non-garlic type of person!), blah, blah…”

“Your address, ma’am?”

“12-2-275/1/A/567/B2… Prem Nagar, naale ke andar, nal ke paas” (inside the culvert, close to the public tap)!!

“Yes, ma’am, I know”, says the genius at the other end. And sure enough, the pizza turns up within the thirty minutes they promise it in! And once again, I salute the Hyderabadi delivery boys/postmen/courier chappies/ambulance drivers who, dealing with probably the most difficult and irrational system of addresses in the world, manage to get it right, day after day, year after year!

I bet that when the Allied Forces broke the Axis powers’ code Enigma in 1944, a decisive factor in the Allies’ victory a year later, they employed a bunch of Hyderabadi postmen to do the job! And I bet it was child’s play to these postmen too. All they probably demanded in return was some Hyderabadi biryani and haleem as compensation – pizzas didn’t exist outside of Italy and NYC those days!

I read in the papers today that Hyderabad is planning to rationalise its address system and go the way of the rest of world – door number followed by street name or number. Now most Hyderabadi streets don’t have names… so we’ll start with that first. Or naming streets could become controversial – the usual irrationalities of India – religion, caste and that rubbish will interfere, so decide the powers that be… so let’s just give street numbers. House number 34 on Street number 48 should be pretty straightforward, right? But wait, House no.34 is subdivided into eight little “portions”, as they are called – A,B,C,D…

So we’ll get to 34A, 34B and so on… But there’s a little gulley between houses 34 and 36 (35 is across the road, of course, did you expect it to be between 34 and 36, you poor sod?) So we account for the gulley with another alphabet – 34/H / 1… (1 being round the corner in the gulley!) Makes total logic to the Hyderabadi!

And on this scene comes a poor sod from another state in India – let’s say a Madrasi 😉 Desperately clutching on to a piece of paper in one hand, he’s looking for the erstwhile 12-2-275/1/A/567/B2, now rationalised and re-numbered as 12-2 (we can’t do away with the first two numbers because we don’t know what they originally stood for and what if we lose a lot of valuable information with these??!). So, 12-2- 36H/ 1/38A (the house in the gulley between 36 H and 38 A!). Perfectly logical, right? We’re just following the street and giving you directions at the same time! We are, in fact, being very helpful here!

And so our Madrasi comes up to the roadside chappie (there are always these guys hanging around whose only job in life is to help people with addresses – get this – they don’t get paid – they don’t get tips – they are in fact, providing a very valuable service for free!), spies the number 12-2-275/1/A/567/B2 and gives a cry of joy “ayyappane swami!” expecting that B3 – will be next door. But ah, you see, the end number is not the house number – it’s the middle number! Plus, Sir do you have the old address??!

The Madrasi collapses – with shock and exhaustion and sheer frustration! But our roadside chappies are very helpful – they revive him with strong tea and escort him to the house he’s looking for, “Arre Saar, pehle bolna tha (you should have told us earlier), – you’re looking for Mani maama’s house, na?!”

I think the Municipal Commissioner will meet with a lot of opposition!… All the way to America… where…

…a certain John Smith, looking for a friend (a certain John Denver… in San Jose, California… stops the first guy he sees – a Hyderabadi, of course and asks him for help with the address. Our pal looks at the address, scratches his head and finally shakes it sadly (we Hyderabadis hate saying no!), “Sorry, Sir, but there are no foreigners living here!!!”

Hum aiseech hain, miya!

Aur ham aiseech khaayenge! (This is how we are and this how we shall eat.) And feast on…

TIL KI CHUTNEY

• Sesame seeds/til/nuvvulu/ellu – 1 scant cup – about 100 gm
• Ginger – grated – 1 ” piece
• Garlic – 5 cloves
• Green chilies – 4
• Red chili powder – 1/2 tsp
• Onion – sliced – 2 tbsp
• Coriander leaves – 1 cup
• Mint leaves – 1 cup
• Tomatoes – 2 – chopped
• Tamarind paste – 1/2 to 3/4 cup
• Oil 1 tbsp
• Salt

Roast the sesame seeds, cool and powder. Set aside.

Heat the oil, add tomatoes and fry till softened.

To the tomateos, add the ginger, garlic, mint, coriander, green chilies, red chili powder and salt. Saute for a few minutes.

Cool and grind to a very rough chutney along with the tamarind paste and sesame powder.

Add the sliced onions to this chutney – the raw onions and sesame are a very yin and yang combo!

Temper with 1/2 tsp cumin seeds and curry leaves in one tsp oil – optional.

Serve with a khichdi and yogurt on the side. Or idlis. Or dosas.

Can’t find the address or a roadside ‘helper’? Jus’ eat it yourself!

The jackfruit is one of those things you either love to pieces or hate to death! I have yet to meet a guy who’s got a let’s-take-a-middle-path attitude to this one fruit. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the Buddha’s teachings did not really penetrate in a major way to this part of the country – most associated with the jackfruit – Kerala… the middle path was unknown!

Of the guys who hated it, the most famous was the Mughal emperor Babar – who by all accounts was a fruit connoisseur, introducing melons, grapes and pomegranates into India because he missed them so much – far away from his native land! In the quest for a melon, as he described it to one of his “Hindoo” cooks he had to put up with, he described the fruit and the cook – probably from Kerala, had a eureka moment!

Big, yellow, smelly and sweet? But of course, Ind has it, Sire! And with great trouble, he transported one to the court of the great Mogul (they hadn’t changed their spelling to Mughal then!). Took trouble to cut it open, laid it out on a silver plate and proudly carried it to the emperor’s morning room. As the smell of the fruit wafted in, the emperor turned pale and feared that one of the dastardly diseases of this hot and miserable land (the big B – the original guy, not the Bacchan – hated the rich land he had conquered!) was about to strike him dead and began to invoke the ninety names of Allah – hoping that the camel would whisper the hundredth in his ear before he died…

…and then he thought he had died and gone to jahannum (hell) for having conquered Ind! With fear and trembling in his heart, he opens his eyes and finds… what he describes (when he figures he’s not dead!) as… “sheep’s stomach stuffed and made into haggis!” 

But, ah, we have to take this one man’s poison with a large sackful of salt… how much is his opinion really worth when he goes on to describe a mango thus: “When the mango is good it is really good… In fact, the mango is the best fruit of Hindustan. Some people praise the mango to such an extent that they prefer it to all fruit except the melon, but it is not so good as to warrant such praise.”

Fond as I am of the melon and all fruit in general, I would willingly stuff the great Mogul into a sheep’s stomach, stitch him up and bake him or whatever they do to make haggis – for daring to denigrate the sacred mango thus! Also the jackfruit!

When I was expecting my second child, I had this overpowering desire for jackfruit. Terrified to buy the cut stuff they sold by the roadside (having already had a bout of Madras belly!), I bought a full fruit – weighing some six or seven kilograms! Tucking my tummy in carefully, I sit down on a low stool in the balcony and cut it open (have watched my dad do this many times so I know how it’s done!) and over the next three hours – with breaks every now and then, proceed to disembowel (dat dratted Babur is still on my mind!) the fruit of some 150 of the golden-yellow tonalu as they are called in Telugu. Which is probably why Kanch hates the fruit so much today – she must have had an overdose!

Me – i love it! Love the ripe fruit by itself, love the appalam made out of it, love the chips and I absolutely adore the payasam/kheer made out of this.

One more of the dishes that I’d never eaten till I got married, the chakkai pradahaman as it’s called in Malayalam, was a revelation…

CHAKKAI PRADHAMAN /JACKFRUIT KHEER

• Jackfruit pieces or tonalu – 12 – deseed and remove the white ‘placenta’!
• Jaggery – half a cup
• Coconut milk – fresh is best. Otherwise one 200 ml pack is enough.
• Dry coconut pieces (not desiccated coconut – break open a nut and let it dry overnight in the frig) – cut into small pieces about 1/2 cm long thin slivers – 2 -3 tbsp – roasted in ghee
• Water – 3/4 cup
• Cashew bits – 2 tbsp
• Salt – 1 pinch
• Ghee – 2 tbsp

Pressure cook jackfruit peices, cool and grind to a rough puree.

In a large pan, boil the jaggery and water together to make a thin syrup.

Add the ground jackfruit paste and simmer for about 5 minutes – adding a couple of tbsp of water if it’s too thick. This payasam is not too thick.

Add the coconut milk and bring to a boil. Allow to boil for 4-5 minutes on a low flame.

Fry the cashew nut pieces and coconut pieces in ghee and pour over the payasam. Add the pinch of salt.

Serve, hot, cold, warm – whatever – it tastes just as good!

Don’t waste it pouring it on Babur’s head when it’s hot – even if you are tempted to!

Another easy way to make it is if you can get hold of readymade jackfruit jam – then all you need to add is the coconut milk and garnishings!

And oh, Babur did find something good about Ind… “The one nice aspect of Hindustan is that it is a large country with lots of gold and money.” Harrumph!

…so this friend of ours – a very busy advertising honcho, running a very busy ad firm, with a very busy schedule… you get the idea? Very busy guy… comes out of his flat on one very busy morning, hands and shoulders aweigh with lunchbag, camera bag, briefcase… his mind buzzing with… what else, very busy thoughts of the meeting ahead… with a very busy client… He gets into the lift and then as the lift makes its way down, notices a not-quite-so-busy guy, also in the lift, giving him weird looks…

Ignores him at first, then the looks get weirder, driving all the serious business of being busy out of our pal’s head – quite a task! “So what is this guy staring at? Smut on my nose?” and stares into the polished steel surface of the lift wall. No smut visible. Tentatively looks down to see if he’s got my daughter’s disease (blogged earlier – please see http://anuchenji.com/blog/yet-more-foot-mouth-tales) of missing shirt, etc. All in order. The busily creative mind is now seriously puzzled! Ennada idu? What on earth is this guy’s problem? Maybe I’m in the lift with a psychopath? Omg! All other busy thoughts are gone as he squeezes himself carefully into a corner… watching the other guy out of the corner of his eye for any sudden movements, in which he can quickly fling his lunchbox at him!

Then he wipes his glasses – on his shirt sleeve, of course. Were you seriously expecting a glasses wiper? And stares again intensely at the lift wall. Chin? Check. Nose? Check. Eyes? Check. Ears? Both in place. Specs? Sitting correctly on said ears. The gaze travels upwards. OOOOOooooh! Towel tied around head after washing LONG hair? Check! Definite OOPS moment!

Doing his best to give the impression that this was exactly the look that he had intended to convey all along and buster, you’d better watch out – thorthu (Kerala’s justly famous thin towels!) are going to be the next fashion statement, man, he nonchalantly gives his head a shake and pulls off the towel with a flourish. Thirty years in advertising have not been for nothing, right?

Sadly, the effect is slightly, just slightly – ruined by the towel getting stuck in the hair at the back of the neck (problems of waist-long, curly locks!) and eliciting an ouch from self! Also by the spray which splatters the other poor guy – whose turn it is now to shrink into the corner!  Thankfully, the lift has reached the ground floor by now and our man manages to swagger off confidently – like I said, advertising is not for nothing!

Carrying off stuff is basically the name of the game – these things happen because you planned it so! According to my husband, this is the only lesson they teach you at B-school! My response is that engineers, poor chaps, don’t have the panache to carry things off! Of course, he’s an engineer!

The queen of coverups, of coure, was my own heroine – Julia Child. She drops a turkey that she’s slaved over for hours just before serving it – at the dinner table where a bunch of guests are waiting – for Thanksgiving dinner and… picks it up and announces, “Oh thank goodness. I’ll just bring my spare turkey in!” before whisking it off to the kitchen, doing some cosmetic stuff to it and bringing it back gaily to the table! Vive la Meryl Streep!

Though there are some disasters that it’s difficult to cover up, no matter how much panache you can summon up! Like this once, when K wanted to make a fancy tomato shorba for dinner for the parents to welcome us home after a holiday and the mixie exploded! We were scraping tomato puree off the ceiling for weeks!

Here’s how to make and eat your shorba without having to lick it off the ceiling!

MINTY TAMATAR KA SHORBA (TOMATO SOUP – INDIAN STYLE)

• Very ripe tomateos – 8 large – chunk.
• Garlic – 3-4 flakes
• Bay leaf – 1
• Mint leaves – 1 tbsp + 1 tbsp to garnish
• Coriander- chopped – 2 tbsp + 1 tbsp for garnish
• Sugar – 1 tsp
• Cloves – 2
• Cinnamon – 1″ stick
• Dried coriander seeds – 1 tsp
• Red chili pwd – 1/2 tsp
• Salt
• Ghee – 1 tsp
• Jeera/cumin seeds – 1/2 tsp

Cook the tomatoes with the garlic, dried coriander seeds, 2 tbsp coriander, bay leaf , cinnamon, cloves and chili powder.

Once tomatoes are softened, let cool. Puree in the mixer to a smooth puree.

Strain out the puree. Shorba is best served silky smooth so pips and skin need to be removed.

In another pan, bring back to the boil, adding sugar and salt. You may need to increase the sugar if the tomatoes are very sour.

Heat the ghee in a small saucepan, add the cumin seeds and let them splutter. Pour over the shorba. Serve in bowls, garnish with coriander and mint leaves.

And if there’s any mess, clean it up with the thorathu that you were using to dry your hair!

P.S: This is very thin soup – just like all those excuses we made above!

“An-dradha. Will you be my best friend for tomorrow?” says one of my many school friends. I am quite happy to agree to anyone who asks me to be their best friend – after all, one can always be many people’s bf or bfftw (best-friend-for-the-week!), right?

Then during the short ‘interval’ in the morning (the morning school break), two more girls come up with the same request. I don’t have a suspicious nature so I nod happily. By the time lunch break is over, I’ve received no less that eight requests! Now even with my unable-to-smell-a-two-week-old-dead-rat-at-two-feet nature, something smells – rat-ty!

The thing with self-deluding natures is, you see, that you think that everyone loves you! It is not a bad thing to figure out – as I did in my late thirties (did I claim in an earlier story that I was quick on the uptake? – I was lying!) – that sometimes what they love is in your cupboard!

What was in my cupboard then was our annual class trip to a local “place of interest”. Nine times out of ten, this was the Coca-Cola factory in Hyderabad! A classmate had an uncle who was a big bug at the factory and obviously the good sisters at our convent school took the easiest way out! So what if we’d seen the factory four times already – the kids enjoyed it! Plus – and this was a VERY BIG plus indeed – they got free Coke!

We were warned about being on our best behaviour – say thank you nicely, DO NOT ask for a second bottle, do not wander out of the line and so on… we were a generally polite bunch of kids so these warnings were really redundant. But then adults have to have some occupation, no?

But none of this explains why I was suddenly so popular during the week leading up to this trip…

…..you see, I’ve always had a problem with fizzy drinks – I sip them slowly through a straw – as one is expected to – but there is an unexpected fallout – in about two or three seconds. Warm Coke or Fanta or Bovonto or whatever it is I’ve imbibed, flows gently out of my nostrils! I can only tell you that it is a most unsettling experience – if you’ve never experienced it yourself! This happens even if the Coke is cold – it’s like there’s a little processing plant plant in there which is spitting out effluent (as you can see, I haven’t been married to a process engineering guy for thirty years for nothing!)

…and so, since everyone knew that I wouldn’t drink my bottle of Coke, it automatically meant that my best friend for the day would get my bottle also – and be heroine for having wangled two bottles!

Now, if only my school had taken us to a samosa or vada or masala vada factory, I’m sure I’d have been on everyone’s hate list for trying to pinch their samosa/vada/masala vada!

Or these…

KUNUKULU (LITTLE DEEP FRIED ADAI VADAS)

• Toor dal – 3/4 cup
• Chana dal – 1/2 cup
• Urad dal – 1/4 cup
• Rice- 1/2 cup
• Putani/putnala pappu/pottukadalai /fried gram – 1/4 cup
• Chopped coriander – 3 tbsp
• Chopped onions – 1 cup
• Asafoetida – 1/4 tsp
• Salt
• Red chiles – 5
• Green chilies – 2
• Peppercorns – 5-6
• Curry leaves – 2 sprigs – chopped finely
• Oil for deep frying

Soak all the dals and rice except the putani for about an hour. Drain and grind to a very knobbly, rough, thick batter adding everything else. At the end mix in the onions, curry leaves and coriander.

Heat the oil, break off bits of the batter and deep fry till golden brown. Don’t shape them into smooth balls – the rougher the edges the crisper the kunukus!

For a healthier version, add shredded cabbage to the mixture.

I swear everyone will be your bff if you serve them these!

“Put on your pants before you come out of your room!” I yell at my 7-year old daughter who has a habit of wandering out forgetting various articles of clothing! It is a source of constant tension to check to see if she’s properly attired before we leave for school and office in the morning. Now, everyone knows how that works – the pre-eight o’clock period of the morning – you barely have time to check if you’re still breathing before you have to hustle self and everyone else out of the door!

Then you cross the halfway mark, just negotiated horrendous Madras traffic and that horrible stretch of road still under construction (they do know how to choose their time, don’t they??!) before a small voice piped up from the backseat, Amma… I think I forgot my pants/shirt/pencil with an exam on today/lunchbox/that assignment which is overdue by a week and the teacher has given her an ultimatum – today!… any of a number of things!

K, being K, would have been perfectly happy to go to school with any or all of these missing, except the all-important lunch box! That was something for which she would want to turn back for! The rest of it I considered important and would turn back for – just a matter of differing priorities!

Back to our missing pants tale. There is a shocked silence for a minute at the other end of the line. “But… but… how did you know I wasn’t wearing any?” whispers a friend’s voice! I had dialled a friend just before K came out of her room half-dressed and without realising that the line had been picked up at the other end, yelled out the pants-on-fire bit! Shocked friend, embarrassed self, both with a funny bone equal loads of laughter and a tale that I haven’t lived down even twenty years after!

There is something about our one-track minds which is rather unmindful of anything in the environment except the thing we are focusing on at the moment – which invariably leads us into trouble!

I’d have yelled out an instruction, “Be sure to flush after you’re done” at a cinema or a restaurant or something without realising that the kid being given said instruction was behind a closed toilet door but there was a large-as-life co-theatre-goer/diner standing right in front of me till I got a funny look and the other lady scuttled off as fast as her legs would carry her, to get away from this keeper-of-public-morality!

Oh well, one lives but one doesn’t always learn!

One then consoles oneself and the embarrassed kid and maybe even the co-diner with food items! Like this…

 BANANA CHOCOLATE MUFFINS

•  3 very ripe bananas – mash well
• 100 ml vegetable oil (sunflower or any odourless oil)
• 3 tbsp yogurt
• 2 large eggs
• 100 grams demerara sugar
• 200 grams plain flour/maida OR a mixture of half and half whole wheat flour and maida
• 4 tbsp cocoa powder (sifted)
• 1 tsp baking powder

To the mashed bananas, add oil, eggs, yogurt and sugar. Mix well.

Mix all the dry ingredients together and working really fast, mix the wet and dry ingredients together.

Spoon into muffin cases (about 15) and bakle in a preheated oven at 200C for 15-30 minutes till done. These muffins are dark brown and simply delicious!

You really will enjoy taking your foot out of your mouth for one of these! 😉