Anu Chenji

The year is 1987 and I’d just reported for my first job and was sent off for a training programme covering Ranchi, Bokaro, Delhi, Calcutta (as it was then). Never having traveled much in the north of India, this trip – all made by train – was full of excitement. The little stations where the train passed through, the lichi trees actually growing on the platforms in Bihar – urchins plucking these, folding up a bunch of lichis in the leaves from the tree itself and selling each bundle for a buck or so – you ate the lichis, spat out the skin and seeds into the leaf packets and threw them away – the most bio-degradable packaging in the world! Those lichis, still warm from the afternoon sun, the juice dribbling down your chin as you bit into them – I had never tasted anything so delicious before!

You topped off a packet of lichis with chai in an earthenware matka – and threw that away when you were done!

Bihar was full of delicious surprises – litti chokhas – had never even heard of them – forget about eating them – littis dripping with ghee and the wonderful baingan or aloo ka chokha that accompanied it, the thin, almost clear soup kind of dals that you basically drank rather than ate – the state was a treasure trove of unusual dishes…

….until I landed in Bokaro – in the middle of the May when the thermometer went over 47 C – and we were being trained in a steel plant – got a glimpse of what Dante’s inferno was all about when we spent a day in the SMS – no, not what you’re thinking – it’s the steel melting shop!

The food at the plant canteen was just as bad – with rotis like thick brittle papads and a subzi of indeterminate provenance, ingredients and vintage! Ran out after my first mouthful, bought myself a couple of mangoes and ate them in a little park outside the canteen – repeating it for the next seven days every day at lunchtime!

Delhi was a dream after that with its variety of restaurants and cuisines from all over the world. But the real McCoy was Calcutta – as it was known then… even for a Hyderabadi used to ‘cheap and best’ places to eat in, Calcutta was a cornucopia – 3 spring rolls or 6 momos for two bucks! As for the rosogullas, I have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t go into a trance when you mention the Cal rosogullas!

In Cal, I joined a group of trainees from another batch – 21 trainees and me the only woman. Nothing averse to all the attention I received!

The morning I joined, everyone was very friendly, came up and introduced themselves. One decided to steal a march on the rest and  asked if I’d like to go out for lunch. “Don’t they provide lunch along with the training session?” I ask. “Sure, but there are bound to be better places outside,” comes the slick response!

I grin to myself and say okay. As soon as it’s half past one, our pal, D, hustles me out of the training room in case I should change my mind or someone thinks up a better line!

We walk and we walk… and we walk… not a restaurant around the place. Finally I stop and refuse to walk any more in the sultry heat of the Calcutta summer. We look around… there’s a rather shady looking Kashmiri joint but I don’t care! We walk in and order… Kashmiri dum aloo, pulao and something which looks very interesting – palak mutter. The food comes. Sundry conversation but much concentration on eating. Then I decided it’s time to put my pal out of his misery – or maybe put him into misery! “You know, dum aloo is my husband’s favourite dish,” I let drop…

The aloo drops from his nerveless fingers… “Your husband???!”

“Yes, yes!”

We join up and work in the same office for a few years becoming great pals – but I never let him forget his reaction! It’s great fun to be a woman, sometimes!

And the Kashmiri dish that stays in my memory…

PALAK MUTTER

• 1/2 kg very finely chopped spinach (palak)
• 1 cup boiled green peas
• 2 cloves (laung/lavang)
• 1″ stick of cinnamon (dalchini)
• 1/4 tsp asafoetida
• 1 tsp chilli powder
• 1/4 tsp turmeric powder (haldi)
• 1/4 tsp dried ginger powder
• 1/2 cup milk (or cream for a richer curry)
• 2 tsp oil or ghee
• Salt

Method

Heat the oil, add the cloves, cinnamon and asafoetida.

Add the spinach and stir till it wilts.

Add ½ cup of water and bring it to a boil.

Simmer for 10 to 12 minutes till almost all the water evaporates. Add the boiled peas.

Add the chilli powder, turmeric powder, ginger powder, milk and salt and mix well.

Bring it back to the boil and serve immediately with rotis.

Oh, and if you have a good line, be very demure when you let it drop!

“And what would you like to order, ma’am?”

“Please may I see the syllabus?”

“Huh?”

“Could I look at the syllabus before ordering?”

“Errr… sorry ma’am, would you be wanting the menu, by any chance?”

“Ooop, sorry!! That’s what I meant”!! says the harried mom of three children who’s dropped them off at school for their exams and decided to treat herself to a cup of coffee not made by herself!

Exam season is on all over India and parents are a harried lot… what with managing syllabi, ‘combined’ studies, worrying about the kids’ emotional state, ‘healthy food’, no eating out in case the kid falls sick before the exam, no movies, no TV time, no more games of cards or scrabble, no more… anything that seems to make life worth living!

I hark back to a time when exams were just one more of those mild disturbances (if at all!) in the lives of most parents and children, a little obstacle to go through before the serious business of “going to my native” (the cutest of all Indish phrases!) for two glorious months of summer holidays!

We were those deprived, completely citified sad three kids who – get this – did not even have a “native” to go to!! Honestly, what were the parents thinking, right??! Instead we went away to places like Madras, Bombay and Vizag to stay with other aunts and uncles for the summer – the holidays were superb, with loads of food, loads more cousins to play with and so on… but no village well to swim in (how could a mere swimming pool offer competition to swimming in the village well with moss and frogs and sundry other alive things for company?!)

One holiday to Bombay – our first to the metro, in fact, was memorable for the very first time that we saw buildings that were over two storeys high! Growing up in small town Hyderabad, though it was supposed to be one of the largest cities in India, we’d never seen a multi-storeyed building in our lives – and Bombay was full of these! Why, even my aunt and uncle lived in a five or six storeyed apartment block, for heaven’s sake! As for downtown Bombay, the business district, I swear I got a crick in my neck from walking around staring up into the sky at all the buildings! And local trains to go around in – these were a shock – in my ten-year old opinion, trains were meant for long journeys, trains meant you got down dirty as a chimney sweep from the coal dust that flew back from the steam engines of those days! So to get into a train for a half an hour ride, stressed the daylights out of me! And I felt I needed a bath, though I’d just had one!

This was also the year of the great Railway General Strike in India, when the railways were shut down for a whole month! And so there we were, stranded with no means to go back – flying was out of the question – only very rich people flew – like the Tatas and the Birlas and so on! The rest of India – train-ed! My poor aunt and uncle had quite a job keeping three young nieces and nephews entertained for the summer along with their own two children – our cousins. Luckily, this was also the summer of the great carrom craze… the game would begin almost before we’d brushed our teeth in the morning, baths would be had only under threat of dire consequences… and the game went on till late into the night…

Harried or not, distracted or not, mealtimes were the one thing for which no second call was needed… my aunt – Ambi – was a superb cook – genes that her daughter Aparna has inherited in full force and then some!

Most meals at home were South Indian, but I do remember the first time that we bit into a vada pav – I thought I’d died and gone straight to Vaikuntham (we were BIG fans of Amar Chitra Katha!)

Even today, vada pav – that quintessential Bombay street food – high in all the wrong things – fat, starch and so on – is still an indulgence worth a whole week’s dieting!

 VADA PAV

• Pav buns – 4 – 6
• Butter – LOTS! Well, about 30 gms will do at a pinch!
• Red garlic chutney – see below – 1 measure
• Green chutney – see below – 1 measure 
• Vadas – 8-12 – see below
• Fried green chilies – optional – 4-6

For the vadas 

• Boiled Potatoes – 4 medium sized
• Cumin seeds – 1/2 tsp
• Green chili – 1 – minced
• Mustard seeds – 1/4 tsp
• Ginger garlic paste – 1/2 tsp
• Onion – 1 medium – minced
• Juice of half a lemon
• Turmeric powder – 1/2 tsp
• Red chili powder – 1/2 tsp
• Salt
• Urad dal– 1/2 tsp
• Coriander leaves – 2 tsp
• Oil – 2 tsp

Heat oil, add mustard seeds, urad dal and jeera, allow it to splutter.

Add green chillies, ginger garlic paste and fry for a minute. Add onions and fry till golden brown.

Then add mashed potatoes, turmeric and chili powders, salt and mix well.

Add chopped coriander leaves, mix well and switch off. Allow it to cool, squeeze the lime over and make small balls. Set aside.

For the dipping batter

• Besan/chickpea flour– 1 cup
• Rice flour – 1 tbsp
• Chilli powder – 1/2 tsp or more
• Salt – to taste
• Baking soda – a pinch
• Oil – to toast/deep fry

Mix all these together with enough water to make a thick dipping batter. Dip the potato balls in it and deep fry in hot oil till a deep golden brown – vada colour would describe it perfectly!

Red garlic chutney

• 6 -8 garlic cloves – dry roast till slightly yellow
• 1/2 cup grated dry coconut – dry roast till golden yellow
• 1 tablespoon sesame seeds – dry roast till they pop.
• 1 tablespoon roasted peanuts
• 2 teaspoons red chili powder
• 1 teaspoon dhania/coriander powder
• 1/2 teaspoon tamarind paste
• 1 teaspoon oil
• Salt

Grind everything together without adding any water till you get a powdery dry chutney.

Green chutney

• Mint leaves – 1 cup
• Fresh coriander – 1/2 cup
• Green chilies – 1
• Ginger – 1 cm piece
• Juice of half a lemon
• Sugar – 1 tsp
• Garlic – 2 cloves
• Cucumber – 1/2 medium size – chunk
• Chaat masala or pani puri masala – 1/4 tsp
• Salt – 1/2 tsp

Grind everything together to a chutney.

To assemble:

Heat a pan with a little butter. Halve the pav buns and slather them with butter. Toast on the tava till golden brown and crisp. Spread the green chutney on one side and red chutney on the other. Sandwich two vadas between each pav bun. If you like the heat, add fried green chilies – 1 or 2 in each vada pav!

For the best vada pavs, you do need to take the train to Bombay though!

Once upon a time (I ALWAYS wanted to begin a story like this!), there was a little girl with two slightly older brothers. She had just started school and had not quite settled into being away from home. Those were the days when live-in cooks were the norm for working couples (working couples were not the norm, though!) and this family had one – a wonderful guy called Narayana.

Narayana was a boon companion, very willing to play endlessly with us – the only thing he couldn’t do was cook! My parents, being the unfussy kind, didn’t care too much – so long as something was put on the plates! N used to make breakfast, send us all off to office/schools etc. and then get down to the job of making lunch. Lunch made, dabbas would be packed and brought to our schools. My school being about a kilometre away from the boys’, not to mention that I hadn’t yet learnt to eat on my own, I’d be picked up on Narayana’s bicycle, taken to their school and fed lunch along with them. Which was fine, except that I was used to a two-hour lunch and schools, in their wisdom, decreed that forty five minutes was quite adequate for children to eat, wash up and then play for a while!

My brothers had discovered the joys of eating quickly and running off to play with their friends – which was also fine except for the little fact that I hated being left alone and would cry – loudly and lustily – till Anand, my eldest brother, came running back to shush me so he wouldn’t be embarrassed in front of his friends! “Anu, please, Anu thinu (eat) Anu! Stop crying, please…” Poor chap, at the age of five and a half, having to deal with a three-year old brat couldn’t have been fun! Arvind was wiser and would run off to the farthest corner of the school grounds, where he could pretend he hadn’t heard me!

I also had to be dropped off at my school for the post-lunch session! All in all, it added up a very stressful lunch hour for everyone else except me! One of those days, it took me so long to eat lunch that my school had shut its gates (18-foot high they were – from my point of view!) by the time Narayana wheeled me back and he had to take me home…

On the way home, I must have been drowsy because I fell off the bike, landed on my feet though and suddenly found myself running alongside the bike. Between a pair of chubby three-year old legs (very chubby despite the hours i used to take to eat!) and a pair of wheels, the wheels won, of course  and I was left behind! Luckily, those were the days when the traffic in Hyderabad could be counted on one’s fingers and toes almost and no other vehicle came past! Luckily – otherwise there’d be no one writing this blog!!

Some kind passerby waved down our distracted cook, pointing out that there was a little lump of lard trying to catch his attention by yelling after him! In the middle of all this, as I was running after the cycle, I had an unexpected gift – from an interested crow flying overhead, so excited by the scene unfolding underneath that it decided to… let go!

By the time Narayana turned around, came back to pick up a crowshit-spattered, panting little kid and took her home, the kid had had just about enough of a messy world!

A nap soon restored balance to the universe though, not to mention the fuss that my mom made over me that evening!

Fuss and food – so closely related!

Here’s the food with which a fuss was made over me – almost worth the whole messy day! And NO ONE could make this better than my aunt – Ameenakkayya!

JEEDIPAPPU PAKAM/CASHEWNUT BRITTLE

• Cashewnuts (whole)- 2 cups
• Ghee  – 2 tbsp
• Jaggery – grated – 1 cup
• Sugar – 1/2 cup
• Cardamom powder –  1 tsp

Heat the ghee in a saucepan and fry the cashewnuts on a low flame till a very pale golden yellow. Immediately take out of the pan and set aside in a plate to cool.

In another pan, make a syrup of the jaggery, sugar and cardamom with about half a cup of water, stirring frequently.

Add the cashewnuts and continue to let the syrup thicken till the softball stage (that is, a little of the syrup taken out and dropped into a bowl of water should form a ball at the bottom of the bowl. If it melts in the water, the syrup is not yet ready). Cook for a few minutes after the softball stage is reached – almost hardball. Switch off.

When the syrup has thickened enough, pour out the pakam into a greased steel plate and let it set. This brittle is difficult to cut so you just have to break off bits of it (and the larger the better!) as you eat!

Moral of the story – please teach your kids to eat by themselves before you put them in school!

The year is 1969 and I was about five or six years old. My dad, who had been away in France for a couple of years was coming back and so there was much excitement at home. In the midst of my secret worry about would he remember Telugu (and if not, how on earth was I supposed to talk to him??!), there was also the excitement about what would he bring back for us as gifts!

Dad came back with some gifts for all of us and something very exciting for my mom – something whose existence we were completely unaware of till then – a large salon hair dryer! Like most women back then, my mom had long hair which she wore in a bun tied over a round ring which we called a vada (are the Nemali genes and vadas never be to be separated??! – sigh… )

Being a busy doc and a mother of three small children, Dad thought that it would be a useful gift – to dry her hair before she did it up and left for work at seven in the morning every day! This contraption consisting of a large upturned plastic ‘boiler’ kind of thing which fit over the head and then a long plastic tube leading into the boiler. The other end had something which produced hot air and well, basically it was a very complicated arrangement which involved at least two adult pairs of hands and several unwanted, un-needed but willingly proffered small hands to get it on and get it going! Mom must have used it a couple of times!

Around this time, on a parallel track, I was learning to put in my first stitches – large, straggly ones of which I was inordinately proud -under the expert guidance of “aunty” from downstairs.

Parallel tracks happen for a reason!

Wanting to make a ‘gift’ for my mother with my new-found skill, I decided to make a purse for her. Looked around for something to make it with – even a sow’s ear for a silk purse would have done! Sadly, neither sow’s ears nor any kind of material was available. But i am not my mother’s daughter for nothing – to give up any idea so easily would have brought shame on the family escutcheon!  And so, purely in the interest of making the family proud and making a gift for my mom, I proceeded to blithely cut up the plastic head thingummy of the hairdryer into two large semicircles, which I then joined together with four large, very large stitches and presented to my mom with a flourish when she came home in the evening from work!

What do you think happened? Something that only one in a million mothers would have done. Remember those were days when possessions were very few and consequently, very treasured. Instead of giving me a whack and lecturing me on taking other people’s things without permission, my mother accepted the gift gracefully and thanked me gravely.

I went away very pleased with myself and convinced that my mom loved the gift I’d made for her! Like I said, she is one in a million!

Takes me back to childhood memories of food – one of our favourites then and still is today – is my mom’s fruit salad – the best in the world… slathered over with thick, gooey custard and a lemon-y undertang which killed you with deliciousness!

I remember when I was in my teens and had a couple of kid cousins staying with, I made a proper English trifle for them as a treat – fruit, custard, jelly, cake and cream – all carefully layered. They watched the whole thing with great interest and helped with the assembling but when I served it out to them, wouldn’t eat it. Very puzzled, I asked their mom, my aunt, when she came to pick them up, whether they were too shy to eat it. She laughed and told me that while they loved, cake and jelly, custard, cream and everything else individually, they hated the whole thing together and were too polite to tell me so!! Chandri and Kartik, remember??

MOM’S FRUIT SALAD WITH CUSTARD

• Fruit – apples, grapes, bananas, mangoes, de-seeded orange segments, sapota, pineapple, strawberry halves – all cut into small 1/2 cm chunks 4-5 cups
• Sugar – 3-4 tbsp
• Water – 2 tbsp
• Cloves – 2
• Lemon juice – freshly squeezed – 3 tbsp
• Thick, very thick but not setting quality – it should be very gluggy – vanilla custard (yes, i make mine from custard powder and NOT from scratch!) – 1/2 litre -whisk till cool after you’ve cooked it. If you leave it un-whisked, it forms a yucky skin on top.
• Jelly – optional – 2 cups – preferably strawberry or orange. Refrigerate till set.

Heat the water with cloves and sugar till the sugar is dissolved. Let it rest and cool completely.

Discard the cloves. Mix in the lemon juice. Pour this over the fruit and mix well.

Pour the custard over the fruit.

Refrigerate for at least two hours. Serve with chopped up jelly on top, if using.

And serve it to your kids as a treat for making you something – even if they’ve destroyed your most prized possession!