Around India in 29 plates (Part I)

India has long been regarded as the land of diversity, and in no segment is that more apparent than in its food which is as varied as its topography and  the culture of its people. Drawing inspiration from the local produce, climactic patterns, aesthetic influences and historical background of a place and its people, food is a true reflection of the nation’s polymorphous identity and in this series, we take you around the country in 29 delicious plates. This week, we introduce some of the standout and perhaps uncommon dishes that reflect the diverse metropolises that are Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai.

 Sitaphal Cream (Mumbai)
This simple and uncompromising dessert is a perfect representation of a city which is always on the go, always open for business and rarely sleeps. A city teeming with people, Mumbai belongs as much to the shanty-town dweller as it does to the Bollywood stars who live in their skyscrapers away from the ground-level grime and dust. Mumbai is a city of possibilities and disillusionment. Hundreds of dreams die every night and new ones are born in its place. In such a city of global cuisine and vada pav, the Sitaphal Cream silently holds its own. Invented at the iconic Haji Ali Juice Centre, this seasonal dish is incredibly popular and standing and relishing a bowl of this dish with the waves crashing behind you and the city going about its frantic life is an experience akin to none. And it’s really quite simple ­— custard apple or sitaphal and cream are served together with some sugar and a dash of vanilla. A juicewallah came up with this divine concoction and it has flown off his counter since then and has not been replicated in the best restaurants in star hotels. While the custard apple ice cream is common enough, the fruit cream is a rare dish and the best part is that it comes at a price point that makes its accessible to all — from a skyscraper dweller indulging in a late night dessert to a balloonwallah counting out the saved up rupees for this treat, the Sitaphal Cream belongs to all.

Daab Chingri  (Kolkata)
This sophisticated delicacy is an exercise in innovation. This dish is believed to be an adaptation of something called the Malay Curry, a recipe that travelled with migrant workers and the colonisers as trade flourished between this all-important erstwhile capital city of the Raj and the rest of Southeast Asia. The Daab Chingri is all about the tender green coconut which blesses this steaming tropical state with its plenitude. It is about the pungent yellow mustard, a Bengali’s response to the Japanese wasabi. And finally it is about the prawns, the queen of all piscine creatures, the crustacean served at every special occasion and found in abundance in the rivers and lakes of this state. In this dish, fresh tiger prawns (chingri) are marinated in a delicious green chilli and mustard paste and then inserted into fleshy and tender green coconuts (daab) and slow-cooked till the prawns are tender and have absorbed all the flavours of the coconut. This dish when cooked right is sophisticated, simple and just bursting with flavour. One could describe it as creamy golden sunshine with a taste of the sea. This is a regal dish and one that could send its eater into a rapture. It also represents the people who put great value on the finer things in life, like the perfect Daab Chingri accompanied with soft, fragrant Gobindo Bhog rice and a refreshing afternoon siesta vis-a-vis matters of industry or a life spent in fast food meals. This dish is the crowning glory of every Bengali kitchen and a testament to the culture’s obsession with all things food.

Idlis (Chennai)
While some might consider this a plain-talking dish, in my books, an early morning breakfast at the Murugan Idli shop in Besant Nagar, with a view of the expansive beach and the blue curling waves in the distance is unmatched. The texture of those warm fluffy idlis with a delicious array of chutneys as well as the aroma of the sweet-sour-spicy sambhar is something that could make me roll out of bed every day of my life. Capturing a unique ethos of the city that combines daily living with tradition and functionality with flavour. Somewhere in between the city’s sunny days, cultural pursuits and political brouhaha, there is always time for this delicious breakfast served on a banana leaf bookended by frothy cups of strong filter coffee and great conversations.

Whole Mango Kulfi (Delhi)
This winner of a dessert is the stuff of sheer ingenuity and a perfect fit in this city of immigrants and erstwhile refugees who have survived and flourished by dint of their ingenuity alone. Old Delhi is a bastion of business which drew in merchants, traders, khansamas, artisans and labourers, basically anyone who had a skill to hawk and a business idea to sell. This congested walled city then became the place for innovations and food like no other. While the culinary delights of Purani Dilli are neverending, there is something about this particular dish that has just embedded a certain blazing summer day under the arches of an old haveli into the brick and mortar of my mind. I ate this kulfi at Pandit Kuremal’s Kulfi Shop in the gullies of Chandni Chowk. This magical dessert is clearly one of the best things I have eaten in this city. The whole mango is sliced, deseeded, stuffed with kulfi and put back together. When it is served later, the mango is peeled and you get delicious chunks of fruit with your creamy and icy mango flavoured kulfi. This dessert could give many exotic ice creams a run for their money and combines the best things about summer – Alphonso mangoes and ice creams in one fell sweep. For me, this is the best indigenous homegrown ice cream there could ever be and a lasting taste memory of the capital city.

This was published in The New Indian Express on 29 January, 2015

For the love of Biryani

For anyone who has grown up in Kolkata, biryani is the holy grail of food in the city and one that is available in plenitude, around street corners, in nondescript eateries, five-star establishments and historical hole-in-the-wall establishments. The distinguishing mark of this biryani is the gleaming white boiled egg and the delicately spiced potato perched on top of the otherwise Lucknowi style of dum pukht biryani. Having been weaned on this particular meat-rice-egg-potato combination my entire life, in my later migrant wanderings, while I discovered much by way of food, the perfect biryani remained elusive even as I trawled the back alleys of Jama Masjid and Nizammuddin in Old Delhi, the heart of Mosque Road in Bengaluru and Mohammed Ali Road in Mumbai. It is true that my quest has been far from perfect and I have missed the the two essential stops on the biryani map. Lucknow and Hyderabad, rival bastions of biryani, still remain like hidden pearls.

I have however eaten countless degs of this dish inspired by the styles propagated by the two cities. From Luknowi dum pukht biryanis by specialist cooks to numerous plates of Hyderabadi biryanis from various establishments called Hyderabad Biryani House serving up a spectrum of the dish ranging from virulent to dull-orange.

The entire point of this prelude is that I stuffed by belly with many artery-clogging plates of biryanis, always to return home disappointed. In all those years that I lived away from home, the only plate of biryani that has sparked my taste memory has been a plate of reheated biryani brought by a friend from the legendary Paradise Hotel in Secunderabad.

Even though this box had spent a few hours on a flight before landing up on my plate, the taste was unmistakable and from the saffron-laced long grains of rice to the spiced gravy from the melt-in-the-mouth pink mutton pieces to the mirch ka salan, this pukki-style biryani was as different from the Kolkata-style one as could be and yet it was a keeper in my taste memory.

Many years later, while doing the usual weekend round of our neighbourhood high street, Indiranagar, I spotted a sign which immediately jogged that half-remembered memory. While I may not be an expert on the original Paradise, my sample portion being too small, I know that it is spoken of with the same reverence that I have for my  much-loved Kolkata-based eateries.

While this gleaming avatar of Paradise on CMH Road may not score high on the character and history attached to these legendary joints, it is a smart fuss-free modern format that works for the diner on the go and also serves up a pretty good biryani. And even though   it missed the egg-potato accompaniment, it did check many of the other boxes.

Our group arrived in the middle of a chaotic day as the restaurant had just opened and despite being hungry, we were also feeling rather charitable. And even if it took a few long minutes, the food did arrive without too much of a delay, only our lime sodas were forgotten till the very end, but given the biryani in front of me, I could wait. The mutton biryani was flavourful with the trademark pink-tender mutton pieces, a surprising find in a city where the meat has always been a bit too chewy for my liking. Layered with a rich and flavourful gravy, this typical Hyderabadi pukki biryani came with a cooling raita and a mirch ka salan.

Unlike the over-spiced orange rice in most packaged Hyderabadi-style biryani, this dish with individual grains of white, yellow and saffron-coloured rice, although spicy was also a complex combination of flavours.
Apart from this, their chicken biryani, something I usually avoid like the plague due to the tendency of the over-large pieces to dry out, was rather good.

A plate of chicken tikka did not disappoint though it was a tad on the spicy side. Their mutton tikkas were really well-grilled and tender.  Comparisons always tend to be scathing in their dismissals and a tad unfair and while I am sure there will be those who will argue about the merit of the original joint vis-a-vis these far-flung outposts, Paradise brings to Bengaluru a flavour of an old city and its Nizami kitchens albeit in a 21st century package.  

This was published in The New Indian Express on 24 January, 2015

Travelling Light

One of my favourite science fiction writers, Ray Bradbury wrote in his dystopian novel, Fahrenheit 451, “See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. Ask for no guarantees, ask for no security.” This was imprinted tattoo-like on my mind, teaching me to learn how to travel without an itinerary, experience places through their food, shared conversations over a cup of coffee or a beer, walking the streets endlessly and simply watching a new world unfold.

I wanted space to breathe, not the alarm clock shrilly announcing the beginning of the next day. I longed for a leisurely carafe of wine and cheese by a roadside cafe in Montmartre rather than endless queues to enter the Eiffel Tower. The package tour was my holiday nightmare and all that I wanted never seemed conceivable by a travel consultant sitting across me, completely devoid of imagination when it came to offering anything more than a great bargain price, or a free cruise.

However, things have begun to change as the adventurous who like me love the idea of travel,  have taken this passion a step forward and come up with curated holidays. From the Bengaluru-based WOW or Women on Wanderlust, a travel club that organizes women-only trips across India and the world, to the fast-growing Thrillophilia that offers  high-octane travel experiences across India for all those who want to venture off the beaten path to the newest kid on the block, No Thepla Holidays.

 This startup is the brainchild of three friends, Arjun, Ayesha and Sanaya, who come from backgrounds as diverse as corporate M&As, animal rescue operations and event management, drawn together by their love for travel and especially the kind that does not involve carrying a bagful of deep-fried snacks and pickle in a foreign land.

"We want to cater to the modern Indian flashpacker who is roughly between 25-35 years, is open to meeting a whole bunch of fellow travellers and having a whale of a time in another country discovering its local food, underground clubs and the lesser known experiences," says Arjun Malhotra, one of the partners in No Thepla Holidays.

For the uninitiated, flashpacking is a global trend that seems to be made for the lazy Indian as all the arrangements (stay, internal commute) are made for you which means that you don't have to wander the streets searching for a room for the night, be stranded at a train station because you forgot to book a particular leg of the journey and can also go occasionally posh with a champagne cruise or a truffle lunch!
No Thepla Holidays might have just two trips under its belt so far, but their resounding success portends well for the future and it’s no surprise that they already have three trips planned for the first quarter of the year.
Their first trip was to Europe in June-July 2014. Rather than do the typical six countries in five days itinerary, these guys curated an offbeat music-wine combo that was bound to work. Thus the trip covered five days in Paris during the Fete da la Musique, taking in the different performances across the city, a champagne cruise on the Seine, five days in Barcelona, a 'booze cruise' of the city and exciting pub crawls with your fellow travellers and finally ending up at the village of Haro for the San Vino or a crazy wine fight, just like our Holi, but only with the lovely wine of the region.

In the second trip to North Vietnam, parties and outdoor activities were the focus and thus water sports, local underground clubs and the delicious Vietnamese food formed the highlight here.
So while making friends, sampling street food, partying with the locals and an overall good time with plenty of good cheer, dancing, high-adrenaline sports and a lot of beer form the trademark experiences of No Thepla Holidays, there is also culture (trips to famous archaeological sites and monuments) as well as activities that allow you to mingle with the native communities (like fishing with the locals in the villages around Mai Chau Valley in Vietnam). The winning feature  is their fluid itinerary.

"So while we travel with all our guests offering them our experiential advice as well as inputs for food, tourist-friendly bars, public transport etc as well as plan different activities to keep everyone entertained, we also don't make a rigid itinerary for them. So if somebody wants to go and get a drink at a local cafe with a friend he or she has just made at the hostel instead of a visit to a temple, they are more than welcome to do so," says Arjun.

The company makes internal travel arrangements, provides accommodation at hostels and some homestays, organizes cruises, parties, barbecues and other activities and so far all of the partners actually travel with the group to ensure that a jolly good time is had by all.

Their upcoming trips include a scuba-diving trip to Andamans in March, an adventure-party trip to Cambodia in March-April and another trip to Vietnam later this year. These holidays minus theplas (their website warns that these might go missing if you actually end up carrying any) are the perfect solution for those who have hunted for options that are not determined by rushed itineraries, packing in every monument and museum on the block, or bookended by group meals of chicken butter masala and tandoori gobhi in foreign lands.

These are for the new and improved Indian traveller who is on a quest to explore and understand diverse cultures, sample local flavors, dance to eclectic music and meet kindred souls along the way.
 Visit notheplaholidays.com or email them at info@notheplaholidays.com

This was published in The New Indian Express on 22 January, 2015

Decoding Kerala with a Brief and Whimsical Lexicon

In Fort Kochi, one can never be far away from a good meal, a story and a picturesque photo-op. These are epic tales of a God that resides in these parts and is sometimes benevolent and sometimes not. There are fishermen’s songs whose timbre matches the ebb and flow of the tides; tales of men with red and green faces whose dance chases away the nightmarish hobgoblins; stories of food that makes you weep with its aroma of love, loss and longing. These picture-stories are memory stamps of spectacular sunsets, a hundred shades of green, tinkling laughs and an everlasting romance with the backwaters...

A for Avial
Avial, a simple, steamed vegetable dish transformed  with freshly ground coconut and tempered with just a hint of mustard seeds and curry leaves. It is highly recommended that you eat avial as a soothing first course before the fiery spice-laden fish curries and pepper fries arrive. It is also recommended to eat this wonderfully fresh and flavourful preparation straight off a banana leaf with a mound of steamed rice and preferably a view of the serene backwaters. 

B for Banana
Surrounded by the swaying fronds of young banana tree and lulled into catlike contentment after gorging on flaky and tender banana fritters, it is hard to escape thoughts about the banana plant in Kerala. There is a single-minded obsession with the fruit as the people eat it as chips and chops, jams and jellies, cakes and candies. Grown in every backyard, big or small, eaten in nearly every form sweet or savoury, the banana is an omniscient presence and a familiar green stain along the whole coastline. The banana fruit carries with it memories like those of grandmothers making the delicious puttu for breakfast and the sound of the gentle waves of the narrow backwaters where rural country boats laden high with freshly plucked bananas, make their way to the local markets.

C for Coconut
Coconuts in Kerala are scattered all over the land. Nestled in sheltered boughs and protective fronds, these moon-like spheres come of age under the sun and by the sea. From a tender green fruit to a browned and hardened nut, their sweet water and milk nourishes the men and women of the soil. They form the mysterious quintessence of fish curries, pot roasts, avials, and custards. They reveal a glimpse of a kitchen in thrall of this all-purpose fruit that cooks and priests offer obeisance to.  

C for Chinese Fishing Nets
The Chinese went in two by two...hunting for the fish that had vanished from their own seas. They built giant creaking contraptions like the machines of Mordor. These nets were the scourge of the sea as well as the boon for starving fishermen. Today, they are silent sentinels of bamboo and net that are silhouetted against the docks. Their catch serves this quaint and historical erstwhile fishing village. In Fort Kochi, it is likely that every time you see the sign which says Catch of the Day, its probably found its way to your plate through the Chinese Fishing Net. 

K for Kathakali
The Kathakali dancers twirl in a frenzy of skirts and swords as they tell stories of gods, emperors and folk heroes. They bicker, growl, joust and dance. They are the immortals for the night that they spend on the stage, outside their body, their time and their context. They fence with papier mache sabres. The gods and demons who are stabbed and burnt as the story unfolds in a crescendo of drums and music. They collapse into a heap of red, white and gold. They live and die with their eyebrows puckered in surprise.

S for Spice Market
While the Spice Market had many treasures to reveal, it was home to the wonderful allspice, a miniature globe containing the whole world within its circumference. All the spices in the kitchen dropped their essence into this tiny, innocuous, mud-coloured ball and it bloomed into existence as the Queen of exotic flavours. This apart, the myriad coloured peppers, the rolled and aromatic cinnamon bark, the multitude of dried berries, each with its own medicinal and cooking instructions, a spice market in Matancherry, Kerala is an experience akin to walking into God’s own kitchen.

U for Uruli
Uruli, the light of my kitchen, the fire of my stove, my faithful cauldron of delight. Oo-ru-Lee...the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Oo. Ru. Lee. It is a cooking utensil unlike any other. With its versatile uses, its wide and deep-bottomed character and its ability to heat and cook food to that miraculously perfect temperature, this one merits being lugged across the world. 

V for Vallom
Vallom or the typical Kerala country boat is both livelihood and instrument of leisure. As the laidback life of the backwaters unfolds with each dipping motion of the vallom sluicing through the tranquil waters, one cannot help but settle into a peaceful self-reflection. This one is a ubiquitous part of the landscape from public transport to fishing boats, from a romantic honeymooning couple’s ride of choice to a local lad’s school bus.

This was published in The New Indian Express Bangalore on 15 January, 2015

The Giant New Year Street Party

The last day of any new year is celebrated with gusto across the globe and more often than not, the party is often taken to the streets. From the ancient times, celebrations were marked by large public gatherings. People cheering on in town squares festooned with lights and decorations suited to the occasion, fireworks and general goodwill doing the rounds. However, this year our celebrations are marred by a pall of gloom and an undercurrent of fear because of a world that is dramatically veering towards polarisation, a lack of balance and respect for human life and an increasing propensity towards violence. As the year draws to a close, I revisit the cities that have reaffirmed my belief in the indomitable human spirit which makes sure there are good times even when the going is not so good.

From mile-high curtains of fairy lights to the noise and sparkle of fireworks as the clock chimes twelve, from a multitude of heads bobbing to a countdown in glittery party hats to party whistles, new year’s eve in some of my favourite cities has been all about bonhomie in these large gatherings and a whole street doing a new year countdown. Nothing is quite as festive as  strangers, families and friends coming together in what seems like a giant metaphorical hug to the universe at large. There are a few cities of the world I have travelled to during this time and a certain joie de vivre prevailed that made them memorable in different ways. New Year’s eve gatherings in these cities somehow served as a time capsule for me, capturing the place and its people in one frozen moment in time.

Kolkata, the city that will always be home, is a city of revelry in the last week of every year. It is a city I yearn to return to at this time simply because of the frenetic energy with which it celebrates a festival that has little to do with its socio-religious fabric. Christmas and new year celebrations here have been given state sanctions with Park Street, the epicentre of festivities, dressed up in lights and festive banners sponsored by the government itself. I remember being a part of these celebrations since when I was allowed to venture out on the streets on my own. I remember  teetering on the broken pavements in my first pair of high heels especially purchased for the day. I remember being with friends, lovers and family on various new year’s eve celebrations on this selfsame street. But more than anything, I remember being one of a milieu which drew people from all walks of life. As long as you had a party horn and shiny headgear, you were welcome to join in the fun.

KL, the capital city of a predominantly Muslim country, couldn’t be more liberal and full of energy and camaraderie on new year’s eve. With the restaurant and pub-lined Bukit Bintang drawing in the crowds, I found myself among the expats and locals, the Asian, Hispanic, Black and Caucasian people, the young and the old-- all of us who had come together for that one night in a street party that just went on and on. Federation Square in Melbourne makes for a beautiful New Year’s eve celebration. With a massive fireworks display across the water and thousands of people who gather together to watch, it is quite a remarkable sight. My memory remains that of a newlywed couple kissing against sparkling pinwheels in the sky...an image that has remained etched in my memory, though other details of the holiday have begun to blur.

This year I am in Bengaluru, my first New year’s eve in the city, and as I plan to gather with many others at MG Road to usher in 2015, I too hope that it will be a better year for me, my loved ones and the world at large. As I walk under the glittery canopy of lights on Brigade Road, blowing on my bells and whistles, I pray for Bhavani Devi’s two children and hope they find the strength to deal with the tragic death of their mother due to the horrific explosion on Church Street three days ago.

This year I shall wish for more travel and a more peaceful world that enables it. My top destination for this year will be Kashmir and its stark beauty among all its war debris.

Today as I celebrate new year’s eve under the presence of police drones and patrols, I can’t help thinking how it is more important than ever to get out of our homes, parties and isolated urban islands, to go out and greet strangers, mingle and celebrate in one giant street party wherever you might be.

This appeared in The New Indian Express, Bangalore on 1 January, 2015

To Buy or Not to Buy, That is the Urban Vegetable Question

I live, like many other migrants to Bengaluru, in a well-guarded multi-storied bastion, keeping the rest of the world out. I also live on a bustling main arterial road and the nearest market is a good 20-minute walk, 20 minutes too long after a long working day. My early days in the city thus saw me heavily dependent on a well-known supermarket chain which has its outlet right within the campus of my building. While it is adequate enough for daily groceries, it is a disaster as a greengrocer. With maggoty fruits, holey salad leaves and bruised veggies, this was the nail in the coffin for my supermarket adventures which had started with a rat which jumped out of a shelf full of wilted spinach in a neighbourhood supermarket in Delhi. For me, that moment marked everything that was wrong with our so-called retail food boom.

I had grown up in Kolkata, going to the local market with my grandfather, where everyday's veggies were bought fresh from the vendors whose burlap sacks upended piles of fresh seasonal vegetables straight from the local farmers. There was no excess and there was no wastage from the seller to buyer and from the cooking to the eating. It was a way of shopping and eating that has become alien in our workaday lives. We now live away from our families and their expansive kitchens. We shop on weekends at chain stores, buying stuff for the fortnight and the food we eat comprises limp, half-frozen vegetables that are turned into quick and insipid curries.  

In my mind I was an old-fashioned sort. It is the early morning market visits with my grandfather which taught me that. I liked handpicking my veggies. However, as a recently grown up, working and married woman who had recently left her pampered home and hearth, these shopping rituals were hardly a luxury. From Delhi to Bengaluru, my experiences with local sabziwallahs have been complicated. As they looked at my discomfiture vis-a-vis veggies that I had grown up hating, they would give me withering looks. My naivete made me especially gullible to the vagaries of these men and women who would convince me of the seasonal freshness, the problems with the crops and the unfamiliarity with the local prices.

This is what drove me to a supermarket and its everything-under-one roof convenience. As I would move from aisle to aisle towards the vegetable section with my hope still afloat. Every single supermarket disappointed. Every fruit and vegetable on the shelf looked like it had travelled the breadth of the country fighting disease and deprivation till it reached this particular metal shelf—its chosen spot for its last breath. It was organic carnage. The potatoes had either turned green or into mutant flowerpots with little leafy stems. Tomatoes would burst into a bloody mess the moment I dropped it into my empty cart and once, I even saw a few little worms clinging to the plastic of the cling-wrapped Washington apples.

My local sabziwallah would set up his cart-shop ten minutes away from my apartment every evening from 5-9 pm without fail. I would return to that shop over and over with a woebegone face. I imagined him smirking as he imperiously tossed fresh-from-the-field veggies into my bag while charging me a premium and dismissing my arguments about the supermarket deals with a single "take it or leave it" look.
It is quite the conundrum, one that eludes a perfect solution. Bengaluru is a city of many choices from the exorbitant organic to the weekly farm-fresh produce in mandis at the other end of town. However, in all these situations, the idea of being an incompetent haggler in an unfamiliar language was as unpleasant as it is was a blow to the ego of a bargain hunter such as myself.

In my search for options, I often ended up at a bright, airy and air conditioned gourmet store sprawled across the top floor of a swanky city mall. The visit to this store ended up being weekend entertainment like visiting the zoo rather than a chore. As unfamiliar food and artistic culinary displays have a strange allure for me taking me to unknown lands on the culinary map. This particular store with its piles of delicate berries, smelly cheeses, exotic mushrooms and candied fruits, is my vicarious food trip across the world. Rare mushrooms, Mediterranean peppers and hairy tropical fruits jostled for space in this alien smorgasbord straight out of a Ridley Scott masterpiece. The end result, I purchase no useful staples that we can actually eat, but overpriced and useless exotica which sit uneasy in a good home-cooked meal.
Despite my aversion to aisle store fare, I do recommend its fair pricing. In the many veggie cons that have been pulled on me, most famous was the one where I went to a specialist Bengali market where I met a vegetable seller with the gift of the gab though and I was the recipient of the one standout sale he made that day. I bought a lau (a bottle gourd), which according to him had arrived that very day from Kolkata on the superfast train. And with such a narrative flourish, he sold us a `15 vegetable for more than five times its worth.

As I returned time and again to my neighbourhood sabziwallah, his grouchy face seemed to occasionally carry the hint of a smile. It was a less-than-perfect relationship. Yet, we learn to make do. And he always sold me the plumpest, reddest and freshest tomatoes which made up for my disillusionment with the pre-packaged "lowest price" supermarket rotters.

This appeared in the New Indian Express Bangalore on 29 November, 2014

The Travelling Bioscope Part II

I recently watched The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies and soaked in the beauty of Middle Earth aka New Zealand for the last time—from Turoa, Ohakune, North Island or the mythical and imposing Erebor to the idyllic Lake Pukaki which provides the stunning backdrop to the waterside village of Lake Town, the character of the films has been intrinsically tied together with the landscape of New Zealand, bringing this island nation alive in all its virgin splendour. The Hobbit: There and Back Again, the original title of the film marked the perfect journey of discovery and homecoming across this country, capturing its natural epic grandeur and preserving it on film for all time. This is the power of real and mythical journeys on screen. They imbue a land with an imagined history and drama, thus drawing you into viewing even a humble rock from a whole new perspective. A case in point would be travelling through Ramanagara, a small town about 50 km from Bengaluru on the Bengaluru-Mysuru highway, a completely nondescript sort of a place that you only pass through. Its only claim to fame are the ancient granite outcrops on its outskirts, another sight I would have bypassed for greener climes, had it not been for Sholay. The Ramadevarabetta formed the backdrop for iconic scenes from the film including the introduction of Gabbar, Hema Malini's memorable dance on broken beer bottles and key chase and fight sequences. For me these rocks resound with the sounds of Gabbar's classic dialogues and Hema Malini's ghungroos. This is but one of many points on a journey through various points on the celluloid map of the world.  

The Sideways Wine Tour (California)
This quirky and humorous story about two middle-aged men, Miles and Jack (played by Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church) is all about wine, great food, inebriated conversations, naked cuckolded husbands and fleeting holiday romances. Laden with high spirits and lubricated with good wine, this film brings to life the Santa Ynez Valley in Santa Barbara County with its mountains, lush rolling meadows, its expansive vineyards and quaint tasting rooms. The film piqued the interest of travellers and actually contributed to an increase in the tourism of the area. The famous Hitching Post II restaurant (Miles’ favourite restaurant where he meets Maya) actually exists and is a pitstop for most undertaking this tour. Apart from their excellent collection of wines, they also have quality meat, poultry and seafood grills. This apart, who can forget the celeb ostriches which show up in the film. The quirky Ostrich Land is home to these feathered bipeds and you can feed, meet and hang out with them just like our onscreen duo.

The Highway trip (J&K, Punjab and Rajasthan)
This film offers a fresh view of some of the lesser travelled paths on screen. Imtiaz Ali’s beautifully shot Highway, captures the sometimes pristine, sometimes chaotic and always colourful scenery as Alia Bhatt and her captors travel across North India in a truck. Far from the urban setting, this film dwells on the journey, the silences and often lets the backdrop emerge as the central metaphor in the film. As Alia Bhatt’s character breathes in deeply of the fresh air outside of her constrictive city life, she finds her personal freedom in the midst of her captivity. One of the most powerful scenes in the film include the nighttime shot in the monochromatic Sambhar salt pans in the Rann of Kutch where while attempting to escape, Alia Bhatt is overwhelmed by the futility of the exercise as well as the infinite night sky teeming with its stars overload. Then there are the stark snow-clad peaks of Kaza as well as the fairy tale setting at Aru Valley in Kashmir. The film makes us want to hitch a ride on the first truck leaving the city.

The Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara trip (Spain)
This film brought to life this Mediterranean country with its sun-kissed beaches, its plethora of churches, historical towns, cobblestoned paths, age-old traditions and colourful music and dance while showcasing some equally beautiful people (special note must be made of Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif whose tanned and toned bodies made them perfect poster children for Spanish tourism). This slice of life film ushered in a very modern and urban Bollywood ethos spearheaded by Zoya Akhtar and also introduced a countrywide audience to obscure rituals like the La Tomatina as well as the Bull Run at Pamplona. With a great soundtrack and an easy vibe, the film did for Spain tourism among the urban youth what Yash Chopra had done for Switzerland back in the day. So much so that there was a reported 32 per cent hike in the number of Indian tourists to Spain in the first year following the film. Suddenly everyone was interested in the Flamenco and everyone wanted to visit Spain. Designed for the young and sporty, this trip traverses the coastal towns of Costa Brava and includes all the elements for a real life bachelor party/trip which mimics the one on screen.

This appeared in The New Indian Express Bangalore on 25 December, 2014