A journey into the ancient heart of the jungle

As one travels to Taman Negara in Malaysia, the vestiges of civilization gradually drop off. The journey from the glittering, vertiginous skyscrapers of Kuala Lumpur to the oldest rainforest in the world is a journey backwards in time. Regarded as the world's oldest tropical rainforest, Taman Negara is about 130 million years old, the proverbial green heart of the planet.

Me and my husband set off from KL and a 4-hour bus ride later, we arrived at the Kuala Tembeling jetty where the next leg of the journey was to be by boat. The passage down the snaking river was unlike any other experience I have had. As the sounds of the mainland were left far behind, I felt more and more like the narrator/protagonist Charles Marlow journeying down the Congo river into the mystical core of nature in Conrad's magnificent Heart of Darkness.

The Tembeling river swollen by rain, heaved and sank against the sides of our boat and the sky darkened above our heads and the rain pelted down as if on cue. The banks of the river grew more untamed as the undergrowth spilled out of every crevasse and patch of land. The trees themselves changed character, untouched by time or human intervention they had been growing unchecked, fighting for survival as they arched their green canopy further towards the life-giving sun. The bird calls sounded alien in the late afternoon light. Everything was impossibly green, rain-washed and wild beyond the constricted
urban imagination.

By the time we arrived at our home for the next few days, the Mutiara Taman Negara Resort, right at the edge of the reserve, the light was fading. Ensconced in the middle of the jungle, this eco-friendly resort was designed to fit in with its surroundings seamlessly. There were no boundaries with the forest and the path running through it just meandered right into the forest. There was a soft spray of constant rain and the air was warm and dense. Oft-spotted denizens of the resort included long-tailed macaques, deer, fruit bats
that had its permanent residence in the verandah of our cottage. Then there was the surreal experience of befriending the over-friendly tapirs, a monochromatic creature that looked more like a mythical hybrid rather than part of any extant animal species.

The three days we spent there saw us taking several walks through the forest on the exciting canopy walk - a series of high tensile rope and wire bridges strung over the tops of the forest canopy allowing walkers an unparalleled vantage point. It drizzled all day with differing intensity as we clambered across swaying bridges, hundreds of feet above the ground. Although the activity is not recommended for those with tendencies towards vertigo, the 360 degree view of the forest, the river in the distance and the swirling mist that rolls in and out, more than makes up for the initial shaky knees. Down on the ground, the experience is entirely different.

Here, I saw the rainforest up close and understood for the first time in my life how the term 'steaming' could be applied to a jungle. The ground beneath our feet squelched and exuded vapours, everything was larger and somehow more feral - massive fungi overran their plant host, trees vied with each other stretched vertically as far as the eye could see, poisonous snakes, spiders and all manner of creepy crawlies waited in the dense undergrowth, while leeches silently drained unsuspecting walkers of their blood and we were glad of our sturdy trekking boots and leech socks at every turn. In the rainforest, nature is relentless and unforgiving. The Darwinian theory of natural selection is tested to its limit as plant and animal species fight it out in order to survive. The sky is barely visible and even the most intrepid trekker will be wary to wander these paths without an experienced guide.

Evenings in the rainforest are dark and best spent eating, drinking and discovering the simple joys of board games. Bereft of modernity, cell phone signals or cable television, one is glad for the small comforts in the wild - like the unexpected ice lollies in the solitary provision store.

On our last walk before we head back to civilization, we look one last time skywards. In my mind I see the ancient trees as gnarled sentinels who bid us a grim farewell just as they have to the thousands of travellers who have come and gone since the beginning of time.

(This was published in the New Indian Express, Bangalore on Sep 3 2014)

Tomato à la Nicoise

(An edited version of this piece was published in the July issue of National Geographic Traveller India)

The first time I held a Nicoise tomato, it was a moment of wonder. It was perhaps the label under this slightly misshapen, pert little berry with green pointy leaves that first sowed the idea of Nice in my overburdened mind. The husband and I were planning a trip to France while juggling deadlines, reorienting ourselves to South Indian ways (we had recently shifted to Bangalore) and struggling with an errant cook. I had to replenish groceries, read and edit manuscripts, plan a holiday and stick to a budget all in one crazy month before we took off for the much-awaited vacation. It was on one such day that I ran out of tomatoes among other things. Now Bangalore is a city of many choices. While the local markets provide a variety of fresh produce, the idea of being an incompetent haggler in an unfamiliar language is as unpleasant as it is a blow to the ego of a die-hard bargain hunter. So there I was on a pretty Sunday morning, in a bright, airy and air conditioned gourmet store sprawled across the top floor of a swanky city mall. The visit to this store was always more of an outing rather than a chore as unfamiliar food and artistic culinary displays always had 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, was our 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. 

It was here that I saw the wonder that was a Nicoise tomato. This was a strange cousin to the ubiquitous, varying-between-Rs-5-to-Rs-50-a-kilogram, commonly used berry of the not so deadly variant of the nightshade. Swaddled in paper tissue and carefully labelled ‘Vine-Ripened Nicoise Tomato’, this was like the discovery of a rare postage stamp to an unknown country. I picked up a couple of these prohibitively expensive, plump beauties and sniffed in their tart aroma and made a mental note to google “Nice”.

A month later and thousands of kilometres away, there I was in an old market burnished by the sun and fringed by the azure Mediterranean waters, staring at tomatoes again. Only this time they were all of the Nicoise variety. From dwarf green variants to oversized and ridged red berries, the food stands on the Cours Saleya were exploding with tomatoes. August was tomato season on the French Riviera and every dish was liberally sauced, every salad was abundant in and every sandwich was generously filled with these tomatoes.  

As one of the integral ingredients of the cuisine of the French Riviera and especially Nice otherwise called Cuisine Nissard, tomatoes are the stars of quite a few of the specialties of the region. We feasted on dishes that were crafted as tributes to the magnificent produce of the region which spanned the freshest seafood platters as well as the locally grown and sourced Mediterranean fruits, vegetables, cured meats and sausages as well as the lovely varieties of tomato. Even the simplest dishes, take for example the Coeur de Boeuf (beef heart) tomato and fresh mozzarella slices doused in virgin olive oil with some freshly cracked pepper and sea salt tasted just yum. And then there was the Salad Nicoise which was as much a French cultural icon as it was a personal favourite. The tuna, the anchovies, sun ripened tomatoes, local black olives, artichokes, fava beans and hardboiled eggs combine with salt, pepper and a simple vinaigrette to create a symphony of flavours and an ode to the sun and sea. I ate this on my first afternoon in Nice and on the way out. 

There is something about these heirloom tomatoes around these parts that goes perfectly with the innate style of this breezy seaside town on the French Riviera. While gorgeous women in designer hats with their little dogs walk the Promenade Anglais and sleek cars in tomato shades whizz up to the porch of the dazzling Negresco hotel, I contemplate the town and its laidback vibe. Part French, part Italian and all Mediterranean, Nice with its beautiful people and its unshackled bonhomie is a land that enjoys its seaside indulgences. As a haven for eclectic as it is encompassing, In Nice, the backpacker and the luxury traveller jostle for space at the same cafes in the vibrant streets of the Old Town. Art aficionados follow the trails of Matisse and Chagall while those who worship haute couture can find their boutiques and galleries and the bohemian lot can pick up quirky and vintage clothing from shops tucked away in narrow streets. Live music in the pubs till the wee hours to the opera at the grand Opera de Nice, to bustling historical open-air markets like Cours Saleya which are a treat for tomato eaters like, Nice is a panoply of food, drink and plenty and excuse the cliche which in this case rings true, a perfectly rejuvenating break for the mind, body and soul. 

It has been many days since I have returned from Nice to my regular life. Memories of that time have changed from the sharp clarity of a photograph and have acquired the softness of an impressionist painting. I remember odd things like the tomatoes and one single moment which I chose to preserve by scribbling a few lines on a ticket stub rather than take a photograph... 

This is our first day at the beach. The wind is in my hair, the sun warms my face, my toes curl against the smooth pebbles that keep the azure waters at bay. There is a fromage and heirloom tomato platter balancing on my knees, a glass of bubbly sits under my parasol, at arm’s reach. The man I love is sunning himself by my side. I think Nice is going to be quite lovely indeed...

Walking the Vinyl Track

(This was published in National Geographic Traveller India, November 2012)

“This will change the way you listen to music,” the note read. When I unwrapped the cheery red record-player that came with the message, little did I realise that the birthday gift from my husband would became an obsession. I didn’t know that we would spend the rest of our weekends of the year 2009 hunting for rare albums, quirky cover art and our favourite artists on vinyl.

While LPs had made a comeback and were available freely in large format music stores in the city as well as online, it was worth its price in gold and a luxurious indulgence for audio aficionados. While we loved music, our pockets didn’t run so deep and although we did pick up a few new LPs, something wasn’t quite right. Two of our brand new LPs turned out to be defective. There seemed to be a strange dissociation as we picked LPs from shelves stocking Blu-Ray DVDs, new indie CDs and pulsating Drum and Bass Mp3 collections. LPs seemed like gawky misfits in their specially proportioned shelves in these neon-lit digital music havens.

And a few hours of research on the internet sent us down the roads our audiophile forbears had walked and the alternative second-hand universe of vintage records. The little record player became my ticket into the dusty underbelly of the city with its cavernous warehouses and alleyway stores.
We dug out second-hand LPs in flea markets across India, from the back alleys of Mirza Ghalib Street in Calcutta to the dusty multipurpose antique stores in Bangalore’s Avenue Road. From the colourful hippie shops of Thamel in Kathmandu to the twisted alleys of Chor bazaar in Bombay, we dug our way through stacks of old vinyl records or forced/cajoled/bribed friends to trawl the selfsame markets with our serpentine lists in hand.

There was something that drew us to the LPs almost immediately. Both the husband and I loved music in our lives and although we weren’t experienced audiophiles, there was a certain purity of sound in a vinyl record that you couldn’t miss. The analog-era richness and warmth was so well...natural. Some LP lovers insist that listening to LPs was akin to having the band performing live in front of you and while I’m not entirely sure of that, listening to an LP is a visceral and involved experience entirely different from the commonplace plug n play digital sound. The soundscapes are different, the associations are different and above all the way we listen to music is different. A record lover is a more vibrant butterfly compared to its modern ipod toting worker bee.

Many of our records had their sleeves restored with duct tape and scratches and dust lines removed by multiple wet wipes. They became a substitute for postcards from kind friends who had been subject to the endless sessions of Floyd’s Medal and Kraftwerk’s Man-Machine (our earliest findsin a decrepit warehouse in Daryaganj sold to us by the enthusiastic Mr Syed Akbar Shah, an enthusiast and an eagle-eyed connoisseur of rare old LPs, who travelled the country in search of records old, forgotten and lost that had the habit of showing up in the unlikeliest spots). We would get emails at odd hours and would snatch calls over skype during our work day and manage to convince the friend in question as to what genre we liked, which group of artists we preferred and which era we pandered to. A few weeks later the selfsame friend would arrive with a brown paper wrapped LP. Needless to say he or she would be welcomed with much fanfare. 

As our pile of LPs increased from a measly two to a more respectable dozen, both the husband and me would itch to come home after a long day’s work and plonk ourselves on the floor with a drink in hand and go through the ritual of unveiling the well-worn record from its sleeve, giving it a quick wipe, placing the needle on the correct groove and drowning in the mellow sound while we lovingly caressed the sleeve and admired its incredible artwork.

However, a general passage of time dulled our initial enthusiasm. Our trips to Chandni Chowk and Daryaganj reduced and by the summer of 2010 we were back to our iPods and the LP player lay in a corner, dusted off for use on occasional weekends.

But all of that changed after a holiday in Melbourne in the winter of 2011.

Melbourne was the second leg on a grand vacation spanning Malaysia and Australia. We had travelled for a good week and a half around Malaysia through luxurious suites and isolated forest resortsand by the time we reached Australia, we realised that the holiday fund had dwindled substantially. Here we were with eight days to kill, little money to spare, and a city full of pricey art galleries, theatre shows, big-ticket music concerts and cutting-edge restaurants.

I quoted Bruce Chatwin to my husband: “Walking is a virtue and tourism is a sin.” What better way to learn a city than to see its underbelly, to sniff its stinks and discover the music on the streets? Armed with a day pass on the Melbourne Tram network, a much-thumbed copy of Lonely Planet Australia, regulation sunscreen and a couple of packaged meat pies, we were ready to take on the city.

Our first stop was Queen Victoria Market—a heritage site and bargain hunter’s paradise rolled into one. We wound our way through racks of faux crocodile boots, dubious Chinese herbs, tacky cowboy hats, artisanal cheese stands and boomerangs. Fate struck. My husband and I had been walking our separate ways, but suddenly bumped into each other at the entrance to a stall selling second-hand records.
I had been drawn into the shop by the sensuous black and white sleeve of Madonna’s iconic Like a Virgin album. In addition to being one of my favourite albums from the 1980s, it reminded me of many evenings spent with girlfriends dancing ourselves silly to ‘Material Girl’ and ‘Like a Virgin’. My husband, on the other hand, picked up Miles Davis’ A Kind of Blue in nearly mint condition. As we jostled each other, excited by the piles of LPs, the owner looked at us with a bemused expression. An elderly man with twinkly blue eyes, he gave us a great discount and also handed my husband a pamphlet. “Well mate, if you like your vinyl, that’s the best kind of tour you can go on,” he said.

The fold-out pamphlet-map had been created by Diggin’ Melbourne, an initiative started by a bunch of vinyl enthusiast, store owners and resellers. The simple Q and A listed on their home page made their conviction for the medium obvious.

“Q: Do they still make records?

“A: Yes—they still make records, they still make turntables, and yes—new bands are still putting out records. To some people the idea of putting out this kind of map may seem a little pointless. But if you’re reading this you know the score. Vinyl will never die.”

Our trip was suddenly given a whole new purpose.

The next day, we started working our way through the musical byways of Melbourne.  We set out for the artsy and bohemian Brunswick Street in the suburb of Fitzroy. By the mid-twentieth century, Brunswick Street, with its low rents, had become the street of choice for immigrants from Europe. With them came open-air Mediterranean cafes serving good coffee and wood-fired pizzas. Music venues, graffiti, vintage clothes stores, edgy pop art boutiques and record stores followed in the subsequent decades.

But instead of getting to the cool Brunswick Street in Fitzroy, we found ourselves in an altogether different part of town in the distant suburb also called Brunswick. Not only were we lost, we also ambled along with different agendas—I wanted the record store and vintage shops, but my husband wanted some food. A florist came to the rescue, pulling out a sheaf of maps to show us how far we had strayed. She gave us a flower for good luck and we clambered back on to the tram.

When we got to Fitzroy, we were thrilled to find that Brunswick Street was everything that the guide books and Internet had promised. The pavements were filled with chic people dressed in alternative fashion while the sound of jazz bands practising for an evening gig. Between drinking the best cider I have ever tasted, nearly inhaling a delicious crisp pork belly in apple sauce and shaking hands with a crazy man who wanted a few dollars for bestowing us with good wishes, we found what we had come all this way for–Dixons Recycled.

Established in 1976, with outlets all over Melbourne, these guys call themselves the ‘original second-hand specialist’. The store had something for ever whimsical buyer on a budget. Neat rows of records awaited us tagged according to their condition, rareness, album art and assorted other categories. We figured that if we’d been brave enough to buy battered records from Shah Music Centre in Daryagunj in Delhi, we could take a chance with Dixons’ lower-quality discs and gain in quantity what we’d compromised in quality. Who knows when we would find such a mind-boggling variety of LPs again?
Soon, our arms were piled high with the classic albums we had first heard on tape and later possessed on CD: Simon and Garfunkel’s sound track for The Graduate, The Best of Cream, Santana’s Greatest Hits, U2’s Joshua Tree, Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms. Substantially poorer but much happier, we put our Diggin’ Melbourne map away for another day.

That day dawned sunny and warm after the debaucheries of New Year’s Eve. The first day of January was perfect for a walking tour around Federation Square and the colourful gates of Chinatown in the city’s central business district. Shorn of office crowds, the lanes were deserted, like unopened oysters full of hidden promise. While the city slumbered, we walked through a glorious sunny afternoon and a mellow dusk creating our own stories under the awnings and empty promenades along the Yarra River, the alleys of Flinder’s Lane painted with careless, colourful masterpieces by some of top street artists.  Since rents were high in the CBD, some of the stores on our map had vanished. Others had been transformed into strange animals. One second-hand vinyl shop along Elizabeth Street had become a specialist Japanese supermarket selling odd edibles and even odder pink Hello Kitty-themed bric-a-brac.

Then, as we were walking along a crowded intersection along Swanston Street, we realised that we had dropped our Diggin’ Melbourne map somewhere along the way.  Terrified at the prospect of losing our lifeline to the city, we retraced our steps, peering into dustbins where we had emptied plastic takeaway coffee cups, sifting through the public ashtrays where we had stubbed out our cigarettes, carefully circling every bench and every clump of grass we had trod upon. As we descended into the dumps of despair, we saw a familiar piece of paper fluttering round and round a lamppost. We were on the road again.

After discovering that at least three stores in the vicinity of the CBD had shut down, we stumbled upon the sign and ponderous stairway to Collectors Corner. ‘From the dirt cheap to the ridiculously rare’ is what they claimed to stock. The no-frills space was filled with piles of vinyl stacked in cardboard boxes. We spent so much time browsing and querying that the once-friendly owner soon lost his smile and growled at us till we left the place—but not before we had got ourselves a rare twosome: The Best of the Mamas and Papas and From the Mars Hotel by the Grateful Dead. Gratified by the loot, lulled by the evening nip and stuffed by grilled crocodile in a friendly cafe in Chinatown, we were nearly done with our tour and our time in the city.

We had seen the city through squares on our map. We had smelled a city of slightly stale dust and old paper in vintage stores. We tapped our feet and clapped our hands as an ignored street band belted out some great music.  It seemed that elves had come out of the crevices and taken us on a tour of a parallel city of forgotten music. We had relived our rock-n-roll preteen years, our waspish teenage love for grunge, our pretentious jazzy early twenties and our fun, indie, peculiar whims of the years that followed as we indulged in some good ol’ vinyl love in the land down under. 

Malaysia truly Asia

Prologue

Malaysian food was not something I considered particularly alien or particularly exciting for that matter. Coconut, red chillies, peanuts, steamed rice, dried fish in various permutations and combinations with chicken, prawns, and vegetables had become a staple in the ever mushrooming clutch of oriental restaurants in my neighbourhood. So much so that by the time we actually decided to go to Malaysia, I had eaten enough Malay food to last me a life time and even the thought of the real deal—authentic Malay food in Malaysia—hardly inspired a spark of excitement, much less a foodgasm.

Part I  

Air Asia might be a low budget carrier, but the food is a surprise. It outshines the rubberized fare we are accustomed to in many of our full service airlines and comes piping hot in little silver foil containers. Remove the lid and you are assailed with the aromas that do more for me than the ‘Malaysia truly Asia’ jingle. They are alien and nothing like the nasi lemaks and rendangs I have had back home. Suspended thousands of feet above ground, in between countries, I ate my first Nasi Lemak in all its pungent, pickled and preserved glory. The first rumbles of excitement quickened my gut. I was ready to touch down in Malaysia.

KL glitters by night. It is Fritz Lang’s metropolis of towers and spires of chrome and glass. It is futuristic and grand sonnet in steel. As we are driven to our bed in the 22-storey tower, I watch the city in a semi slumber. The lights never go out but the people do go to bed. And our food options diminish rapidly. I will gloss over the part where we go to a McDonalds stuff our faces with a Quarter Pounder with Cheese as it is vulgar. Instead we shall fast forward to the hotel/tower with a glorious pool on the roof with a view of the famous Petronas Towers.

It’s nice to wake up to a gorgeous view of the city’s impressive skyline from the glass wall that runs along your bed and continues to the bathtub. We awoke to a new day of sightseeing and eating. Late to rise, short on time (we had one day in the city before we moved to our next destination), we sped through Petaling Street with its impressive gates opening on to an older world removed from the glamorous malls and corporate skyscrapers. As we stepped into Chinatown, we were greeted by strange snake-like creatures on grills, herbal concoctions being served out of beautiful Chinese tea pots in tea shops, a dozen roast ducks skewered through their hearts and precariously balanced from hooks. There were stalls selling longan (a litchi like fruit), stalls selling Chicken Rice (a specialty around these parts and an essential part of Malay cuisine) and stalls selling Indian food with virulent orange tandoori chicken hanging as organic symbols of the tri colour. Most of these stalls were right on the road. Some had a few plastic chairs and a table, while others had even less. We dodged vendors selling ‘fake originals’ and old toothless ladies waving bits of meat, till we arrived at a chicken rice stall which had a crowd around it. This was my test of any non verified establishment, big or small. If people flocked to it, it couldn’t be a complete disaster. The Chicken Rice came with a giant bowl of stock, little servings of red chilli paste, sliced cucumbers and a large portion of sliced chicken. The chicken was poached with its shiny, slightly glutinous outer skin providing nice texture. The reason this dish is so popular is because it’s a simple balancing of flavours and textures--the smooth tender chicken, the sticky grains of rice, the sharp edge of the red chilli, the cool crunch of cucumber and the hot broth to dunk your rice, chicken or your face in it (depending on the size of the bowl).

After many icy tender coconut drinks and many miles walked on burning asphalt and air conditioned mall floors, we decided to make our next food stop at the giant among malls – Berjaya Times Square. From steamboat restaurants to tropical fruit salads to sushi bars, it was all under one cavernous roof. After one poached meat, we decided to go the raw way despite the very inviting Uncle Duck’s Steamboat Restaurant around the corner which beckoned with its bubbling cauldron and pile of raw meats ready to be dunked, cooked and eaten. We were distracted by the cheerful lime green and yellow exterior of Sakae Sushi and promptly walked into what I regard as my best assembly line food experience till date. Our orders were on an ipad, our food came in little tagged bowls on a conveyor belt and we got a little photo op at the end of the meal which were the best photos of us on the trip.  Our first day ended with a strange experience at a leery beery odd little bar called the Beach Café Bar which even our cabbie disapproved of saying that it was not the ‘right’ kind of place for a young honeymooning couple like ourselves although we were neither all that young or honeymooning. But a few beers later leery men and beery women look pretty much the same. And happy and hungry we swayed into a place advertised as an Argentine steak house. With glorious peppered rib-eye steaks and Argentinean vintage in our bellies, we slept like well-fed cats.

Part II 

Morning saw us ensconced in a bus on our way to Taman Negara, believed to be the oldest tropical rainforest in the world. A 4-hour bus drive brought us to the Kuala Tembeling jetty. Thereafter the road ended and a boat awaited us. It felt like a journey into the green heart of the planet. The ancient, impossibly tall trees standing as gnarled sentinels to the ravages of time.

Our resort was right at the edge of the reserve itself. I walked under the soft spray of the constant rain, I heard bird song and I ate Beef Rendang (a spicy and semi sweet meat curry) Nasi Lemak and Chicken Rice for three days which was very nice. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth and that was a good thing because the resort was quite lacking in the dessert department with bright pink, synthetic cream pastries and angry green turgid jellies on offer.

But the place was far too lovely to complain about the food. I walked over the forest on a swaying walkway in the pitter-pattering rain. I saw as the birds did, the majestic sea of green seething with life and age. Everything around me had been here since the beginning of time.

We were hungry most of the time and we ate what was on offer without a whimper. Simple no-fuss Malay food is what we got. And we were content.

Part III

We returned to KL for Christmas Eve celebrations before our flight out to Penang. Arriving in the middle of the Christmas bustle, we were ready to eat. After an overdose of the lemaks, we wanted something a little more global. And thus we discovered Changkat Bukit Bintang. This particular street was buzzing with colour, food and drink. Lined with bars, al fresco restaurants and cafes specializing in food from across the world, this was a street with character and drama. Quiet and sunny during the day, this looked like a street grabbing a quick afternoon siesta in preparation for the big night ahead.

We were lured into Giovinoby the ‘Homemade Wild Boar Sausages’ scrawled on the blackboard outside. The quaint wine shop and restaurant serving Italian and Greek food and a lovely collection of wines did live up to its promise. The home made wild boar sausage was excellent and so was the wild boar stewed in red wine.

As the late afternoon sun faded into a dusky orange, I watched the city begin to heave and awaken. As I watched the first rumblings of activity, I realized the cultural mêlée that chequered the fabric of this country. It was a traditional country keenly aware of its history, its religion, its language and its roots. It was also a supremely liberal country. A small case in point was the fact that I was sitting in an outdoor cafe, gorging on wild boar and cider near the heart of a predominantly Muslim city. Across the road, a Tamilian family in traditional attire were dumping bags of groceries from an international supermarket chain into the boot of their car. A few streets away pretty young things were powdering their noses for a raucous night of partying on the party strip at Jalan Sultan Ismail. A few intersections away, Chinese housewives were gathering their pots and pans with simmering soups and crackling roasts and making their way to the night markets on Petaling Street. While, we were eating lunch Bukit Bintang had bedecked herself with tinsel, silver bells and fairy lights. Even in the sharp humid air, the smell of Christmas cake and mulled wine were hard to miss. As the muezzin gave the call for the evening prayer, I linked arms with the husband and made our way back to our temporary home in the clouds.

Only to emerge a few hours later. Christmas Eve celebrations were in full swing. Expats, Malaysians, tourists from the sub continent, tourists from the western world jostled for space on Bukit Bintang. A group of bikers on giant machines had arrived at a pub across us. We were drinking our nth bottle of cider, digging into the roast turkey and peoplewatching. Santa hats, crackers, whistles and a street wide countdown and crazy impromptu jigs made this a Christmas to remember. We hugged strangers. We danced with new friends. We ushered in a truly merry Christmas on a balmy tropical night.

Part IV

Next morning we took a leisurely afternoon flight to Penang: the much awaited food capital of the country with its heritage buildings, its heritage food and white sand beaches. We were living in the heart of the Georgetown, the UNESCO world heritage site and the possibly the one of the most interesting and charming parts of Malaysia. Georgetown is street food paradise. On our very first night, ensconced in trishaws we made our way around the oldest part of the island just taking in the smells. There is nothing I enjoy more than sight-smelling. The aromas and odours of a city are so intrinsically twinned with its appearance that I can rarely remember one separately.

Gerogetown is not a town. It is a giant pot where culture, food and history melts into a curry that is entirely unique. The Peranakan or Baba Nyonya culture is predominant here. The early Chinese settlers married Malaysians and fused with them in an organic manner adapting their traditional food, clothes, architecture and language to a life in the erstwhile British Straits. Variously known as the Straits Chinese, Peranakan and Baba Nyonya, their food is exciting and redolent of flavours fused seamlessly to create a love child that is creative and full of surprises.

Randomly chosen off the internet, the wonderfully quaint and beautifully appointed Yeng Keng Hotel with its super nice and friendly staff was just perfect. This 19^th century mansion is a heritage site in its own right and also serves authentic Hainanese food.

From carts in the street serving up Chinese fare to Thai and Malay Indian food, this is street food paradise. Carts, makeshift stalls and a few plastic chairs is the basic infrastructure provided. But the food is fresh and delightful. I can’t help but lapse into clichés. But if there was a paradise for street food junkies, Georgetown would be it.

To cut a long list short, we ate from dusk till dawn. We ate Char Kway Teow, a staple consisting of flat noodles, assorted sea food and some veggies tossed and tossed on a wok till it waylays a hungry tourist and makes its way onto a plastic plate and a happy belly. Dim sum, banana fritters, sticky sweet rice and local fruit combos wrapped in banana leaves formed our breakfasts. Washed down with copious quantities of Ipoh white Coffee (coffee beans roasted with palm oil and either served as a flavoured premixed powder or served black with condensed milk) served on ice, we set out to explore the city. Colonial buildings, Nyonya architecture, south Indian green grocers, Chinese tea shops, massage chairs in swanky malls and a gorgeous promenade by the sea jostled for our space and time. And thankfully we were perpetually hungry.

I visited my first night market, the grand Red Garden Food Paradise and Night market which was a colourful permanent street food tent serving up everything from a claypot stew of frogs legs (which was delicious) to fried oysters, karaoke singers and the works ensuring that your night is a good one. We spent the evening wandering from one bar to the next on Upper Penang Road drinking ourselves silly at the line of bars with imaginative names and equally imaginative neon signage. We took a break to eat at the Night Market and then wound up the lovely evening with a nightcap at the gorgeous Eastern and Oriental Hotel, the grand dame among all the buildings in Malaysia with an unrivalled view across the ocean.

We spent our last day in Batu Ferringhi getting our fill of the sun and sand and NOT eating any seafood. A word of warning. Many of the seafood places with live tanks and aquariums on display housing all kinds of large and exotic creatures are traps as ‘price according to weight’ is a dubious thing indeed. We settled for a nice fish done Malaysian Indian style (in other words a fairly fiery curry with recognizable Indian spices and a dash of Malay herbs) at Helena’s Cafe and were not disappointed. Homely and full of natural flavours, the food was good and hearty. Batu Ferringhi is the assembly-line striped store wrapping to the hidden homemade toffee that is Georgetown and despite the sea and the sand, is good only for a day trip.

Epilogue:

Our last meal in Malaysia exorcised my devils and distaste in one fell sweep. Nyonya Baba Cuisinewas where we ate our last meal in the country. It was a serious name for a serious restaurant. Formerly known as the Dragon King, this was a restaurant with its heart and wok in the right place. Every dish on this family-run restaurant was lovingly created by the lady of the house and served fresh and steaming hot on beautiful red plates with delicate Chinese patterns. The restaurant was housed in an old Nyonya style building with Chinese and Malay accents. It was small, cosy and completely authentic. From the Otak Otak (fish steamed until soft as mousse in a banana leaf with an exciting array of Malay and Chinese herbs) to the deep fried and absolutely divine pork rolls served with a sweetish chilli dip, from the Hong Bak, or pork in a thick flavourful gravy to Curry Kapitam, a chicken curry with distinct Straits Chinese flavours, each dish was spicy, meaty, rich and bursting with flavour.

This was a meal to expel all pretenders who claim to know the truth about Malaysian food. The truth that is often missed by the expensive oriental restaurant in most countries and the truth that is apparent in a simple street cart in Georgetown and the truth that stares at you from red plates with Chinese patterns. That food is history and this history was contained in every mouthful of every meal that I ate in Malaysia.

(A much shorter version of this piece was published in the February issue of India Today Travel Plus)

If Life was a Beach Part II

If life were a beach I'd wear cockle shells in my ear
I'd douse my hair in yesterday's leftover beer.

I'd love the smell of spiced pig blood
Every newcomer in my square foot of sandy paradise would be a long lost bud

I'd wake every morning wondering which crustacean to skewer
And go to bed dreaming about a pink and juicy porker.

The Tale of a Lobster called Shushanto (circa 2008)

As I fell hook, line and sinker for the artful poesy of a romance stolen from Woody Allen and Satyajit Ray involving country boats, rainy days, shared umbrellas and stolen moments under bright city lights, there was little that could stop the deal from being sealed. And so a whirlwind followed and the events ended with a missus tag, a bag full of sunscreen and an air ticket to Port Blair and a raging appetite for something other than the rich Mughlai kebabs and curries that had dotted the week-long wedding festivities.

I had acquired the look of a half starved newly wed through a rigorous cud-chewing diet of salad leaves and boiled chicken in order to squeeze into my expensive wedding outfit tailored to perfection to a size I used to be three months before the wedding. Now that I had survived the endless photo ops  without a major wardrobe malfunction...I was a woman on a mission. A mission to make up for all those missed luncheons and dinners.

Knotted, be-ringed and otherwise tied to each other for what was to be presumably a long time, we we set off to the Andamans with love in our hearts and a rumble in our bellies.

Our first port of call was Port Blair - a strait-laced administrative capital...a rocky non-beach...the dreaded home of the Cellular Jail, a pitstop serving toast, chicken sausages and tea.

 I remember going on a long ferry ride. I remember the smell of cauliflowers which despite my fondness for the vegetable is a very rotten smell indeed. I remember the smell following me to the corners of that boat. I also remember the endless shades of blue as the sun glinted off the water. I remember a European girl with a very flat belly that she promptly decided to sun on the deck. I remember two very sullen newly weds (not us!) and an American Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.

I remember arriving at the island that unlocked that perfect picture postcard which had been in my head since I was a youngling. I remember glimpses of white sands, a pair of elephants, red-roofed villas, coconut trees and a long menu of seafood specials. And I remember every detail of the first meal.

The sun shone benevolently. The bamboo curtains in front of our lovely gazebo style resort restaurant parted and we walked in, our bare feet slip sliding over the burnished wooden floor warmed by the balmy weather.  The meal ordered, we sipped on chilled coconut water and whetted our appetites which seem to have grown meaner and keener with the smell of the sea and could slash a poor crustacean to shreds with its sharp-edged fury.

And I remember my first meal. All these years later, the taste of that freshly grilled, gargantuan crab doused in garlic butter still makes me burst into a corny song:

You know I'm such a fool for you.
You got me wrapped around your finger, ah, ha, ha.
Do you have to let it linger? Do you have to, do you have to,
Do you have to let it linger?

It has lingered in my taste memory somewhere just like the blood memory of vampires. You could tap into some neuron and see the dark fantasies of my teeth closing over a tender, bright red claw or my hands pulverizing a belly full of sweet flesh.

We had all the conventional must-haves for any honeymoon.
There was the dappled sun, azure seas, sun dresses, glorious tans, canopied four poster beds, open-air luxurious showers, yellowfin tuna, wine at sunset, kisses by the moonlit sea. 

We also had games.
We played scrabble on the beach and 'count the tentacle game' with our deep-fried whole baby octopus platter.

We had accidents and adventure.
We fell off our scooter on day two of our honeymoon after deciding to see the island like the other young and freewheeling sporty outdoorsy sorts. Thereafter the  husband being too traumatized by the 'accident' decided to nurse his wounds in our lovely four poster with a book and his ipod, while I decided to continue on our scheduled activity for the day -  'kayaking for two'. With the first fledgling wings of adventure sprouting on my shoulders, I rowed my not-so-sturdy sea vessel into the ponderous roots of the mangrove-studded riverine canals. After the first half hour entangled in acute embarrassment, I managed to steer into the widening rivulet, all the way out into the open seas. Buffeted by the salty air and carried by the gentle waves, I freed myself from my city sloth and  pulled and pushed with my gravel-scraped palms into a wonderful ride over yellow coral beds.

We also had alcohol.
We drank a most exotic tropical cocktail. If there could be a drink that could act like a portal  into a land of summer, spices and the ocean breeze, the starfruit martini would be it. This tiny drink without any frills or cocktail umbrellas packed a deadly punch with the muddled fruit, dollops of salt and lime and some sugar syrup and oodles of vodka/white rum. We rubbed the salt off the rim and watched the last rays of the setting sun getting distorted through the condensed glass.

We also made friends.
The man in question was a jolly Italian cook, who for some strange reason had chosen this spit of land to get marooned on (four years ago, living on Havelock Island was akin to getting marooned here. dark patches of forest, erratic electricity, basic infrastructure, lots of fresh seafood) with his wife and had started a lovely restaurant called Mahua serving rustic Italian fare with seafood as its focus.

We had a murder.
Two minutes after we met Shushanto and posed for a photo together, we ended up murdering him.
He was handsome after the green-blue fashion popular among his kind, dripping salt water and smelling of the sea. He struggled bravely trapped in the Italian man's vice-like grip in what he knew were about to be his last moments. There was an air of gravity and tragedy about him. And in a spurt of sentimentality we decided to name him, Shushanto, a perfectly peaceful name for a creature that grew more thoughtful and more still as its end drew near.
We sealed the deal with the Italian and became the sea lobster's de facto executioners.
In order to honour him, we dressed for the occasion and ate a meal akin to the last supper. We were so deliriously well fed by Shushanto, that we didn't mind if the punishment for our crimes led to an eternity in an underwater hell in the belly of a giant green lobster.

 We had a haunting.
In an odd twist of fate, we got lost after this meal and as the last twinkling light of the restaurant (which was a good 30 minute walk from our resort) disappeared, we found ourselves in utter darkness. We walked through damp undergrowth on that especially moonless night with all kinds of night creatures hooting around us and little crabs crawling across our flip-flopped toes in a spine chilling manner. We were convinced it was Shushanto's revenge from the beyond and we laid our feet carefully on the ground in order to avoid stepping on his crab cousins. The husband sang some old silly ditty about farm animals (most of which we had eaten in the recent past) increasing the dread in my heart at the awarness of our growing ledger of sins.

We had a moment.
But just as I was about to take a dreadful vow of vegetarianism, we stumbled back on the path we knew. The gods had spoken. Shushanto was at peace and we were ready to fly back home with love in our hearts and our bellies full of optimism for the life ahead. 


The chronology of this little travel series is a little flawed. While Part I started with the most recent holiday, part II and III are earlier trips and the pieces themselves are half-remembered pieced together versions which might not reflect journalistic accuracy. I choose to call these my personal vignettes based on smells (good and bad), memorable meals, standout dishes, gorgeous sunsets, midnight walks and crabs by moonlight. This story has more to do with the actual surf and turf of things rather than detours off the beach.

If Life was a Beach Part I

If life was a beach
dotted with crabs, cocktail umbrellas and drinks smelling of plum and peach
I'd begin my day with a seafood stew
I'd wash it down with some pungent coconutty local brew
I'd splash about in the waters till lunch
To sate my belly with a lobster brunch

But well, life rarely lets you sunbathe in peace and so it is only on rare occasions that one trades the computer mouse for a bright yellow toy spade and thus armed embarks on a journey to search for the perfectly sunny clime, the perfect stretch of unbroken white sands and the sweetest grilled crab in butter garlic sauce there could be.
With such humble ambitions the husband and I embarked on our longest vacation till date to explore Goa in all its lovely rain-washed splendour.
The fact that this was off season, meant great discounts, lower numbers of seekers searching for the elusive 'self', lesser raggedy shacks and many more fresh catches of the day to go around.
Our journey started on a rather ominous note as we  found ourselves on a roach infested, smelly interstate bus. What was advertized on the Internet was a glamorous coach with pop art on its body and  luxurious extras. What we clambered into on a rain sodden night was a rattly tin can airing mindless David Dhawan juvenile sex comedies at top volume.

The dreams of sun and the sand on the other side helped me survive the night.
The moment we entered the state I felt my spirits lift. My heart soared as i could imagine the spray of salt in my face. Although when I embarked from the bus all i felt was a light rain drizzling down and wetting the end of my freshly painted pink toenails.
The sky was grey as we took a cab to our hotel of choice, a highly recommended spanking new and small little resort in Anjuna. I was dreaming of the sound of the sea and a view of a vast blue expanse from my room and I nearly missed what was right under my nose.

It was not the beach, it was not the sea and it wasn't even sunny.
But here was Goa like a hidden pearl glinting in the watery sun. There were rows of gleaming pink walls, latticed windows, red tiled roofs, purple geraniums in little pots, spotlessly white churches with jet black steeples. Old Portuguese architecture cleaned by the rain, offset by shades of emerald green. Life bursting at every corner as creepers unfurled and waved delicately as our car whizzed by at breakneck speed.We had been travelling for over an hour through the rural heart of North Goa awash in the tender green of young coconuts and strangely I had forgotten all about the sea.

As we turned into a little village road and drew up into the driveway of our hotel - the Hacienda de Goa, there were no sea facing windows. In fact the sea was a good 15 minute drive from this place. Before I could voice my disappointment, the Mediterranean design, the sprawling suites, spotless white walls, chintzy curtains, red tiled roofs and chirruping of birds had turned me into a convert. A few moments later, as I sat by the pool side with a beer in my hand every hint of a grumble had escaped with a burp.

Run by the friendly and gracious Mr. Thomas who was as hands on in the kitchen as he was in the office, the Hacienda de Goa truly embodied the grand maternal warmth of a family run estate. As i took large swigs of the local King's beer which to be honest is not the best brew in the world. But the price point (it costs as much as bottled water), the thrill of consuming an authentic local drink without worrying about alcohol poisoning and the fact that it was icy cold really smoothed out its imperfections. Combined with home-cooked Kerala beef cutlets with the crunch of coconut and whole black pepper, a succulent beef fry and  mounds of steaming rice, the day seemed full of potential. Coming from a beef deprived state, these tender and flavourful bites of meat did all that its tough as nails buff  counterpart constantly failed to do.

A few winks and some more beers later we decided it was time. To see the sea and eat all its divine creatures. As we made our way to Baga Beach, that buzzing centre of north Goa in our newly serviced sturdy steed of a Santro, we expected the tourist hordes, the honeymooners, the hippie relics, the yuppie NRIs etc but what we saw was woebegone shopfronts selling dusty I heart GOA t shirts, roadside shacks with their shutters half down and puddles of rain water collecting on their thresholds and a few vendors hawking their florescent sticks and lurid devils' horns rather half halfheartedly. while we expected it to be slow, we didn't expect it to be a somnambulist's paradise.
In hope of a meal that might compensate the lack of  bright lights and festivities, we made our way to a tried and tested Britto's - that much visited bastion of drunken nights, seafood binges and idle days. At least our collective nostalgia had hued it in all those rosy tints. And like most nostalgic lenses the view it offered was a little askew.

Rambunctious little boys played tag around our chairs. Precariously balanced on a wooden platform with one chair leg buried in the sand, staying upright had become a task. The plate full of butter garlic prawns cheered me up some although it lacked that fresh 'I was swimming around under your toes under a minute ago' taste.

The husband reliving his bachelor days boy's trip had ordered his drink of choice - a swimming pool - a strange looking pale blue concoction of curacao, pineapple and coconut cream. Admonished by the waiter for demanding something as absurd as coconut water on a beach, I sheepishly sipped on my Malibu and diet coke and attacked another prawn dripping butter. The crabs that I wanted were ominously expensive, the ambience missed a certain joie de vivre and the congealed butter on the plate made my stomach churn enough to want to leave and go somewhere new. Nostalgia does leave an aftertaste sometimes that is not altogether pleasant. I walked out to catch my first glimpse of the waves, a sight that made had made me smile since I was a wee child. I saw the white crested stormy sea, felt gusts of cold blustery wind and drops of rain on my upturned face. It wasn't quite the balmy-summer-night-on-a-beach-where-you-could-hold-hands-under-the-stars. I felt bits of garbage under my toes and heard a gaggle of Punjabi housewives shrieking at a baby wave licking at their toes.

And onwards to Cavala, one of the oldest bars in the area. It warmed the cockles of my heart and I felt like a  traveller on a cold winter's night who had walked into a Victorian inn warmed by a roaring fire and pitchers of ale. Warm wooden interiors, soft light bulbs imaginatively imprisoned in bird cages and little fairy lights hidden inside squat, green coloured King's beer bottles, with a bar menu that included exotic absinthe cocktails as well as an old man playing Frank Sinatra songs on the piano. If I was a fish, i had just been hooked. Dinner was a Goan sausage curry - pert pieces of fatty sausage in a fiery potato and onion curry and a rather overpowering prawn masala. We never ate there again but we returned time and again to partake of the tipple and the wonderful ambience. Cavala was like a colonial club for the locals, a lace to meet and greet and sing all the 60s songs you knew and dance atop tables with as much flair as you could manage. It was a place where the old and the young mingled with equal ease and friendly banter flew around the room.

And sometimes life's a bitch...even on a beach. dissatisfied with our night time hello to the sea we decided to brave the busiest of beaches which is Goa's Chowpatty - Calangute. A beach that is depressing in its built up squalor and filth, Calangute was crowded (come hail or storm, Calangute is always crowded) and teeming with life. I wanted to run the moment I arrived. back to my peaceful Hacienda and my chilled beer at Cavala. However there we were to try one of the restaurants which had received much praise and success...enough to open up branches in Delhi. That should have been warning enough as north Indians are not big on seafood and as I sat munching my crisp tandoori lobster with tasted all tandoori and very little lobster in a character-less restaurant, I rued the waste of half a day at Calangute and an unappetizing meal.

Goa in the monsoon is not a place where you lounge on the beach. It rains all the time and is clammy and still when its not raining. The beach is muddy and squelchy and every single shack serving Goan treats and Goan tipple has been dismantled and dumped under layers of tarp for the season. It is not the time to hunt for fresh seafood because even the fishermen take a break and there is no fresh catch of the day. So the buttered and garlicky grills are not a good idea unless butter garlic rubber is your thing.

Goa in the monsoon is a place where you explore the lovely country side, when you soak in the laid back vibe of the land without being an idiotic tourist and learn how to bring a little bit of susegad into your life...Goa in the monsoon is where you go trekking in the hills, where you stand behind the ramparts of old Portuguese forts and where you eat full bodied meats cooked in the familiar-yet-unfamiliar gullet burning spices and souring agents.

It is the time of the year where you do as the locals do, eat as the locals eat and party as they do. Abandoning the idea of a beach holiday we tried to discover Goa shorn of its hummus and pita bread, schnitzel and pancakes and welcomed the sausage pulaos and vindaloos with stomachs reinforced with Uni-enzyme pills.

Lloyd's Steak and Grill - a non assuming eatery was a surprise of the good sort. with four tiny tables packed into a tiny garage, the only cooking surface was a large sized charcoal grill and the only ingredients - the best cuts of beef, pork chops, lamb racks with a few fat homemade sausages thrown in for company.The tiny space behind the counter had a microwave and boxes of freshly made Goan food prepared by Lloyd's mother. This place operated from 7 in the evening till 4 in the morning and was a veritable treasure trove for a meat lover. I broke into meat sweats but I savoured every last bite of the perfectly done, smoky flavored grills.

A quiet meal comprising a fish recheado, meaty and fragrant vindaloo and sausage fry  at the pretty Charcoal & Cheese tucked away on the road leading up to the Taj Aguada was better than anything we had eaten as we drove from one pitstop to the next all over north Goa eating fried calamari and butter garlic prawns till we felt like the two of us had made a sizeable dent in the population figures of these creatures.

Churches, cathedrals, old Portuguese markets, a mackerel recheado, vindaloo and more prawn and squid later we realized that our time was nearly done. Just as I was getting used to the gentle drizzle and learning how to put up my umbrella at the exact moment before it turned into a downpour. Just as I was learning to love the winding roads through green fields without worrying whether we would skid off the wet roads and land with a crash in the self same fields. Just as I was falling deeply in love with this state and planning my post retirement home here which would NOT be on a beach. As we made our way to the airport through the heart of north-central Goa, the changing scene outside my window and the promise of a meal with potential kept me from sinking into utter despair.

And what a delightful last supper it was. Ferdinand's Nostalgia nestled in the heart of Salcette is a neighborhood joint as well as a well kept local secret. We crossed grounds with local football tournaments going on in full swing, neighbourhood schools which had just given over for the day and majestic country churches hunting for a restaurant whose address had cryptic local references such as 'near Eduardo Faleiro's residence'. We pestered the helpful lady who ran the place and every passersby on the street every 200 metres to make sure we didn't miss it and finally drew into a leafy driveway with an old brightly painted Portuguese mansion. Not knowing what to expect we walked into one of the most charming places I have been to in my life. A large open hall had been converted into the restaurant space with a stage and a dance floor. The tables were nestled on a raised platform  and covered in bright cloth. An array of quirky bric-a-brac cluttered most spaces giving the place a very unique look. The bottles on the set out in no particular order and the whole place had an air of gay abandon. One whole wall had a mural by Goa's most famous son, Mario Miranda and right in front of that was a long trestle table with a huge family of 20 odd members come to celebrate the 80th birthday of someone who looked like the grand patriarch of the household. The space, the setting, the warmth of the sun, it all felt like a Buendia family dinner straight out of One Hundred Years of Solitude.

The restaurant was started by a locally renowned chef called Fernando who incorporated some of the most interesting elements from Goan-Portuguese cuisine in an attempt to popularize the lesser known food as well as preserve the traditions of making them. His wife continues to run the place and the aptly named Fernando's Nostalgia seems as much a paean to her husband and their shared life as it is to the food that he created.

As the jolly old saxophone player came up to our table playing an old fashioned ragtime tune especially for us, I sat spellbound. This was the moment of our trip where we clasped hands across the table without a care as to how we would catch our flight which was a mere hour and a half away. We felt old fashioned, romantic, like we had discovered our very own hideaway for a special date. We ordered off little metallic lids with the menu engraved in ink and ate among the most spectacular meals ever. Sauteed ox tongue in Goan spices, a meaty, brothy, bloody, spicy sorpotel (made with pig blood and offal), a pomfret ambotik (a spicy sweet and sour sauce) wiped up with fluffy sannas (idly like steamed breads) and washed down with gallons of beer.

We ate, we ran to the airport and boarded our flight. As we were taking off, we burped nearly in unison...to a holiday well eaten.

'Keep Truckin - like the Doodah Man'

Weaving his way through a sea of bright red plastic chairs is a little boy who cajoles every passerby with a wave. He tempts with his little plate of wonders. Piled high with fat, freshly baked parathas with a big dollops of white butter or a spicy plate of rajma chawal or even a simple dal-sabzi-roti this is sin in a stainless steel thali.

White, brown and cream  roundels of just-baked unleavened breads stuffed with generous helpings of fresh white radish, greens and white cauliflower florets, and a medley of leafy treats and little coin sized servings of spicy, orange pickle. These are the predominant colours of spring for a truck driver or businessman doing the familiar circuit down the NH1.
Haryana in spring is like a mischievous bride who is somewhere in between puberty-inspired awkwardness and dazzling beauty. There is the proverbial spring in the step as visitors, locals, friends and foes bounce from one charpoy to the next...

Driving down the highway in Haryana, one learns to eagerly wait for these dhabas with their freshly made rustic fare served in without any fanfare under dusty umbrellas and fringed by acres of mustard. The whole scene could be a set piece out of a glorious Bollywood romance. A dhaba in Haryana is her gift to overworked truck drivers, young holidaymakers, enthusiastic Enfield biker gangs and adventurous city folk alike.Interstate travellers on NH1 stop for a stretch, fresh air, potty breaks and the glorious parathas. One of the first pit stops for highway crawlers is Murthal. Barely 50 kms out of Delhi, this little town in the Sonipat district of Haryana has seen a fair bit of development due to its location right by the highway. Its claim to fame however is its beribboned and streamer festooned dhaba. There is a dhaba nearly every 100m the moment one steps into the Murthal stretch and this particular culture has extracted the town from its anaemic existence and given it shot of pizzazz...akin to the tiny servings of red onion juliennes doused in red chilli powder and lime juice that transform a simple meal of dal-chawal.Though primarily vegetarian, some of these eateries will serve tandoori chicken to go with layered parathas and dal tadka. Early to mid March is a lovely time to visit as the weather is perfect for a leisurely afternoon meal on a charpoy. Spring time veggies and greens just make the experience more enjoyable. Homemade  butter comes as a side order with anything that you order here. Don't forget to order the spicy bathua raita (a Haryanvi specialty made with curd, bathua saag or pigweed and dried spices) that will send oodles of pleasure to every nerve fibre on your tongue. 

Further along the NH1, many cheerful establishments just  pop up on either side of the road and sometimes pass by in a blur of colour as your speedometer registers a 100kmph and the milestone reads Panipat - 1 km. Tinny sounds from the radio play herald and a string of  light bulbs twinkle like a minor constellation. These are the sights and sounds that welcome you to Panipat. The dhaba land of Panipat is distinguished by a new sign. Pachranga is to Panipat nearly what the first, second and third battles of the selfsame Panipat are to the annals of Indian history. This local pickle manufacturer has built its brand for nearly a century and has carried rich aroma of its pickles and chutneys to every corner of India and abroad. A special seasonal favourite is the carrot, cauliflower and turnip pickle that is matured in the sun through the winter months and is ready for the first taste with the end of the cold season. From the ubiquitous mango, lime and chilli to the more exotic lotus stem pickle, Pachranga pickles are available at nearly every grocery shop and dhaba in Haryana. Those merely passing through can buy bottles of this divine concoction at the numerous makeshift tents and roadside stalls. Bring a bottle of Pachranga pickle home and watch your end-of-the-day, five-minute meal transform into a tingling feast for the taste buds.

Continue driving down the long snaking artery through Haryana’s heart and you will reach the town of Karnal. Famous for its dairy research centres ( yes they actually study milk and its varied produce), the undisputed cereal queen or Basmati rice and Liberty Shoes (remember its cute, retro-pop advertising?), this town is recommended for your sweet tooth. From ghee-soaked and piping hot jalebis to the much lauded rewri and gajjak. These peculiar too-sweet molasses and sesame seed concoction are oddballs in my sweetmeat heaven. Yet, they seem to be incredibly popular around these parts. Big piles of these sweets dominate every glass-fronted, fly-encrusted sweet shop in this town. Around Basant Panchami or the spring festival, there is a new entrant on the scene. Like the Coldplay song, like a surly teen's jaundiced vision, every thing is yellow around this time, around these parts. Mithe chawal (a traditional delicacy prepared with rice, dried fruits, nuts and saffron) is a confection in yellow, eaten by people dressed in yellow sitting by fields aglow in yellow. 

As the NH1 passes through the age old district of Kurukshetra, the pre Cable TV, Sunday morning 9 o clock ritual comes to mind. Doordarsan gave us Ravi Chopra's magnum opus called Mahabharata and as you drive through the forlorn streets of Kurukshetra, fuelled by an empty stomach and hyperactive imagination, you can feel yourself ducking magical arrows with multicoloured sparks. And shocking a placid cow with your acrobatics.Notable because of its Mahabharata connection, Kurukshetra is a religious hub and a picturesque rural retreat. Jyotisar which is a short detour off the NH1 is a lovely spot where Krishna delivered the Bhagwad Gita. This is also a good pitstop if your hungry stomach is playing tricks on your mind. Their simple and hearty Makki di Roti and Sarson da Saag will not disappoint in all its buttery effusion.

Now just before the highway enters Punjab, the land of five rivers and Fish Amritsari and the real Tandoori Chicken, a  largish industrial town materializes from the fug. Ambala, a genteel town with rough edges is part colonial, part Punjabi, part Haryanvi and all chaos and colour. This major railroad junction and army/air force base is a repository of different types of cuisine and celebrations. The spring breeze tied to a kite string flies from roof to roof spreading warmth and joy in every passerby's heart. 

Moving up from the heart towards the gullet that is, one must take a detour off the NH1 into the Halwai  bazaar or sweetmaker's market. One of the interesting things about halwais are that they are versatile and try their hand at delicious savoury treats like pakoras, kachoris and the lovely chaats glutting you with multiple sensory experiences till you are ready to swoon. 
This particular bazaar is a collection of halwai shops, reeking of the pungent aromas of spicy dipping sauces,  the oily perfume of onion fritters and the gently tantalizing whiff of sweet ghee and molasses. You cannot return without having dipped your chops into the golgappas with seven types of flavoured water and bhalla chaat ( a sweet and sour symphony in curd, mint, tamarind and lentil dumplings. 
Strangely bereft of meat, this road trip can wind up or down at the meat lover's Mecca - Puran Singh ka Mashhoor Dhaba. Strangely enough the success of the original spawned many clones and all of them mushroomed around the same spot. Arm your nose with a Holmesian instinct and walk around from one Puran Singh Dhaba to the next, sampling its tender mutton curry till you find your personal favourite. With this last stop, the NH1 enters Punjab. Our well-sated trucker has eaten his fill. He has stopped for a customary pee in the mustard fields, he has heard his old battered CD of Dilwalein Dulhaniyan Le Jayenge on loop and revelled in the clean spring air.Now its time to return to the highway again.

(A more journalistic version of this piece appeared in the Jan-Feb issue of India Today Travel Plus)

In God's Own Kitchen (Part III)

A picture is worth a thousand words 

And there is a story always peeking around a corner.

It stands behind the curtains waiting for an audience

It hides in dark rooms waiting to be rescued

And it creeps through long corridors on stormy nights 

To ambush me and you. 

My stories have pictures

My pictures tell stories

Of a God that resides in coconut trees

And is sometimes benevolent and sometimes not.

Of a fisherman's songs

That match the ebb and flow of the tides

Of men with red and green faces whose dance

Chases away the hobgoblins of my nightmares.

Of food that makes you weep

With its aroma of love, loss and longing.

Of food that makes you love

And the memories that it evokes

Of a thousand tinkling laughs in a thousand glass bottles.

And so begins my story often meandering and often tall

Dear reader, do not judge me, for I might just trip and fall.

They twirled in a frenzy of skirts and swords
They bickered, they twittered, they growled, they jousted
They loved, they hated
They were men who played with dolls
They were men who fenced with papier mache sabres
They were the gods and demons from dusty old books
Brought to life by your grandmother's rusty voice
On hot summer afternoons
Cooled by bamboo curtains sprayed with scented water.
Stabbed, bruised and burnt, he collapses into a colourful heap of red, white and gold.
He dies with his eyebrows puckered in surprise.

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. Sprinkled with fairy dust, the eye of a newt and the ancient songs of the sea, these nets were the scourge of the sea as well as the boon for starving fisherman.

In Fort Kochi, 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. Every time you feast on the perfectly grilled fresh red snapper, think about how many hours ago it flopped to the floor with a last dying sigh after being caught in a Chinese Fishing Net? Every little crab that you ever ate around these parts walked sideways into a Chinese Fishing Net before appearing on your plate in a healthy shade of tomato red.

I always wondered why we never had gingerbread men in our country.I also wondered about the nomenclature of certain foods and why the only 'bread' in the little gingerbread man was in its name. I was more fascinated by the confection than the fairytale itself where the ginger bread man came to life. Through my travails, in the kitchen, I have peeled endless sticks of ginger. I have smelled ginger powder, eaten ginger candy, gorged on ginger biscuits, julienned ginger into elegant strips and consumed nearly a ton of ginger paste.

However, I have never ever seen a ginger bread man. And as the smells of this dried ginger factory percolated through my olfactory nerves, my heart filled with this unrequited desire to meet and eat a gingerbread man.

All Spice Market was home to the wonderful allspice, a miniature globe containing the whole world within its circumference. the Gods decreed that all the spices would drop their essence into this tiny, innocuous, mud-coloured ball and rolled it off the heavenly plates into the dense forests of kerala. With a plop it fell into the Brahmin's bowl of morning milk
And the rest as they say is all history

Thousands of years later I haggle, I shed tears and I swore like a fishwife to get my precious share of the queen of exotic spices - Mistress Allspice.

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 while listening to Avial's (the Malayalee rock band) earthy rendition of Nada Nada complete with clanging guitars and metal tinged grunts and screams.

Uruli, the light of my kitchen, the fire of my stove, my faithful sidekick, my 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.

Hidden away in a freezer far from prying eyes and known only to a select group of die hard carnivores, beef is a rare (excuse the pun) commodity in Delhi. "beef" is also a dirty word in Delhi. Gau Mata would be a more appropriate title for this half goddess-half beast of burden. Our Gau Mata however, spends a large part of her time negotiating city traffic, scavenging rubbish heaps and languishing on the narrow dividers on arterial roads.

It is a strange journey from drinking cow urine to increase one's longevity (a practice made popular by Hindu nationalists) to eating the most succulent chunks of roast beef cooked in a mild coconut gravy and topped with a layer of crispy potato slices and fried onions. A strange journey indeed!

The red fire burned in his belly.  He clutched his sides in pain. It was an hour too late. He keeled over and collapsed in a heap.
The red, hot curry was always a dangerous idea. It had the seductive charm of a praying mantis attracting her mate. It would pull both skeptics and believers into its fiery pot of deceit.

"I told you not to mess with me," she said.
"I told you not to make me angry when I cook," she continued and patted him gently on his head.
"And I told you that you'd burn in hell, my love," she concluded with a sweet smile.

Postscript:
Just for a moment, I shall stop playing the fool
Only to say that the red fish curry is all about dreams of drool

Rub a dub dub,
Three men in a tub,
And who do you think they be?
The butcher, the baker,
The candlestick maker.
Turn them out, knaves all three.

The nursery rhyme that always came to mind, the song that fluttered on my lips and the image that floated before my eyes, like black spots appearing before a perforated retina every time I saw a bakery.

A strange three-headed monster or divine avatar
A freakish mutant or a lesser God
Gave birth to a hundred coconuts
That went forth and conquered the world.

A hundred coconuts sunning themselves in the sun by the sea.
A hundred coconuts oozing their sweet milk over the land.
A hundred coconuts nourishing the soil with its succulent flesh.
A hundred coconuts dropped out of nowhere.
Just like a hundred fallen moons from some distant galaxy.
A hundred coconuts were reborn as the quintessence of fish curries, pot roasts and custards.

A hundred coconuts cracked open to reveal a glimpse of a colonized world of the future 
Of kitchens in thrall of this alien fruit
Of cooks offering deep obeisance to this grand oval of green
Of mothers using the hard brown nut
As a charm against all evil.
Of little children sucking the last drop sweet coconut water through cheap plastic pipes.
Of big corporations marketing the coconut and its byproducts as new age organic mumbo-jumbo

A strange three-headed monster or divine avatar
A freakish mutant or a lesser God
Gave birth to a hundred coconuts
That went forth and conquered the world.

Priestesses of this temple and storytellers beyond compare, Anu and Aniamma are the keepers of this patch of paradise. There is a bit of magic in their lives as the simple raw vegetable turn to gourmet creations beneath their deft fingers. A sprinkle of this and a dash of that yields a spectacular symphony of flavours and textures. Grand conductors of the kitchen, they cajole you into taking a ride into their world. Love pours out of their kitchens, heat exudes from the food. The land screams its history and the river sings a song through their food. One of the last frontiers of a harmonious world, eating in their kitchen is a peaceful homecoming.

finis