Where the God of Small Things Lives

While The God of Small Things created ripples in the world of literature way back in the nineties, I waited 13 years to read Arundhati Roy’s magnum opus. Today, my copy of the book is a memory of my holiday, tattered and misshapen and stuffed with stubs, pressed petals and brochures about god's own country.

For me, The God of Small Things was my faithful friend through my journey in the backwater state of Kerala. It was my travel guide, my food bible and my local encyclopedia of trivia. It was a compendium of magic words that brought the backwaters alive with an epic tale. Although the book released way back in 1997, I waited for many summers and winters to pass in order to find the perfect moment to read it. In between jobs and having liquidated all my meagre savings in order to go on a holiday, I decided to embark on my first solo trip in India. This is also when I decided to read the book.

As a woman in India, travelling alone on public transport itself can be daunting, thus a single female holidaymaker is a rare and unheard of species rarely dotting the tourist map. Yet, I persisted, having known gentle people from the state, eaten great food and heard about the remarkably low statistics of violence against women, I was convinced that Kerala was where I must go. The only companion I had was the book. And it managed to transform my ordinary holiday into an imaginary universe. The God of Small Things seemed to appear to me at every twist in the roads of Kerala. I expected the land to be no different from what Arundhati Roy described:

“...by early June the southwest monsoon breaks and there are three months of wind and water with short spells of sharp, glittering sunshine that thrilled children snatch to play with. The countryside turns an immodest green. Boundaries blur as tapioca fences take root and bloom. Brick walls turn mossgreen. Pepper vines snake up electric poles. Wild creepers burst through laterite banks and spill across flooded roads. Boats ply in bazaars. And small fish appear in the puddles that fill the PWD potholes on the highways...”

As my aircraft descended rather bumpily towards the tarmac at the Cochin International Airport, the first thing I saw through the tiny window was a lush, deep-green sea below me. Gradually miniature trees and fields and foliage appeared. Then came the discernible coconut trees waving their heads, and then came the first streaky droplets of rain forming patterns on the outside of my window. Filled with trepidation, I felt strangely comforted by the rain. I had just started reading the book and was at the point when the whole family made a trip to watch The Sound of Music one afternoon. This ended up being a pivotal moment in the book that foreshadowed later tragedies and small and large betrayals. I left the airport humming old tunes from the Hollywood classic just like Estha, one of the fraternal twins who make up the cast of characters that populate the family home at Ayemenem. As I collected my bags, my thoughts still scattered all over wondering whether cinemas like Abhilash Talkies still existed in 21stand versatility of the Keralite mundu after witnessing the ease with which the men all round me irrespective of age and body types showed off their legs. I now also had a mental picture for Velutha, the untouchable antihero of sorts who impresses in his mundu and white shirt as he marched in a party demonstration with a red flag.

I was also thinking about how the afternoon sky would change it colours at random as the sun played hide and seek with the clouds. A few afternoons later as I saw the sky turn red with an impending storm, I remembered another red sky that Rahel (the other twin) sees through her cheap red plastic sunglasses which gradually turns to a sickly orange as her brother Estha is abused by the creepy Orangedrink Lemondrink man.

As I travelled through the banana-fronded backwater country to the secluded Phillip Kutty’s farm set on a manmade island in the middle of an exceptionally large canal off the Vembanad Lake, I realized that I was just a few kilometers from Roy’s Ayemenem and in a little town just like it. Just like the book, this too was a place where life happened on the backwaters. Thus my first ride on a country boat or vallom to see the rising moon was a moment enhanced by Roy’s lyrical poetry. I dipped my hand in the waters and the words came to life.

“It was warm, the water. Greygreen. Like rippled silk.
With fish in it.
With the sky and the trees in it.
And at night, the broken yellow moon in it.”

I spent the balmy nights reading the book out on the porch of my room overlooking the silver waters of the backwaters by the light of a single lamp casting its yellow pool in the darkness and bringing all the silken winged moths to my door to die. I could smell the brooding air of the of Ayemenem. I could hear the fluttering of Pappachi’s moth. My heart ached for Ammu. Just like it ached for the young widow Anu Mathew (the owner of the wonderful homestay that I was staying in). She was a brave and feisty lady who was fulfilling her husband’s dream all by herself. Her farm, where I spent three lovely days, radiated all her family’s warmth and reflected the hopes her husband had for the place before he suddenly passed on.

All these thoughts played into my understanding and love for the book. As I ate homemade banana jam for breakfast, I thought of the Paradise Pickles and Preserves run by Mammachi and the strange consistency of banana jam/jelly. I learnt about the history of the Syrian Christian community through the food that I gorged on every day. I learnt about the produce of the land through Anu Mathew and her mother-in-law over shared conversations on the dinner tables. In the dark hours of the night, Arundhati Roy’s magical prose brought me closer to the land I was passing through. She gave me a language to tell my story about Kerala to the world. I am glad I had waited to read it all these years for now I remember it like no other. The characters in this book gave me a few oddball companions on solitary walks and the story itself became a bookend for my own journey into this beautiful country ruled by the god of small things.

This was published in the New Indian Express, Bangalore on 25 September 2014

A 'Scrumdiddlyumptious' Treat

Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory published in 1964 is something that has percolated through a myriad storytelling sessions and assumed a permanent spot in the collective memory of generations of children who have come of age in the last five decades.

Set against the unusual backdrop of a mysterious chocolate factory, this curiously dark and often bittersweet tale is in equal parts fantasy and fable and above all a story with startling original content that has captured the imagination as no other.

Adapted variously into films, musicals, games, radio and stage productions, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has rarely been out of the public eye for long and its characters have become a part of the cultural iconography of our times inspiring dinner menus, tea parties  and of course candy. The real-life Willy Wonka Candy Company which is currently owned by Nestle actually manufactures goodies like the Everlasting Gobstopper which was first imagined in the pages of the book. Then there was the magnificent televised feast inspired by the book created by world-renowned chef Heston Blumenthal who called Willy Wonka his "sixties childhood hero" and went on to recreate a magnificent Lickable Wallpaper.

Based on the real-life spy-thriller tactics employed by rival chocolate companies in order to steal each other's latest innovations and Dahl's own love for candy, Willy Wonka's chocolate universe is one that is as fascinating as it is terrifying. With taffy trees that grow jelly apples, mushrooms that spurt whipped cream, a boiled sweet boat that takes the crew down the chocolate river, this is truly a magic landscape. However, it is also one where danger lurks in the sweet depths and holes and crevasses open up swallowing the greedy and the proud — the veritable bad eggs of the group — and send them off to a sorry unsweet end.

The tiny Oompa Loompas from Loompa-Land who work in Willy Wonka's factory, enamoured by the chocolate and glad to have escaped the predatory Whangdoodles, Hornswogglers and Snozzwanglers from their own land, judge the bad kids with a song and dance and are oddly gleeful at their odd transformations.
The odd childishness of adults like Willy Wonka himself and the rather adult observations of the very astute Charlie Bucket make this a book that turns conventions on its head, subverts established norms as well as presents the majority of children as well as adults as not very pleasant or likeable characters. Apart from this, the unmatched imagination, colour, drama, poetry, humour and unforgettable cast of characters in this book has the power to hold any child in its thrall.

Timed perfectly with its fiftieth birthday, two previously 'lost' chapters of the book were published only last month, thrilling legions of fans, researchers, academics and a whole new generation of 21st century children whose love affair with candy continues unabated. Among other things these chapters show more of Willy Wonka's marvellous inventions like the The Warming Candy Room where —
"There's an amazing machine, a bit like the gum machine we know, but it produces these extraordinarily hot sweets that you're only supposed to eat one of."
 And like all his extraordinary candy that come with certain warnings, this one is no different and promises to delight those who show restraint and punish the greedy with consequences that verge on comic horror. Thus those who gorge on the hot candy, overheat and need to be locked away in refrigerators in remote corners of the factory for a long, long time. Similarly the characters (and these newly published chapters reveal that Roald Dahl originally included ten children in the party) who trespass on the forbidden areas of the Vanilla Fudge Mountain, where hunks of fudge are constantly being pried and taken away also meet a sorry fate. They fall into the 'pounding and cutting room' and —
"into the mouth of a huge machine. The machine then pounds it against the floor until it is all nice and smooth and thin. After that, a whole lot of knives come down and go chop chop chop, cutting it up into neat little squares, ready for the shops."

This is the perfect bookend to a year which is full of celebrations for fans both old and new. The publishers as well as the Roald Dahl Trust have a whole range of goodies lined up which include the launch of a new Roald Dahl Audio App, A West End musical production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Willy Wonka inspired desserts by star chefs, Golden Ticket trails at the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre, a Dahlicious Dress Up day in schools across the UK later this month,  and fifty fundraising sky-diving folks dressed up as Oompa Loompas!

When I found out about these new chapters, I felt like doing a little jig just like the 96-year-old Grandpa Joe did when he found out that Charlie had won the Golden Ticket and an entry into the magical factory. It is true for many of my generation that fifty years later, this book is still a scrumdiddlyumptious treat to be savoured one page at a time.

This was published in the New Indian Express, Bangalore on 23 September 2014

Forgettable fare with a wrong mix of ingredients

Despite the innovative campaign where lead pair Aditya Roy Kapur and Parineeti go on
a food yatra across the country in order to promote their film and a trailer that promises a
spicy love story, Daawat e Ishq is a much diluted and bland offering.

The romance in this apparent feast of love is lacklustre and characterized by a complete
lack of chemistry between the lead pair. But the the greatest disappointment is the fact
that what is touted a film which celebrates food, barely offers a hat tip to the culinary
heritage of the food capitals of Hyderabad and Lucknow with plates of seekh kababs,
oily biryanis and greasy kormas inserted at random points in the film providing an
unappetizing window into a gastronomy that is believed to be unmatched. A closeup of
a half-finished kebab, mutilated mutton sticking to a few grains of rice and a quickly
congealing bowl of salan at the famous Naaz hotel near Charminar at Hyderabad does
little justice to the food or the place. Similarly a bizarre shot in Lucknow focussing on a
closeup of the grease on a bowl of nihari is neither appetizing nor aesthetically appealing.

The complete lack of reference to the biryani rivalry between the two cities apart from a
passing comment by Kapur's Haider based on a few bites of food court fare, will leave
foodie members of the audience deeply unsatisfied.

Director and writer Habib Faisal's previous outings in films like Band Baaja Baraat, Do 
Dooni Chaar proved his mettle as a scriptwriter who had his finger on a certain suburban
middle class ethos and brought the local voices to the fore in all their loudmouthed and
honest splendour. However, with Daawat e Ishq, Faisal's writing fails to impress on all
counts proving to be one of the weakest links in the film.

The script starts off on a strong note establishing Gullu as an English medium-educated
shoe salesgirl of marriageable age who is trying to simultaneously find a good husband
and fulfill her dreams. However, in both cases her dreams take a beating
as her suitors all demand a sizeable dowry or "help" in furthering their own prospects
in foreign climes and are far from suitable. They even include a 'blue film' watching
CV faker who is taken down a peg or two by the feisty heroine. Parineeti's relationship
with her bumbling and meek widower father played by Anupam Kher is etched with
with tenderness and a wry sense of humour. As an honest legal clerk, he is as much of
an anomaly as his his well-educated daughter who has to tolerate insufferable customers
who walk into the swanky shoe store in an upscale mall with a "thank you madam"
and unwavering smile. Credit must be given to Parineeti who plays Hyderabad ki tez
Gulrez with great spunk, essaying her part of a disillusioned shoe salesgirl who dreams of
making it big and having her own line of footwear with conviction. She invests as much
in her nuanced Hyderabadi dialect as she does in the body language of the Dubai-returned
designer kurta-wearing Sania Habibullah.

The first hour of the film is full of promise and potential. Set in Hyderabad, an ancient-
modern city, straddling the spires of Charminar and the glitzy chrome and glass IT offices
with ease, it reveals snippets of lower-middle class India with sub-30k salaries and living
in the older parts of modern cities as seen in the lives of Gulrez Quader, her father and
their curious and often irate neighbours like Bilquis. One of the film's strong points in the
first half is its clever handling of its social message. The practice of dowry is obviously
condemned but in a humorous manner, turning the dowry demanders into comical stock
characters who perform as per their stereotype.

However, the plot begins to unravel from the moment the father-daughter duo arrive
in Lucknow as newly christened con artists out to exploit dowry hunters as well as the
legal system. The story takes absurd twists and turns and from a fairly realist framework
enters the realm of ill placed platters of orange kebabs and choreographed Bollywood
routines. This is unfortunately also the point where Aditya Roy Kapur is introduced as the
effervescent and over the top Lucknow ka ashiq Tariq, who flips his sheermals, greases
his kebab skewers and bedazzles female tourists with his easy charm and generosity.
He is ready with a smile or a kebab as the occasion might demand. The usually posh,
brooding and soft-spoken Kapur clad in ridiculous shirts is fairly convincing as "Taru"
Haider. His only flaw is that he is the victim of an ill-conceived script that goes nowhere
and delivers little by virtue of a romance or a feast. The three day "tuning-setting"
formula between the lead pair is an endless and boring song and dance routine set to
music by Sajid-Wajid. Although the Qawwali influences might have been good in a small
dose, its repetitive nature leaves the soundtrack lacking the punch and recall value of
Habib Faisal's earlier films.

Although there are glimpses of Faisal's trademark humour like the scene where there is a
sudden brake in Gullu and Amju's (TV star Karan Wahi's big screen debut) burgeoning
romance as he mentions that he is a vegetarian and Parineeti's kebab and nihari-eating
character pales, putting her halim before her heart, similarly the nikaah setpiece in front
of the Haider restaurant's focuses on the neon board displaying kakoris as much as the
resplendent bride and groom, these are few and far in between. Most plot points are put
together, complicated and resolved for no particular reason or logic. Daawat-e-Ishq is
like that culinary potpourri that just went wrong due to a whole bunch of too many wrong
ingredients put together.

It would be better advised to spend your time indulging in a real daawat of biryani and
kebab rather than indulging in this forgettable fare.

This was published in the New Indian Express, Bangalore on 20 September 2014

Coffee and Mist: A monsoon journal from Coorg

When I was much younger and my universe was constrained by the city limits of Calcutta,
Coorg was a little squiggle on the map of Karnataka, its shadowy presence acknowledged
by half-remembered geography lessons, coffee and by a certain gown-like drape of a
certain Mrs Mundappa’s sari. The latter especially stood out in its uniqueness, eking out
a visual cue for Coorg. Many years later in college, Coorg was one of the many places
that people called home in the multicultural melting pot that was Delhi University. And
almost all of them came from homes set in sprawling estates growing coffee and had an
unbelievably high tolerance for alcohol as well as fiery meat dishes. This naturally led to a
conversation about the Pandi Curry or the famous spiced pork curry of the region. Some
Coorgi folk actually believed that this dish was the sacred rite of passage for all meat
lovers. Since a good Pandi Curry eluded me and those I sampled remained greasy blots
in my food memory, just like the dish, with time, the place faded from the memory. Five
years later as I crossed a bridge over the Cauvery in a well-travelled car, with the familiar
highway markers announcing ‘Welcome to Kodagu District’ in my line of sight, I felt a
sudden rush of excitement as all these half-remembered impressions flooded in.

In a few kilometres after Kushalnagar, the gateway town, the run-of-the-mill state highway
suddenly transformed into a winding hilly road with unending swathes of green on either
side. Monsoon is not regarded as a favoured time to visit this region and yet, whenever I
have travelled across South India, it has been under the aegis of the rain gods. Somehow,
I have always enjoyed this off season experience which drives away the tourist hordes
and returns the place to its serene quietude. The rain-washed land shorn of its summer
dust has a fresh and dewy sheen. Coorg was no different and my first glimpse of the lush
and wild forested tracts interspersed with the vast coffee plantations, was through a gap
between passing rain clouds. As the sun cast its errant late afternoon beams across the
road, the coffee bushes glistened, cementing this as a lasting snapshot of the place.

An interesting fact about the Coorg or the Kodagu district is that it is the least populous of
the 30 districts of Karnataka which make it one of the few places where the wilderness per
square kilometre is far more than the human population around these parts. Also, since
large tracts of this district are privately owned by the coffee planters (Coorg is India’s most
important coffee-growing district), that ensures that the forest cover remains unspoilt and
thus the region supports an extraordinary biodiversity. This also prevents any unnecessary
development in an area which draws hundreds of holidaymakers to its lush hillscapes. As a result
there is the growth of a new hospitality industry -- one which thrives on homestays
and extremely luxurious boutique properties usually the brainchild of the plantation owners
themselves.

As we made our way through the bumpy non-roads a little above Suntikoppa into the Old
Kent Estate, the Coorgi terrain enveloped us in her musky, squelchy and coffee-scented
bosom. An idyll in the middle of 200 odd acres of coffee, cardamom and pepper crops,
the Old Kent Estate is a renovated version of quintessentially English coffee bungalow.
century comforts like sunken tubs and spa treatments are juxtaposed against 21st
coffee plantation walks and traditional Coorgi food. This is the template for most Coorgi
homestays as well as boutique resorts which are a far cry from big banner hotel chains.
We spent our days walking around misty hill roads. Like many other places, Coorg has
also been more about the 'in between' journeys rather than the popular tourist spots. An
initial sightseeing experience at the Abbey Falls left us a little scarred. Buffeted by the jet
spray of the fairly impressive waterfall and trampled by nearly five score camera-happy
tourists who braved precarious rocks and moss-sodden perches in order to get the perfect
shot, we did a quick about turn just as we got a glimpse of the waterfall. The tourist
legions had left in its wake reams of orange Haldiram bhujia packets and green-capped
Bisleri bottles while the excess of water seeping out from every single crevasse had led to
a proliferation of leeches and you were lucky if you left Abbey Falls without a bloodsucker
in tow. Thereafter we drove around aimlessly, tracking the natural beauty of the rolling
hills and stopping where we pleased. Lured by ambling cows, little bridges over gurgling
streams and picturesque sunsets, we were masters of our own itineraries.

A strange fact I discovered is that although this is the land of coffee with green beans
hanging from every bush that you see by the highway, a good cuppa is not all that easy
to come across. The best coffee of the region is actually packed off to the auction houses
and sold off to foreign buyers. They return to India via the circuitous international coffee
chain route with a 100 percent markup and are served in branded cups or as freeze-dried
packs of Arabaica and Robusta with esoteric descriptions on their labels.
Apart from the plantation homestays, it is rather unlikely that one will find Coorgi coffee
at a roadside stall. A single ambitious shop in Madikeri has forward integrated into a cafe
and this was where we had our first traditional Coorgi coffee, made with local beans and
sweetened with jaggery - a perfectly heartwarming brew that kept away the rainy day
chills. However, we managed to wrangle many a cuppa made from the home-grown beans
from the kitchen in our estate. And while we took in the changing light across the coffee
bushes and the colourful profusion of rain-drenched flowers, we drank deeply of the brew of the land.

While coffee is an integral aspect of Coorgi cuisine, a plentiful bounty of the land, so
is meat. Traditionally the Kodavas (the indigenous locals who had settled in the region
thousands of years ago, inherited the land and set up coffee and spice plantations)
were fierce hunters who subsisted on game that they caught and the produce of the
land. This included a limited number of vegetables like plantains, jackfruit and coconuts.
This resulted in meat becoming a central feature of meals. While chicken and fish were
commonly consumed, it was the meat from the wild boar hunt that formed the greatest
delicacy -- Pandi Curry. While we tasted our delightful Pandi Curry in a restaurant with a
jaw-dropping view across a valley, most Pandi curries are best had in traditional homes,
over crackling fires and accompanied by snowy akki rotis. The complex blend of spices,
the varying textures and the fiery edge, made this a meal worthy of a royal repast.

Dotted with a handful of one-horse towns, I discovered that the true beauty of Coorg lies
outside human settlement and in its fragrant coffee and delectable food. Everything is
born of the soil, including its people, who are fiercely independent with a culture that is
as ancient as it is predominant in the region even today. They guard their natural bounty,
local myths and old family secrets with equal zeal.

It rains as I walk under bulbous jackfruits, hanging from mossy branches. I pick an
occasional green berry off a shiny coffee plant and watch kingfishers create a sudden
gash of blue across the green canvas. This is a Coorgi monsoon. And it is like no other
that I have seen.

This was published in the New Indian Express, Bangalore on 18 September 2014

So Long and Thanks for all the Fish

“The angler forgets most of the fish he catches, but he does not forget the streams and lakes in which they are caught."

--Charles K Fox

Anglers are quirky characters full of stories of the river. They are extremely particular about the
whiskey they drink and the doneness of fresh fish grilled over open fires. They are also solitary
figures who tend to disappear from time to time. Historically angling is a gentleman's sport. These
recreational sportsmen approach the sport with the same enthusiasm as wine connoisseurs sniffing out
the best vintage grape. There are no age bars and very basic fitness requirements, all you should be
able to do is clamber through hills, scrub and stand in the water for long periods. Referred to as 'the
contemplative man's recreation' by author Izaak Walton, what it really requires is dollops of patience,
a fondness for your own company and an unerring bond with your fishing rod, the river and the fish.
Fly fishing is a type of angling which is all about good instincts, skill at throwing the line and landing
the artificial flies in the right spot. In the hills, angling and fly fishing is an even more invigorating
affair as the fisherman along with his fishing skills, also has to negotiate the often tricky terrain along
high-altitude rivers to access the best pools of fish especially trout, the celebrated game fish of the hills.

Although I am not an angler, there is a river that has imprinted on on my mind. There aren't too many
fish that I have caught successfully, but I will always remember being in the hallowed company of the
rainbow trout. Reflecting the sun and darting upstream between the rocks and crevasses, this is the
prized catch of the hill rivers and coveted by both novice and expert anglers. For me, it was a moment
of awe chasing this magnificent creature up a river through one of the most stunning vistas I had ever
seen in my life. Despite travelling far and wide, like an old sepia-tinted photograph in a well-thumbed
album, snapshots of the Tirthan River have followed me through the days of my youth, providing
succour when life demanded it.

Nagini, a small village in the Tirthan Valley in the Kullu District of Himachal Pradesh is an angler's
paradise and almost entirely overlooked by most tourist maps. It is a place outside of time and
far away from the city lights, perfectly preserved with its lush unspoilt sunrises and sunsets and
replete with local myths and legends. Nestled in this village is the Himalayan Trout Fishing Camp,
a getaway from it all. The British introduced trout in the Indian rivers to pursue their favoured sport
and this glorious tradition is kept alive and vibrant at this camp by its colourful owner and angler
extraordinaire, Christopher Mitra.

He and his family welcomed me and my friends, a ragtag bunch of young college students into their
lovely home and ensured that that we were well fed, well rested and completely enamoured by the
hills by the time we left. While there, we learnt how to fish fish, feast on all things trout, sip our
morning tea with the river gurgling by below our tents. We spent evening around a bonfire, nursing
our favourite tipple and inevitably guitars would be unearthed and old half-remembered Beatles
songs would be sung gloriously out of tune. The hills would echo with bonhomie even as the shadows
lengthened. I have been to Nagini twice and some of my other companions on our first trip, return at
regular intervals. A very close friend of mine admitted that he had a deep connection with the place
and would return to it every few months to go on long walks, write his PhD thesis, contemplate or
simply fish, and all of this while living in a foreign country.

It has been many years since I have returned to Nagini and yet there are some things about the place
that are fresh and larger than life itself. I remember our guide who was also the village oracle. I
remember the rusty metal basket on which we crossed the river on a metal rope. I remember just
staring at the mountains in the changing light. I remember the freshest and most delicious grilled trout
with the tang of fresh lemon roasted over a campfire and I remember a little dog who looked like a
furry toilet brush and had set up her permanent home in our tent. The tents have since been replaced
by log cabins and huts but the place still retains all its wonder.

For me, Nagini is a time capsule of a few wonderful days spent with laughter, songs , trout, whiskey
and camaraderie like no other. For me, Nagini is a memory of the smiling face of a girl -- one of
the best friends I ever made, who is no longer with us. For me, Nagini is about the Himalayan Trout
Fishing Camp run by the irrepressible fisherman, storyteller and guitarist -- Christopher Mitra, whose
Irish and Bengali lineage is well reflected in his love for good whiskey and a well-cooked fish. For
me, Nagini is the truth in a Billy Joel song where:

"We're all carried along
By the river of dreams"

This was published in the New Indian Express, Bangalore on 11 September 2014

Soul fish from the streets of Punjab

Nearly every neighbourhood Punjabi dhaba worth its salt in Bangalore boasts fish
Amritsari on its menu and it is one of two fish dishes to find a prvileged spot in
generic menus inspired to give those craving boti and roti (meat and flatbreads),
a quick introduction to North Indian food.

While Da Vinci might argue that in simplicity lies the ultimate sophistication, to the
common man, simplicity could also be well be earthy, wholesome and a touch
loud. Just like the zippy Fish Amritsari. Bursting with spices, colour and tang,
this bright orange-yellow double fried piece of crisp fish is a party in your mouth.
If Fish Amritsari was a girl, she would be a simple, traditionally dressed country
lass doing a crowd-stopping number at the newest disco!

Perhaps the second most ubiquitous Punjabi dhaba snack after the tandoori
chicken is the Amritsari fish that has riven itself from its provincial beginnings
into widespread acceptance across the country and even on foreign shores.
Everywhere the Punjabis went, their culinary traditions followed and butter
chicken, which has established its dominion over the world of global curry, is
a case in point. The Fish Amritsari is not too far behind in the race where it is
served up in forms as diverse as a Norwegian salmon-based kebab, an Indian
style fish and chips and even a sushi roll in restaurant menus across the world.
Like many other Indian dishes, the Fish Amritsari straddles many Indias where
it graces tables at fine dining restaurants of the metros, erstwhile colonial clubs
of India with a stiff upper lip heritage and nondescript stalls in dark alleys of tier-
3 cities. It is, however, most comfortable in a world populated by weather-beaten
faces, blue-and-white Bata Hawai chappals, rugged unshaven faces, large trucks
with neon signs, camp cots and dusty highways.

This deep fried fish tikka with overwhelming notes of ajwain (carrom seeds),
lemon and chaat masala actually finds a respectable place in the annals of
Indian culinary history despite its humble character. While it may be a poor
descendant of its royal Mughal forbears and an across-the-border version of its
Lahori counterpart, it nonetheless holds its own in any gathering of connoisseurs.
The marinated fish dishes from the Mughal and Nawabi kitchens with their rich
array of exotic spices found an echo in the villages and taluks of undivided
Punjab. Thus both Lahore and Amritsar, hoarding their supplies of fresh sole
and carp fish from the Ravi and Beas rivers, came up with a home-grown rustic
spice rub which they slathered on to the chunky boneless fillets, dipped them
in a flour/chick pea flour and deep fried them twice to their preferred levels of
crispness. This snack quickly caught on and every street food vendor, dhaba and
kebabwallah worth his salt was soon deep frying his way to the bank.

The best Fish Amritsari is usually bright orange, fresh off the griddle and piled on
to a simple thali, with some raw onions, lemon quarters and liberally doused with
chaat masala and preferably a fizzy cola on the side. The secret to a good piece
is that it must be eaten fresh and crisp. Let it grow cold and the fish separates
from its sagging orange wrapper. Serve it on a cold winter night around a raging
bonfire with boisterous company and there will be merriment, songs and perhaps
even an occasional brawl. "Amritsari" and "Lahori" are mere geographical
markers of its origin, the real heart of this everyman favourite lies in street stalls
in crowded and colourful markets full of smoke and aromas that fire the belly and
imagination alike.

(this was published in the New Indian Express, Bangalore 15 Sep 2014)

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)