The Shop around the Corner

I live, like many other migrants to Bengaluru, in a well-guarded multi-storied bastion, keeping the rest of the world out. I also live on a bustling main arterial road and the nearest market is a good 20-minute walk, 20 minutes too long after a long working day. My early days in the city thus saw me heavily dependent on a well-known supermarket chain which has its outlet right within the campus of my building. While it is adequate enough for daily groceries, it is a disaster as a greengrocer. With maggoty fruits, holey salad leaves and bruised veggies, this was the nail in the coffin for my supermarket adventures which had started with a rat which jumped out of a shelf full of wilted spinach in a neighbourhood supermarket in Delhi. For me, that moment marked everything that was wrong with our so-called retail food boom.
I had grown up in Kolkata, going to the local market with my grandfather, where everyday's veggies were bought fresh from the vendors whose burlap sacks upended piles of fresh seasonal vegetables straight from the local farmers. There was no excess and there was no wastage from the seller to buyer and from the cooking to the eating. It was a way of shopping and eating that has become alien in our workaday lives. We now live away from our families and their expansive kitchens. We shop on weekends at chain stores, buying stuff for the fortnight and the food we eat comprises limp, half-frozen vegetables that are turned into quick and insipid curries.   
In my mind I was an old-fashioned sort. It is the early morning market visits with my grandfather which taught me that. I liked handpicking my veggies. However, as a recently grown up, working and married woman who had recently left her pampered home and hearth, these shopping rituals were hardly a luxury. From Delhi to Bengaluru, my experiences with local sabziwallahs have been complicated. As they looked at my discomfiture vis-a-vis veggies that I had grown up hating, they would give me withering looks. My naivete made me especially gullible to the vagaries of these men and women who would convince me of the seasonal freshness, the problems with the crops and the unfamiliarity with the local prices.
This is what drove me to a supermarket and its everything-under-one roof convenience. As I would move from aisle to aisle towards the vegetable section with my hope still afloat. Every single supermarket disappointed. Every fruit and vegetable on the shelf looked like it had travelled the breadth of the country fighting disease and deprivation till it reached this particular metal shelf—its chosen spot for its last breath. It was organic carnage. The potatoes had either turned green or into mutant flowerpots with little leafy stems. Tomatoes would burst into a bloody mess the moment I dropped it into my empty cart and once, I even saw a few little worms clinging to the plastic of the cling-wrapped Washington apples.
My local sabziwallah would set up his cart-shop ten minutes away from my apartment every evening from 5-9 pm without fail. I would return to that shop over and over with a woebegone face. I imagined him smirking as he imperiously tossed fresh-from-the-field veggies into my bag while charging me a premium and dismissing my arguments about the supermarket deals with a single "take it or leave it" look.
It is quite the conundrum, one that eludes a perfect solution. Bengaluru is a city of many choices from the exorbitant organic to the weekly farm-fresh produce in mandis at the other end of town. However, in all these situations, the idea of being an incompetent haggler in an unfamiliar language was as unpleasant as it is was a blow to the ego of a bargain hunter such as myself.
In my search for options, I often ended up at a bright, airy and air conditioned gourmet store sprawled across the top floor of a swanky city mall. The visit to this store ended up being weekend entertainment like visiting the zoo rather than a chore. As unfamiliar food and artistic culinary displays have a strange allure for me taking me to unknown lands on the culinary map. This particular store with its piles of delicate berries, smelly cheeses, exotic mushrooms and candied fruits, is my vicarious food trip across the world. Rare mushrooms, Mediterranean peppers and hairy tropical fruits jostled for space in this alien smorgasbord straight out of a Ridley Scott masterpiece. The end result, I purchase no useful staples that we can actually eat, but overpriced and useless exotica which sit uneasy in a good home-cooked meal.
Despite my aversion to aisle store fare, I do recommend its fair pricing. In the many veggie cons that have been pulled on me, most famous was the one where I went to a specialist Bengali market where I met a vegetable seller with the gift of the gab though and I was the recipient of the one standout sale he made that day. I bought a lau (a bottle gourd), which according to him had arrived that very day from Kolkata on the superfast train. And with such a narrative flourish, he sold us a `15 vegetable for more than five times its worth.
As I returned time and again to my neighbourhood sabziwallah, his grouchy face seemed to occasionally carry the hint of a smile. It was a less-than-perfect relationship. Yet, we learn to make do. And he always sold me the plumpest, reddest and freshest tomatoes which made up for my disillusionment with the pre-packaged "lowest price" supermarket rotters.

'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)

Kerala Redux

Once upon a time in Kerala

My story stood peeking around a corner.

It waited on tiptoes behind the curtains, waiting for an audience

It hid in dark rooms, waiting to be rescued

And it crept through long corridors on stormy nights

To ambush me

And you.

This is the story of a God that resides in coconut trees

And is sometimes benevolent and sometimes not.

It is a story of a fisherman's song

That matches the ebb and flow of the tides.

It is a story of men with red and green faces whose dance

Chases away hobgoblins.

It is a story of food that makes you weep

With its aroma of love, loss and longing.

It is a story of food that makes you love

With the memories that it evokes.

It is a story of a thousand tinkling laughs in a thousand glass bottles.

It is a story often meandering, and often tall,

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

A strange three-headed monster on certain full moon nights

And a lesser god on the other days of the year

This tree gave birth to a hundred coconuts

That went forth and conquered the world.

And one fine day,

A hundred coconuts dropped all at once and were scattered over the land.

Riven from the sheltered boughs and protective fronds.

These orphan spheres appeared on the horizon

Like a hundred fallen moons from some distant galaxy,

The hundred coconuts came of age under the sun and by the sea.

The hundred coconuts oozed their sweet milk over the land.

The hundred coconuts nourished the daughters of the soil with their succulent meat.

The hundred coconuts were transformed into the mysterious quintessence

Of fish curries, pot roasts, avials, and custards.

The 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 of sweet coconut water

Through neon-green plastic pipes.

Of big corporations marketing its coconut products

To divas with Gucci sunglasses perched on their delicately powdered noses

Carrying retro jute bags and eating organic tofu.

The hundred coconuts changed the destinies of men.

The hundred coconuts created food fit for kings

The hundred coconuts desiccated the swamps and turned them into plantations

The hundred coconuts became signifiers of health, wealth and prosperity

And many years later

The hundred coconuts blew away in a gale

Leaving behind a seed of doubt and possibility

In the minds of men who had lived through these times.

Many moons passed

And many a child grew into the pink of youth

In the midst of political turbulence

And economic upheavals.

Young men left the land in search of greener pastures 

In the desert land across the world.

They built double-storey homes with pink walls and bathroom tiles 

Perched precariously on their picturesque village greens.

They came home two weeks in a year,

An army of haggard men,

An army of bent men

An army of hollow men

Lugging their broken spirits and slipped discs along with the new 21-inch colour tvs.

The coconut crops had been failing

The water wasn't as sweet anymore.

The people forgot the lesser gods

Who presided over domestic corners. 

An amnesiac race poured gallons of milk 

Over the Creators and Destroyers of the world.

Only a handful of ancient, toothless women would go hunting for a coconut tree

On the hottest summer afternoon of the year.

"We must find him. The God of all our Small Things," they would mutter and hobble away into the distance. 

One spring morning, 

A young bride dressed herself in her day-old wedding finery

She tied her vermillion smeared hair 

Into a loose knot

And walked hesitantly

To the bullock cart which would carry her toward adulthood

In a matter of a few hours. 

She swayed from side to side 

Her shoulders grazing those of her husband of a few hours.

She shed a silent tear 

Of love, loss and longing 

As the trees and fields of her childhood games 

Filtered through the flimsy gold gauze of her wedding veil

Disappeared into the horizon 

With the suddenness of a magic trick.

A random stone 

Crippled the bull

And punctuated the doleful ride

With a much-needed stop.

The swollen-eyed bride peeked out from under her veil 

And looked skywards on a whim.

And a few feet away, she saw it for the first time.

The strange three-headed monster

That was growing out of the soil.

A hundred baby coconuts hung ponderously from its delicate limbs.

The bride looked up in awe forgetting her veil and her husband of a few hours

She simply pointed and muttered a half remembered phrase from her grandmother’s tales,

“This is the God of Small Things.  

He has returned to our land again 

And now we will live happily ever after, she said with a watery smile."

A Devil and a Crab

Prologue:

My earliest crab memory dates back to when I was a wee child who woke up in the middle of the night to a strange rustling sound. 

I awoke from my stupor and swung my legs over the side of the bed only to land on something hard, scaly...and moving...

Too young to know about the critters and too old to believe that the ground had turned into a hungry monster, curiosity made me flip the switch of the night lamp.

And there...scurrying away from the warm yellow spotlight...on the purple tiled floor of my parent's 1st floor apartment in a respectable neighbourhood...was a red crab the size of my fist. I quickly yanked my foot away from the ground...only to see another cheeky creature dashing under my bed.

I remember yelling like a banshee. I remember jumping up and down on bed thinking it was the worst nightmare come alive. My house was overrun with crabs and we were about to be taken down by the scarlet army waving their pincers high!

I also remember thinking that it was the most exciting thing that had ever woken me up in all the years of my existence.

Soon, however, the parents appeared along with the cook who was the cause of the crustacean invasion. She had bought fresh (read: alive and scuttling) crabs in a basket from her seaside home and somehow over the course of the next five minutes the two errant escapees were restored to the basket and it was secured again. 

I remember feeling a little bad for the poor creatures who had attempted to escape their cruel fate (read: our lunch the next day)

I also remember eating the selfsame crabs the next day. And believe me tinged with guilt they tasted sweeter - a bit like the famed forbidden apple.

That was the original sin.

Chapters 1-10:

You nipped at my feet

On an expansive stretch of pristine white sands

On a moonlit night

By the silvery waters of the Andaman Sea

You scuttled sideways into my plate

A study in scarlet.

Buttered.

Boiled.

Blanched.

Batter-fried.

Curried in a medley of orange and green

Devilled in a duet of cheese and pepper

Steamed in a bouquet of butter and garlic 

Fried with the trio of tomato, onion and potato

You came to me in a goblet of silver on ice.

You came to me on a banana leaf with rice.

I tore you apart with my ten digits

I hacked at your sweet creamy innards with my gleaming fork

I attacked your pincers

With my powerful weapons of crustacean destruction.

You waged a mean battle 

Even as a dead one

Refusing to yield 

Nice and easy

To a gentle poke

Or a violent jab.

I am not sorry I ate you.

My dear “pair of ragged claws”

You made a sinner of me.

Crab a la Shampa di which needs to be patented

Epilogue:

This post is a vindication of my sin. It is dedicated to all the little river crabs and all the giant sea crabs that have found their way into my belly.

No Blight on this Potato

The hint of smoky sweetness wafts over the dusty smog of the city

As I carry my Monday morning hangover face to work.

It carries with it a portent

Of a benevolent sun warming up my patch of checked gingham

Amid yowling dogs and bawling kids in my neighborhood park

This sweet potato on a stand beguiles you into believing

That there might be a cherry blossom

That will break out of the concrete jungle

This winter.

The misshapen body cased in brown

Yields a tender kernel of surprise.

Worn hands with a single perfectly manicured fingernail painted fire-engine red

Cajole the creamy whiteness out of its charred skin

They flick some magic powder out of an old plastic tin,

That had enjoyed its moment of glory under the spotlights at a department store

Many summers ago.

A fine dust

Covers the naked tuber in new clothes.

A drizzle of a young lemon’s fresh juices

Makes up my potato’s sweet face.

A single spoonful makes its way down my gullet

Creating a map

With cockle-warming grids in my belly

This spud of joy

Is my herald

To the first nip of winter.

Searching for Amritsar's Soul in a Pan of Hot Oil

While Da Vinci might argue that in simplicity lies the ultimate sophistication, I a mere, humble nobody choose to disagree. There is something perfectly vulgar in simple things. And this rough, un-pretty edge to simple things is what makes them so earthy and wholesome.

If Fish Amritsari was a girl, she would be a simple, earthy and wholesome country lass doing an item number!

Pile the virulent orange pieces of freshly fried fish high on a stainless steel thali, slap some raw onions and lemon quarters on the side, pour a few (large) shots of good ol' Old Monk rum into glass tumblers and serve it on a cold winter night around a raging bonfire...and there will be merriment, songs and perhaps an occasional brawl.
Fish Amritsari belongs to a world populated by weather-beaten faces, dusty cowboy boots/blue-and-white Bata Hawai  chappals, unshaven faces, dirt beneath the fingernails, large trucks with neon signs, camp cots and dusty highways. Take it out of this world, dress it up with vinaigrette reductions and vegetable art, pair it with a vintage French wine, serve it in expensive china, dismember it with your carefully placed fish knife and fork and you would have just destroyed the soul of Fish Amritsari, which lies in street stalls in crowded markets that fumigate your olfactory canals with their charred meat smells. It is perhaps the name "Amritsari" which gives the dish its charm rather than the actual bland looking white meat tacked on to it. It truly is the gloriously evocative name which conjures up old markets, the spires of the Golden Temple and centuries of history with a mere utterance.

My experiences with the dish itself have been wildly disparate. On the one hand Fish Amritsari is the stuff of my childhood memories. Dinners to the Army Officer's Institute located inside the impressive Fort William in Calcutta, were a weekly tradition. This grand British citadel used to be the pivot of the empire's defences at some point in history, however as a frivolous youngling oblivious to even the most obvious historicity of things, to me it was a mere cluster of walls, tunnels and buildings. The only highlight was the nice family club (the aforementioned Army Officer's Institute or AOI) which was a space for weekly entertainment, movies, May Queen balls, New Year parties and bingo nights. The point of the flashback is the connection with Fish Amritsari - a regular feature on the weekly dinner menu which maintained its spot on our preferred menu with each changing season due to my particular affinity for the dish. As a hybrid Bengali-Punjabi child who hated all the maach and maccher jhol she was fed every day (and today misses dearly), this orange fried fish preparation was something from another planet. Having none of the characteristics of the fish she knew, this dish was her own way of rebelling...by loving a fish dish that was disrespectful and considered a non fish dish according to every Bengali piscine norm because you couldn't taste the damn fish inside the orange Amritsari skin.
The second experience with Fish Amritsari was in the Deluxe Suite of Best Western Merrion Hotel, Amritsar where the weekend romantic/cultural getaway with the husband had transformed into a medical nightmare with the selfsame husband contracting dengue upon arrival. As I sat taking in the city skyline through the large picture windows of our incredibly plush room (the only bit of Amritsar I would see on this trip), I gnawed my way through a gigantic plate full of Fish Amritsari, I wondered at the popularity of this dish. The fish gleamed white inside its slightly soggy orange case which had separated from its body as it cooled. I tried to like it as much as I tried to be a good nursemaid and not have selfish thoughts about a ruined holiday...and in both cases I half succeeded...and half didn't.
This is one of my first posts where I will put up a recipe. I take no credit for it. It is in fact the much feted celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor's recipe. And like all his recipes, it is darned simple (am beginning to like the connotations of the word) and gives you a "no frills" dish swimming in authenticity and flavour.
Also I am putting up this recipe as I have strangely mixed feelings about this dish. I am not convinced it is a winner. I am not convinced it is a loser. In the midst of a crisis of indecision, I am hoping this recipe will be like a beacon of light drawing a lost sailor home or like a team mascot convincing me to believe in my losing home team.

Sanjeev Kapoor's Recipe for Fish Amritsari

Preparation Time: 15 mins
Cooking Time: 10 mins
Serves 4

Ingredients:
King Fish/Sole/Singhara fillets cut into fingers - 600 gms
Red Chilli Powder - 1 Tbs
Salt to taste
Carom Seeds (Ajwain) - 1 Tsp
Ginger Paste - 2 Tbsp
Garlic Paste - 2 Tbsp
Lemon juice - 1 Tbsp
Gram Flour - 1 cup
Oil to deep fry
Egg - 1
Chaat Masala - 1 Tsp
Lemon wedges - 2

Method:
Take the fish fingers in a bowl. Add red chilli powder, salt, carom seeds, ginger paste, garlic paste, lemon juice, gram flour and mix well. Set aside for a bit. Heat sufficient oil in a kadhai. Break an egg into the fish mixture and mix. Put the fingers, a few at a time, into the hot oil and deep fry till done. Drain and place on an absorbent paper. Serve hot sprinkled with chaat masala and lemon wedges.

The Accompanying Image for Sanjeev Kapoor's Fish Amritsari

Dear reader while you go through it, do take a minute to deliberate why fish in all its multicolored states and deboned avatars is still by and large an alien creature in the land of five rivers. The average Punjabi  makes fillets out of the most characterless fish, bludgeons any inherent flavour with spices and food colour into a kind of rubbery acquiescence and then usually deep fries them till even a seasoned gourmand wouldn't be able to distinguish between a piece of  wild, fresh river sole or a clump off the bottom of your shoe's sole.

I think it is quite apt to end with this piece I read in Punjab Newsline, an Internet news portal called the "Secret of Amritsari Fish". Its weird humour and surreal implications had me going from the word "fish". And I quote...

"The best fish for the dish are the verities caught from the Harike Pattan and Beas rivers."

So dear reader if you do land up on the strange shores where verities are fished out of a lake, fried and served to you with a sprinkling of good humour, you will know you have arrived in Amritsar...

Box of Rain

Raj Kapoor and Nargis in an iconic still from the film Shree 420 (1955)

"Don't threaten me with love, baby. Let's just go walking in the rain."

- Billie Holiday

 

When I was younger, I saw life around me in its myriad hues. I saw it through a rose-tinted eyeglass I had crafted carefully through the years of my youth. And I believed in the romance of the rain. 

Calcutta is a city of bespoke romance. An oft-repeated event is customized to the individual skin. Like walking in the rain.

This fading, gloriously old-fashioned city is frozen in time. Fairy dust spewed by a mischievous imp floats around on some rare, wet, summer nights brewing trouble, drawing people together and spreading love. 

On such nights with a last magical stroke of the clock, time stops. Somewhere in the city, a woman big with child rests her tired muscles on a hard metal bed in between pregnant contractions. Her waters break in a frenzied gush. Almost in unison, the sky which has been still, breathless and silent till now, erupts in thunder, lightening and rain. The rains, they come. The lovers, they rejoice. They jostle for space under a single, slightly bent umbrella. their shoulders graze each other lightly, occasionally. It sends twin frissons of an awkward desire through two shy young lovers. They move away in embarrassment, only to be cajoled back into the space under the umbrella by the persistent pressure of Lady Rain, Patron Saint of Romance. 

 

An image from the newspaper of the wet streets of Delhi

Now I am older. I wear the bottoms of my trouser rolled. My days lie enveloped in a grey shroud. My deep slumber is interrupted by the ceaseless patter on candy striped window awnings. I wake up to a world pooled with slush, mildewed bread and green life crawling up my once-white walls.
I walk through flooded stretches of crater-sized potholes, markers of streets that once were. I collide with abandoned cows, cars with "Gujjar Boys" emblazoned on the back glass, bits of flotsam, bits of jetsam. I come home empathizing with drowned crows and bedraggled cats. I bring with me a trail of slime.
Romance just doesn't cut it anymore. My head crawls with hypochondriac nightmares. I can almost feel clumps of mould sprouting out from under my chin.
I crave for comfort food. I crave my mother's monsoon meals that cure everything from a case of blues to a cloudy cold. I crave the smells emanating from her magical kitchen that pierce through the grey blanket with the brilliance of a drop of sunshine trapped  in a multi-faceted crystal.
Every evening, I come back home and collapse on a rubber mat in a sodden tangle of rubber slippers, oversize umbrella and wet plastic bags and go over my wishlist before I can summon up the courage to let the damp out of my body and soul.

Wishlist

Khichudi:

Variously adapted and adopted as khichri, kedgeree, khicharee.
Food for the Gods. Simmered in gigantic cauldrons, it is the kind of yellow that feeds the masses and spreads festive joy.
Food for the body: A hearty and wholesome brew of the sort that is a cure for every ailment in its varying degrees of mildness and severity.
Food for the soul: the piping hot, bright yellow and glutinous mass is sunshine on a plate. Top it with Alu Bhaja (thin strips of turmeric and chilli coated potato deep fried in boiling oil), Beguni (batter-fried slices of brinjal) or Begun Bhaja (thick slices of brinjal fried in the same way as the potatoes), thick slices of fried aromatic Hilsa (the goddess of all that is fishy in Bengal) and/or a fluffy omelette stuffed with onions and green chillies. For this meal I would enter into a Faustian pact. This meal on a rainy day and my cup runneth over for now and evermore.

Onion Pakoras:

The crisp outer layers melt in your mouth to reveal the sweet onion bulbs inside. It is like popping a liqueur chocolate in your mouth and waiting for the surprise of alcohol melting all over your tongue. A delicate underpinning of green chilli and cilantro, a fine dust of the mysterious chaat masala and three bowls of tomato, mint and green chilli sauce form the  trusty sidekicks for the pakoras which launch an unabashed attack on the wet gloom. These golden fritters shaped like the tentacles of some alien octopi emerge onto the gray horizon like half a score visiting stars from a  neighboring galaxy.

Chicken Soup:

The strangely titled books such as Chicken Soup for the Latter-day Saint Soul have done little to take away from the ubiquitous comfort of inhaling the aroma of a large bowl of steaming old-fashioned chicken soup. The hunks of meat, the chunks of onion and carrot and the brown broth oozing with fresh flavours come together in a perfect opera. They sing to me of sunny days and warmer climes. This soup regulates the temperature around the cockles of your heart.

  

Coffee:

Not the kind that comes with smiling faces and elaborate maple leaves etched into its foam. Not the kind that makes you giddy with its decaf, low fat, mocha, caramelized, hazel nutted options. Just a (normal sized) cup of my mum's hand-beaten frothy and light coffee made out of Nescafe,  granulated and refined sugar and Mother Dairy's double toned milk and served in my favourite cup which is slightly chipped around the edges. Hot enough to sear the tender flesh at the edge of tongue. Hot enough to burn a chink into the gray armour clothing my heart.

Jalebi:

If a pretzel was born in India, it would be called a jalebi. However, it would be sweeter on the palate and more pleasing to the eye. This light and airy counterpart of the clunky European baked confection is a treat for every season. The hot molten jalebi breaks into a thousand delicate drops of sweet sugar syrup in your mouth. Hot jalebis fresh off the griddle served with a chilled kheer (a concoction made by boiling rice,milk and sugar) or a thick slab of vanilla ice cream are the stuff of a rainmaker's nightmare. They foretell days of endless sunshine without a drop of rain.

 

Gene Kelly singin' away in the rain

Checking things off my wishlist will mark a return to romance. The romance in simple things. The joy in a simple life. It will make me want to walk in the rain without a care. It will make me want to sing...in the rain.