Serendipity

Since I was old enough to learn English - which was three years - I have been told that English is my ticket to freedom and opportunities. Apparently, nobody ever reached anywhere just learning my mother tongue. So once I moved to Europe, I did not expect the Indian languages to help me out.

I was so wrong.

I was in Berlin, and one wrong turn meant I was in the wrong street. In my search for the perfect food, I was suddenly in the middle of a residential neighborhood, most of the apartments looking deserted for the holidays. I was not too worried about the dark buildings, as much as I was about the hunger pangs in my stomach. I wanted to eat something good, and I wanted to eat fast.

I walked towards the one source of light, a restaurant which is open at this twilight time, looking like the only place in earth which is open. I went inside, only to stare at someone who only knew German.

Looking around, taking the decorations of the restaurant in, and discounting the nice Europeans who were peacefully dining, I bellowed into the kitchen - "Aare Bhaisaab!" (Hello Brother) - a girl's gotta eat.

Which brought out the owner pretty fast, much to the shock of his German customers and employees. I continued chatting with him in Hindi. A first generation Pakistani from Lahore, he has been in Berlin for the last forty years, his kids married to 'white women'. He questions me on my province, the number of siblings I have, about my parents and grandparents and if I am traveling alone; just like a polite first time conversation in Hindi ought to me.

One sublime chicken biriyani and a free, unasked mango lassi later, I am pointed out my way on the map; and one of the employees is volunteered by the hotel manager to drop me to where I live.

Food for thought

The one time when I realized that I do not have an iron stomach was when prawns caused me to puff up. The my juniors were being placed for their summer internships, and I had went to partake a meal offered by a company for my help to run their process smoothly. Never mind that they are on the other side of the fence now.

Being a mallu brought up on everything that lives on water, I did not think twice about eating as many shrimps as I can. However, that night I woke up from my sleep feeling choked. My entire body ballooned up, my oxygen supply was cut off. Just like that, my love story with prawns came to an end.

You win some, you lose some. Jamshedpur also exposed me to my first taste of olives. Pickled olives; to be more precise. I love both the black and green ones. Ironically, I started loving olives as they reminded me of the ten-for-50-paise packs of pickled wild berries which used to entice me on my way back from school.

Caviar was very much looked forward to - as I was brought up on regular encounters with cod liver oil and fish eggs from childhood, I did not have any enemity towards it. Also, the umpteen English short stories that I read from childhood made me realize that caviar was it. So when I had the chance, I had it with gusto, much to the awe and disgust ( in equal parts ) of my friends.

Paani puri will always have South Indian memories associated with them. It was a Tam who has introduced me to them, converting them to lunch from the lowly status of a snack. I was beyond my impressionable years; but Macchan gulping down one after another as if there is no tomorrow made me want them. Years later, I have not yet converted them to lunch, but hey; they are good for dinner.

Corn on the cob was another western dream. I don't really remember the first time I enjoyed it, but it is an all-time favorite now. Its cousin pop-corn - now him I loved so much that my early years at the movie theater was not complete without a few packs of the same. Movies, for a long long time, were incidental images which provided an occasion for me to eat popcorn. At the age when some kid learn that there is no Santa, I learned that you can buy pop corn from places other than movie halls.

Candy floss was a guilty pleasure as it was deemed everything bad. All the more reason for it to hold special significance for me - the first time I bought it without hiding it from the powers that be was when I was living away from home, and earning on my own. Freedom tastes sweet, with a hint of artificial colors.

However, there is always one western food I never took a shine to. An unexpected windfall through a competition gave me some serious money. Not so subtle hints from my mother dictated that I take my cousin out for lunch. She - my mother, not my cousin - wanted to go to one of the better places in town. They had just introduced burgers, the first in town. When my mother and me - two of the sincerest wannabes ever born - tucked into the burger, my cousin; all of four years pronounced " This is just a cutlet between two pieces of bun!"

That wisdom of four years was lost and he is not an addict of the same cutlet between buns. However, whenever I see a hamburger, before I can salivate at it, a little boy tells me with incredulous, aint-you-fools-to-fall-for-it eyes:

"Its just a cutlet between buns."

Bon Appetite!!!

Happy fish, sad fish

I miss Chennai.

The udupi hotel food, the low priced fruit shakes, the sea and the besant nagar sea bridge, the east cost road, the friends i had there, satyam theatre and Spencer plaza, the rains, the bike rides....

I miss Kerala.

The backwaters, the greenery in lavish abandon, the fish, the food, the underrated malabari biriyani with an egg, onion raita and yummy lemon pickle, the different pickles and fried tapioca, jackfruit, and what not, mashed tapioca, esoteric mallu breakfast of puttu, payar, kozhukatta, ada, jackfruits, various kinds of bananas, elephants, Rs 30 movie tickets...

I miss Jamshedpur.

The running into terabytes online movie collection, the roadside food experiences, the nights where i learnt to dance, the few friends and many acquaintances, the campus dogs, the beautiful streets and the houses, the riverside....

I miss Gurgaon.

The people in that office, the friends I have left there, the movies, the shopping malls, the hep eating and drinking holes, the all night parties, the all night drinking and talking sessions with work friends....


I will miss Kolkata.

College street, city centre, the old dilapidated houses, the white jamun, the roadside snacks whose name I always keep forgetting, the work, the responsibility that made me grow up....

I don't miss Chennai.

The dirt. The lack of water. The sweat.

I don't miss Kerala.

The leching men with hands like the tentacles of Medusa, who grope and grope and grope - till you either hit back or move away if possible. The apathy of the people around me. The pseudo intellectual crap of the arm chair activists which somehow irks more than the blatant commercialization of other cities.

I don't miss Jamshedpur.

The trying to fit in. The trying to be overly loyal and patriotic. The trying to put friendships and personal opinions above what needed to be said and done. The most times phony feeling of belonging.

I don't miss Gurgaon.

The feeling of being shouted at. The conflict between wanting my life back and not wanting to hurt my friends. The inability to again, take a stand for losing a friend. The overpriced everything.

I wont miss Kolkata.

The lack of friends. The people who try to make me dole out more just because I earn more. The selfishness and self centeredness of people whom I have met, interacted with, and who still think that they are doing me a favour. The lack of a shoulder to lean on at time, for sometimes professional and mostly non-professional guidance.

Wounds

Yesterday, after a long long time - longer than I would have wanted, anyway - I cooked food.

Let me get something clear here - I do not consider anything involving 2 minute noodles or heat and eat packs cooking. I also do not classify anything related with eggs - oh phuleeze! How long does it take to cook it? Where is the challenge? - cooking.

For me, the cooking is the sorting, washing, cutting, mixing and allowing my hands to grab whatever they want to and add it to the food. I have never made the same stuff twice. Till now all my food has been new, age old mallu recipes ( I am a mallukutty after all ) mutated by random moments of insanity where I am a witch preparing strange concoctions.

In between cutting the vegetables, the phone rang. Somebody called up.

SB : Listen!
Me: I'm cooking - talk to you later!
SB: Listen to this joke - " blah blah blah "

If I have forgotten the joke, pardon me. It was not that great anyways. I groaned at the end of it, and tried balancing my mobile phone on my shoulder and continued cutting the vegetables. SB went forth to the second joke. I got distracted for a second, and sliced my finger. A bit - not really wanting a stitch, but a scar will remain forever.

"Listen to the third one!" SB was on the third joke, and I told him that I will call him later. I did not tell him about the cut finger. Blood - dark red like wine - was dipping on to the floor.

My self confessed cooking challenged flatmate and her equally inept friend who is staying with us for some time - " We have never ever cooked in our lifetime. Our parents never told us to!" - got the Dettol and other things, helped control the blood flow, and helped me with the rest of the chopping.

At the end of it, cut finger and all, I was happy. I had cooked good food, food which smelled, looked and tasted good. My magic worked. My roomie dug in with trepidation, then with gusto. Making the curry has been officially delegated to me, and I have got two enthusiastic cooking students.

The cooking went as follows:


1. Chop arbit veggies which you find. Potatoes, Cauliflower, Carrots, beans..

2. Add salt and oil to the potato and fry them for sometime, add more salt if you feel like it.

3. Sniff the food at regular intervals till you finish cooking.. Allow your mind to add whatever it wants to the food. ( I added ghee - but don't really remember when.)

4. Add some water, garam masala, the rest of the veggies except cauliflower and stir.

5. When the smell dictates, close the lid and go off.

6. When you feel like it, come back and stir and add tomatoes.

7. Stir. But mildly.

8. When the smell dictates, switch off the stove, and voila! yummy veg curry is ready.


Now this was yesterday. Today, the same Some body has caused a little bleeding somewhere within, some place which I reserve for friends. It doesn't need stitches, but I guess the scar will remain.

The cooking now, will go on.