An unbeliever in a temple town

It turns out that if the visitor to Bhubaneshwar is unable to go off for a day trip, her only option is to visit one of the many temples that dot the city. And they are beautiful. Constructed nearly a thousand years ago, they have pure lines and are covered with intricate carvings.

They are also the stronghold of some of the most aggressive and grasping priests I've ever heard of. My sister and my colleague D both had experiences that left them scarred . Their first reaction when I told them of my planned trip was 'Beware of the Pandas!'. Not the sneezing bears, the priests.

I wanted to see the temples though, and off I went to the Lingaraj Temple with camera in hand. Only to be told that I was not allowed to take my camera or cellphone into the temple. 'Oh, then I don't need to enter', I said gaily and turned around looking for a vantage point.

The good news is, that there IS a specially constructed vantage point for untouchables, unbelievers, and Prime ministers- the temple is famous for not letting Indira Gandhi in. So if you turn left from the main gate (with your back to it) and follow the boundary wall, and pass the big Pipal tree, you come across a flight of steep stairs that allow you to peek over the compound wall. These photos were taken from there. And the sky was not that colour..I coloured it in so that you could see the spire properly.

The better news is that the surroundings are atleast as interesting as the temple itself. Hairy AC you've probably booked appointments with. There is also interesting work going on. I stubbed my toe against this scary thing:

Which turned out to be part of a wheel being constructed for a chariot for the gods.

 Huge chunks of sweet-smelling wood, a solitary chariot-builder, and children playing with woodchips. Not a bad place to stand for a while.

Speeding through Bhubaneshwar

I was in Bhubaneshwar for a couple of days last week.  This was one of those residential workshops where the participants are confined in a campus in the middle of nowhere. And that left me profoundly dissatisfied, because I had never been to Orissa before and I wanted to experience more than the inside of a sterile conference room.

Orissa is in my admittedly stereotyping mind, a land of stories. This is where Ashoka fought, killed and had his epiphany. He tended to use the land as a sort of personal journal, and this is where we can read his diary entries. Flying into Orissa, there is a long stretch of utter blackness. This, I realised, is where the last vestiges of the Dandakaranya, the great forest mentioned in many epics, still hold on.This land is which straddles several incomprehensible worlds. There are laidback tribal communities that launch highly visible and successful international campaigns when mining companies threaten them. There are bustling markets selling cane, plastic, and everything in between. There is sambalpuri fabric, architecture, and exquisite art.

And so I sneaked out. Once during the lunch hour, and once during the window after the main session but before the working group meeting.

Now these narrow time  frames meant that I could not follow the 'soak in atmosphere' strategy. I needed to be ruthless and 'sightsee'. Very humdrum, but better than nothing.

Actually, not quite 'humdrum' as you can see from the photo .
I came across it near the temple complex. How could I resist? Actually, if Mian was with me, I would have gotten him a haircut. After all, it is the only gent's parlour we can trust!

Staying home

There are only two stories in the world, I have heard. One is of the stranger who rides into town (and eventually leaves), and one is of the person who has a stranger visit his or her town.

I have always been the one who gets up and goes. It seems to me now that a large part of my time at home was spent packing for trips while my mum sat on the bed and watched me. I know how it feels to be torn..to be sad to be leaving, but to also be excited about the upcoming trip. I have had times when my mind was already at my destination even as my hands were packing my bag. I would talk excitedly about wherever it is that I was going to. I remember feeling defensive when my mum expressed regret that I am leaving. Be happy for me, I would say. Why aren't you happy for me? And all the time, she would sit there and try to summon up excitement about my plans. In an effort to cheer her up, I would emphasize how happy I was wherever I was going to. It would make her feel better,I would think, to know I was happy. And I would suppress my regret and tell her over and over how wonderful my destination was.

I feel sad now.

I feel sad that I rubbed in my excitement to be leaving. Did Mum feel that I was happy to leave her? Back then I didn't really have the empathy to understand the desolation of the one who is left behind. I couldn't see that while the one left behind IS happy for the traveller, she is also faced with the reality of an empty home. I didn't realise how difficult it is to bite back tears and join in the packing. I was also too dense and self-absorbed to understand insecurity, to understand the doubts that rise despite one's logical mind.

Back then, I say. Because now I know. As the fates would have it, my situation is now reversed. The one I love is more of a traveller than I am. And I am the one who thinks despite herself, "he just got here, and he is planning to leave." I know its not like that. I know exactly what it feels like to leave home. I try to always remember that.

I thought I do a good job of it. But today I realised that Mian senses my unhappiness. And worse, thinks it is directed at him. It's not. As I said, I do know both sides of the story. I can, and do, feel excitement about his travels. I am damn proud of his work and the life he has crafted for himself. But this is the man who selects the most intact chips in a crushed bag of Lays and keeps them aside for me. He left an hour ago, and I am already lonesome. How can I not be filled with dread at the thought of his being away for a week?

Art at the Metro: INA station, Delhi

You thought I had forgotten my quest for urban art in Dehradun, had you? No, I haven't. I adore unexpectedly coming across art in cities and am still looking out for some examples in Dun. But right now, I have run out of options. And that is why I was thrilled when I visited the INA market metro station (yellow line).

The station has a crafts gallery with exquisite works from various states. These are truly high-quality and obviously done with some attention to detail. I can't really describe art very well, but here is a good description of the station.  I always love some prettiness in urban transport and would perhaps have liked this more if it was spread out across the metro system rather than in a gallery-style exhibit. But hey, first steps..

Nothing is perfect and a look at the list of exhibits indicates that not all the states are represented. First steps, and hopefully this is just the beginning. For now though, this is pretty good. I loved all of them and would gladly go down there just to wander from one exhibit to the other. In fact, that is what I plan to do the next time I go down to Delhi.

Incidentally, apologies for the shoddy picture. Taking photographs is not allowed in the Metro system, and this was done by stealth. The things I do for this blog..

Mian and Chicu explore Vanxim

It looks mysterious and exciting on the map. It is an island only accessible from another island (Divar), Therefore it followed that it must be twice as remote and logically, twice as romantic as your run-of-the-mill, humdrum pacific atoll. On the map, more than half of it was a deep green and labelled 'mangrove forest'. The other bit was mostly blank with three symbols on it: a church, a temple, and the alluring little martini that Google uses to indicate local bars. A map of Heaven, no doubt, would look very like the image on the left.

We would go there, we decided. We would wander among the mangroves and have a beer in an impossibly quaint little restaurant.

The first indicator that maps might be misleading came when we tried to board the ferry to Vanxim. For starters, we were among less than half-a-dozen people on board. And the others looked like they'd rather be going in the other direction.

'Why are you going there?' the ferry crew asked us.
'To look around!'
'There is nothing there for you.'
'Oh, we'll be happy just looking around the village'
'There. Is. Nothing. There.'

Despite this, we carry on. The ferry makes a trip every hour. On the remote chance that there is no lovely little restaurant, we can always leave in an hour, we decide, knowing all the time that there is no way we can be done with this island in an hour.We might even have smiled smugly at each other- after all, we knew of a bar that even the locals hadn't heard of.

The trip across is short and pleasant, as is the landing. A small group of men watches the ferry come in. We roll off the boat and decide to turn right- towards the martini glass. It is hot, and the mangroves are too short and too far away from the road to offer some shade. We stop at a culvert and look for mudskippers, but it is too hot for them too. We drive for a minute more and then the road becomes a dirt track. Another 30 seconds and we find ourselves in someone's front yard. Uh-oh. A hasty U-turn, and 1.5 minutes later we pass the same grinning group. The ferry is still there. We pay it no attention. Ahead of us will be the dense and wonderful mangroves just waiting for Tarzan and Jane.

Or maybe not. The road ends.

We turn back. Now it is a matter of honour to spend an hour there. We pass the ferry crew and the ferry watchers for the third time in as many minutes. This time, I wave. We re-enter the village, but quickly accept that unless we break into a house, our only option is sitting on the culvert.

We go back to the ferry. They have been waiting for us. We get on. It starts off. The ferry crew manage not to say, 'we told you so.'

We maintain a dignified silence on the trip back.

Island hopping

On all two islands, that is.
With a desire to reclaim some of my childhood happiness,  Mian and I set off to visit the islands inland of Panjim.
Divar is a fairly large place, with its own ferry and bus service (each of which obligingly waits for the other). And it is beautiful. There are signs that this bustling, vibrant community is growing, and within a few years the old colonial bungalows with the breadfruit trees will give way to apartment blocks. But for now, it is a green and forested area with well-set out houses and family-run businesses. The gardens are full of busy chickens, lazy dogs, and food set out to dry in the sun.
The area close to the ferry is where this leafy little village is. Go further inland, and the scenery changes. The trees rapidly disappear and till the mangroves reappear, there is a vast stretch of grassland. I am not sure why this is so. Evidence of past farming? pasture land? This grass had been set fire to and while it did nothing to reduce the heat, it attracted birds from miles around. We stopped and watched them as they indulged in a feeding orgy. Drongos, swifts and bee-eaters, kites and eagles. Mian of course, managed to click several snaps.

That's the black shouldered kite on the left and the right is one of those brown anonymous birds that I can never identify.
We zoomed up and down looking for a place to eat before asking the local bus driver.

Me: hello, do you know of a place where we might get lunch?
He (looking first at me, and then at Mian): nothing for the likes of you..
Me: huh?
He: you'll probably want vegetarian.
Me: actually, we were looking for fish.
He: those places also have beer
 (Mian and I visibly brighten.)
He: hehe..ok..follows with extremely detailed description of where to find Mayur's.

And its a good thing that the description was so detailed, because otherwise we would never have found it. The restaurant was run by a mother and son in their living room and had the most excellent food. When we indicated that we wanted to pay for our meal, the son disappeared. We waited. and waited. and waited. When I finally went off to investigate, I discovered that he had broken out his bill book and was trying to figure out how to write in it. 'We don't need a bill', I said, 'just tell us what it is.' When he did come and tell us, the amount had us asking him hesitantly, 'did you account for both of us?' 
And it was after lunch that we decided to explore Vanxim..

Fiddling, skipping life

Maybe a couple of decades ago, my sis, my mum and I had gone to Goa for the day. Not an unusual holiday for us- a day of lounging on a beach, a little shopping at the Mapusa Market, and some excellent seafood. At that time, as it still is in several areas, the only way to cross the various creeks that section Goa was by ferry.

It was when our car was waiting for a ferry that I wandered off to investigate some trees growing by the shore. Remember that this was when I fancied myself a naturalist and went on ALL trips wearing khaki shorts and brown tee-shirts- because all naturalists are always dressed in camouflage, aren't they?

The tide was just going out and the trees stood ankle-deep in water, with their green saris hitched up out of the way as it were. There were pointy sticks looming out of the soil, and as I looked on, the whole place came alive.

There were darting bits of shiny brown that I could not quite make out. 'lizards' I called them.

When I saw the first crab that scurried out, I felt sorry for him- he seemed to have been in a terrible accident that left him with only one claw. When the others came out though, I saw that it seemed to be a universal trait in that little community.

They were funny, as they busily fed themselves with that onee bright orange hand- very much the way I ate too. The crabs, the glistening little 'lizards' and my search for other animals kept me so happily engaged that I was sorry when the ferry came in.

It was later that month when I received my copy of Target (which I still consider the most excellent children/tween magazine to ever have been published) that I could put a name to those creatures- fiddler crabs and mudskippers they were, residents of mangrove forests breathe through those 'pointy sticks' and which are possibly the most biodiverse ecosystem type in the world. That full-page spread with cheeky illustrations by the inimitable Ajit Ninan enthralled me, and made me a mangrove fan. That experience, of watching these fantastic creatures on a sunlit shore with the people I love, of hearing the "splot! snap! Chitter-chitter" that is the background score of a mangrove forest, of wonder, is one of my most cherished memories.

And one that I wanted to relive with Mian by my side.

And so it is that in January, Mian and I hired a scooter and putt-putt-puttered off to Divar Island.

(All photos in this and the next post? Mian, who has the eye to see wonderful photos and the presence of mind to take them)

The Padaria

When we first went there, at maybe 11am, the bakery was shut and the only occupant was a man fast asleep in a chair placed in the alle. Our walking in, pushing open the door and looking inside, taking pictures of the alley did not waken him. 'He's tired, he has just finished the morning bake' whispered my mian with the empathy of one who also wakes up at 4am because his dough won't wait.


We returned the same day in time for the afternoon bake and were rewarded by a bustling place. The bakery was a thriving little business run by the same family for the last one hundred and fifty years. Like Theseus's ship, the oven had had little patch up jobs every now and then, but for all intents and purposes it had been at work throughout that period. Despite that family's shaky hinglish and this family's utter lack of konkani we managed to exchange necessary bits of information. The present owner was a woman who told us of the bakery's history while the son told us of the baking itself. Once he learnt that Mian had baked on a commercial scale too, the two of them rapidly bonded over the merits of dough mixers and the satisfaction of a perfect batch of bread.

In the meantime, the younger son and the daughter (in-law?) had corralled me in a corner and were getting the details of our love story. Never bashful, I was happy enough to tell them about how we met, how the stars conspired to make us meet over and over again, and how he wooed me with his baking. As we stood giggling in that corner, the object of my affections was happily observing a working bakery and getting information about how it worked.

Very conscious of our learnings from various surveys we had undertaken, we were careful not to ask for personal details- names, ages, money earned and so on. There is a difference though, between a suspicious and defensive 'project-beneficiary', and a craftsman who is brimming over with pride and pleasure in his work. As we said our goodbyes and thanks, we were stopped by a confidently outstretched hand. 'Hello' the little boy said in English,' my name is Vishal. What is your name?'

An Ineffectual move

I am tired of the conversations around me, and the righteous satisfaction that people exude about the Godhra verdict.
For those who are unfamilar with what I am talking of, The Times of India reported the verdict in this article which generated 912 comments, most of which make me want to either cry or throw up.

Its totally pointless of me to post this, because Tehelka has 18,412 followers, I have 20.
But I want more people to read the Tehelka article.

Sometimes, we just do what we can

In search of the perfect Pao

While our honeymoon in Goa last year was idyllic, it was not perfect. We spent the last year with the nagging thought that we had Unfinished Business in Panjim.

I need to backtrack, however. Mian and I are lovers of food; Mian is a consummate baker. These two things meant that we fell in love with the bread sold by the paowallahs in Panjim. Possibly due to its Portuguese history, Goa has a rich assortment of leavened breads. We sampled all these and revelled in the fact that unlike Dun or Delhi where truly good bread is only available if one has the good fortune to be or to have married a baker or bread, it is ubiquitous in Goa. Every morning and late afternoon, we would hear the distinctive two-tone beep of the horns attached to the bread sellers' cycles. We timed our walks to synchronise with the bread schedules. Every day then, we would flag down  a cycle and excitedly uncover the blue tarp covering the cane basket on the carrier seat. Inside would be still-warm heaps of lusciousness.

The pao- a basic roll of white bread with a glossy top.
The brun- a roll, with a chewier crust and an indented top
The roti- a fluffy flattish pocket bread, like a pita but more substantial, and with bran on the top.

We bought them all, smuggled them into our room with wine and butter, and had midnight picnics on the bed. And I was supremely content.

Mian, however, wanted to see where and how it was made. We chatted up a pao-wallah and got the address of his bakery from him. In a fashion, atleast. We looked for 'The Gomez bakery, on the road up the hill' for an entire day, but had to concede defeat. And this rankled for an entire year. My wonderful Mian surprised me by recreating the bread from memory in Dun, but we still wanted to see the actual bakery.

No wonder then, that high on our list of priorities this year was the finding of a maker of bread. It wasn’t easy this time either, and required much chatting up of people, drinking of chai, and wandering up little alleyways. We didn’t need to do all that, because in the end we found it by following our twitchy little noses.

The Padaria Santimano, Fontainhas.

And what did we find there? ah, later..

And by the by, the photos in this post and the ones to follow are all taken by Mian. He managed to stay collected enough to take snaps (with permission, of course) while my thoughts ran along the lines of 'are we intruding? will they mind? oh bread! can we buy some from here? will they know if i grab a bite?' 

Uncle Pai ki Amar Katha

An integral part of my childhood-as that of nearly every Indian child of my generation- died last week.

Anant Pai, or Uncle Pai as we all knew him, shaped our knowledge of Indian mythology, classics, and history. An accessible 2.50 to 5.00 Rupees per comic when I read them, the Amar Chitra Katha series created a passion for reading in a whole generation of school children. The stories, set as they were in an Indian landscape, were much more easily adaptable for playacting than the decidedly alien Enid Blytons we otherwise read. We would trade them, read them, and play at them during the long summer holidays.

These comics are also where I learnt my history and my mythology. The personality and colour infused comics were much more attractive than the dry textbooks where we were supposed to memorize dates. The comics gave us a sense of the events, of the people behind them. Instead of the focus on a handful of largely male 'Heroes Of The Freedom Struggle' as our texts had, the Amar Chitra Kathas showcased the smaller struggles, the people in the supporting cast, stories that might otherwise be forgotten.

And its the same for the fiction. I grew up knowing the bare bones of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, of course. What I loved about the Amar Chitra Kathas is their focus on the little known figures in those stories.  Vali,  Abhimanyu, Prabhavati, Hidimbaa. They made accessible stories that would otherwise have never entered people's lives. The comics brought to english-only readers like myself versions of the great tamil classics ( Kannagi, Manonmani ) and the lesser-known sanskrit classics (Nala-Damayanti, Urvashi).

Possibly no single source has done more to shape the way we view our mythological figures than these comics have. Yes, it was Raja Ravi Verma who first gave them form..but how often does a nine-year old child in a little coastal town have access to Ravi Verma's paintings? The comics brought them to her doorstep..

This sounds like an advertisement for Amar Chitra Kathas; I guess I got a little carried away when I was thinking of the books I'd read. They were not all perfect. The illustrations, attractive though they were, are not historically accurate. My sis decided not to let them be a part of my nieces babyhood library because of they tend to ooze adultery, violence, deceit, jealousy, and lust. In the series' defense, its because Indian mythology, like the Greek, is an adults-only soap opera. What is a little less difficult to defend is their depiction of demons as dark and curly-haired, of villainous women as obese, of 'good' women as cloyingly submissive. And the history is a little simplistic.

But they are attractively illustrated, written, and presented little books. They never claimed to be archaelogical journals. They gave me much happiness during my childhood. I owe my interest in reading, in history, and in classical literature to the seed they had sown. I would still pick them up in a flash.
Thank you, Uncle Pai.


The illustration is from the Amar Chitra Katha website.

One Year

Soppy romantics that we are, Mian and I celebrated our anniversary where we spent our honeymoon. It was perfect. We visited the places we had been to before (being us, these places were restaurants) and managed to do the sightseeing we hadn't done last year (again, restaurants and bakeries). And above all, we enjoyed just strolling hand in hand along the streets again.
The first time we visited, we were taken aback by the sheer beauty and courage of this vine. It seemed the perfect essence of Fontainhas to us..warm, breathtakingly and inexplicably lovely, hanging on despite the odds. We oohed and aahed over it, clicked a snap and then forgot about it.

Till we walked the same path this year. A more profound person than I am will probably find something apposite to say re the growth of this vine and of our marriage. Me, I can only smile goofily at it and hope we meet each other next year too.

Of Taxiwallahs

You know how excited I was about my trip down south. Bubbling over with happiness, in fact. Despite that, I began our holiday in a profoundly sad frame of mind.
The reason? The cab we had hired to take us from a friend's house to the railway station. It was one of the super-efficient, super-convenient radio taxis. We booked online, our cab was waiting for us 15 minutes before schedule, and we reached our destination in time for coffee and a leisurely settling in. The cab was superlative. The man behind the wheel? Noticeable because of his invisibility.
, I am used to the drivers’ personalities colouring the vehicle. The conversations, the music, the assorted deities and film stars stuck on the windshield. With the radio taxi, it was all different. We did not have a single conversation with our driver. When we entered the taxi, he pressed a button and a recorded voice welcomed us in. When we exited it, the same recorded voice thanked us, told us the fare, and reminded us to collect our change. No banter about the weather, no comments on politics, no enquiries about our journey, no philosophizing about how to end climate change.
I think I can guess the reason. The cab was directed towards an urban, globally travelled market. The driver was a young man from the banks of the Ganga. From the Dark, as Adiga calls it. He was necessary to manipulate the controls, but heaven forbid that his rustic odour taint the sterilized interior of the car. I imagined the training sessions, the emphasis on denying his identity. And that depressed me beyond belief.
It is soul-deadening to suppress all that makes you the person you are. It is not possible to kill just a part of one's character- Everything dies. It reinforces the feeling that you are not good enough. It is sickening, depressing, and a world that requires this is a sad place. Seeing other people as humans rather than machines might be good for their esteem; it is essential to my sanity. There are days on end when my only human interaction outside the office is the local sabziwallah. What would I do if he tried to suppress himself? The shoe-maker scolds me for protesting when he mends my shoes using different colours for each. What would I do without that laughter filled argument?

I lost my wallet in Pune. Seeing me hunt for it up and down the street, an autowallah stopped me. "Don't be afraid. Tell me where you live, I'll drop you home." He spoke in rural marathi, and his accent would have been unacceptable to a radio-taxi chain. Thankfully, not needing to suppress his words also allowed his kindness and generosity to exist.

The Knight of Nizamuddin Railway Station

Its good to be back. I love that I feel warm and comforted the instant I enter our home.
And I would not have been here if it was not for the kindness of a stranger. Atleast, that is what he told me, and I fully agree.
When I arrived at Nizamuddin yesterday, I dragged me and my suitcase all the way from the station to the prepaid booth, queued up for 20 minutes in the rain, got a prepaid receipt, and then was told that I'd have to walk all the way back. It was during this walk that my fingers got rubbed raw by the suitcase, my socks got wet and muddy, and my jeans treacherously decided that they had had enough of this apple shaped woman and began slipping off. There I was then, transferring my bag from one aching hand to the other while pulling up my jeans between transfers. The one auto I managed to hail down refused to take me to the New Delhi station.
I didn’t have the gumption to argue and so hitched up my jeans and continued walking. A few metres down, I was stopped by a young man who was drinking tea with much style.

'Where do you want to go?'
'New Delhi Station'
'Why didn't you get into that one'
'He refused to take me!'
'Nonsense! Just get in!'
'He refused!' (high pitched yelp)
'Madam, this is Dilli. If you approach people so lovingly, you will still be standing here tomorrow morning! Here, come with me..and hide that chit you are waving around. Auto! Take madam to New Delhi. Madam ,you just get in and give him the chit when you get there. Let me take that suitcase'

I was dazed by all this activity, but thankfully recovered enough to lunge back out and thank him. Like some fairytale knight, rescuing women in distress was all in a days work for him, and he was now back to savouring his chai.

Off I go!

In 19 hours, my holiday begins.

Till then, I am scrambling around like a mad thing trying to do all that I need to do to ensure that the world keeps spinning for the next month. Completing sundry spreadsheets, presentations, and following up on correspondence at work. Making sure everything perishable / fermentable is out of the house. Arranging things so that we dont need to do major excavation when we return. Making sure all dues are paid, the plants are taken care of, everything that needs to be protected is sealed. Pre-holiday primping has taken a back seat, though hopefully tonight will be a spa night.

But it is so worth it. A day in delhi, buying gifties. 20 hours of scrabble and conversation time in the train with my Mian. Some days in Goa, revisiting old favourites and finding new ones. Celebrating our anniversary where we spent our honeymoon. Feeling incredibly lucky and thankful for the last year. Some days in my home town with mum. Eating fish cooked by her, visiting my school, my childhood beach, my favourite haunts, the cakes of Experto Bakery. Going to Pune. Hugging family (after a year!). Discovering my niece is now as tall as me (not taller, no matter what the measure says), seeing her wearing lipstick, seeing the teen chicu in her and thinking 'oh no..not again.' Food, drink, laughter, love, warmth. Meeting old friends, rewinding life by nearly a decade, visiting old haunts, being giggly, shopping, makeup counters, gossip, exclamations. A training program. Learning, being awestruck, coming home to mum's meals at night. More conversation, more warmth. Raiding mum's crockery. 'Stealing' her mother's cookware. Going through my beloved books, selecting far too many to bring back. Entreating Mian to carry lamps and furniture back to our Dun home.

I can no longer wait.

Winter

My daily phone calls to mum have had a pretty consistent theme over the last couple of months: 'Its cold here, mum. I cant stand it.'

I welcome winter when it comes. After the scarcity of the monsoons, lush veggies begin to fill the markets. Winter greens: fenugreek, mustard, assorted spinaches, beet and radish greens, strange water-loving leaves and winter roots: turnips, multiple varieties of radishes, beets, carrots dominate the stalls. Zucchini, pumpkins and brassicas are cheap and plenty. With these and assorted beans, I make warming soups- a different one each day. My Mian creates magic with greens- making pestos, and tortellini, and all manner of wonderful things. We don't need to worry about cooking too much either. In the summer and the monsoon, foods spoil with distressing rapidity. Rice cooked in the afternoon often spoils by the evening. But the winter! we can comfortably keep cooked food, opened cartons, even milk overnight and find it sweet and fresh.

It might be cold and dark outside, but I warm up the house with materials the colour of jewels. My old chanderi sarees, assorted bright woolens, heaps of citrus fruits and bright green branches glow in golden light and banish the dark from our home. Natural fabrics, rough weaves and candles try to create warmth. We have popcorn, and hot chocolate, and exotic teas. The bed is heaped with quilts and throws. Paraffin wax-and-oil unguents are created and religiously applied. After the hot summer and humid monsoons, there is pleasure in dressing in layers, in welcoming the feel of cloth on ones skin.

All this is fine in moderation. As far as I am concerned, December is where it should end. I would like to not dread climbing into a chilly bed, or having once warmed it up, dread climbing out again. I would like my fingers to not feel like needles are being shoved into them every time I do the laundry. I would like my skin to not resemble that of an alligator. Enough, I say beseechingly. We've barely begun, say the himalayas.

If the mountains wont budge, its time for us to..in two weeks, Mian and I travel south. We visit my hometown, spend time with family. It has been a year since I've been there- an entire year since I've been home. The warmth of loved ones and actual hot weather- I cant think of a better combination. So excited and happy.

And in 48 hours, my Mian comes home. So very excited and happy.

Learning Plateaus

4 years ago, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to do some serious navel-gazing. I went through several assessments, by myself and by those around me. There were personality tests, leadership assessments, skill analyses- the lot. The outcome of all that was what my mother had been saying for two decades-but never mind that. With the help of my coach, I drafted a Development Plan. At the end of 2010, I am still working on it. I still catch myself getting into trouble for doing things I know I should not be doing.

I tried and tried to make bread, concentrating on just two recipes (rustic bread and cinnamon-raisin-oatmeal bread), with variable results every time. This weekend, I will buy some more yeast and add a third one- roasted potato bread. (All by Jeffrey Hamelman, recipes in his book or online at The Fresh Loaf). I expect more unpredictability there.

I am still trying to learn enough English to teach it to a six-year old. We started tenses yesterday, and I realized that I only remember six of the twelve (or is it 9? or 15?).

I intuitively understand the concept of resilience, but cannot define it- and I certainly cannot sound erudite while talking about it. I see vulnerability, but find it tough to assess it without including disclaimers with every phrase.

For the first time in my life, I feel my father's absence. I now see that I have no idea how to do this husband-wife thing. My observations of married people are either dowry reports in the newspaper or the 'how to iron Father's shirts' chapters in my 19th century housekeeping manuals- which makes me as stable as Himalayan geology. Working on it, but I don't think I'll be asking Mian for a stakeholder assessment anytime soon.

My basil died in October due to the cold, my earthworms in November. The mint and garlic are alive. I don’t know how to garden below 15 degrees Celsius. Still feeling my way around northern gardening calendars.

I spoke of two challenges facing me last year. The work challenge I have bowed down in defeat to, the personal challenge is a continuing one.

Cakes, yes. Pies, no. Ensuring equitability, sort of. Basic conversation, no. Thinking before I speak, sometimes. Thinking before I snap, no. Got my work cut out for me.

This has definitely been a Year of Learning. Where learning is a verb, of course. Still working on all that, and thoroughly enjoying the process.

Happy new year.

The photo? my big adventure of the year. Our wedding day dinner..

street food

In an earlier post I had dismissed all dehraduni street food as leaving a lot to be desired.  Because here one does not get what people south of the Vindhyas call 'chaat'. The light-as-air pani puri and the jewel-bright bhelpuri are reduced to sad shades of their real selves when they come here. Things like the wonderfully bilingual SPDP (sev dahi potato puri) and the dabeli are conspicous by their absence. But I was being a pompous ass with my Pune hangup.

You do get tasty, tangy, more-ish street foods in Dehradun. They just tend to be of the stick-to-the-ribs branch of the Chaat family. Street corners are packed in winter with sellers of ground nuts. In the evenings, the heap of roasted groundnuts is topped with a little pot filled with burning coal, the glowing embers serving to warm the groundnuts and the seller while enticing the customer. There's also aloo tikki, this being something I have very rarely. The oil has been re-used umpteen times which is a deterrent. And secondly, the fluorescent nature of the chutneys displayed in the stalls makes me ask for one 'plain' sans everything, which is missing the point of a tikki. So, no.

But then there are the roots. Kachalu (a giant colocasia tuber, or arbi on steroids) and sweet potatoes which have been either boiled or roasted, then chopped up and tossed with seasoning.

 

That's what the nice Chachaji is making for me in the photo and very tasty it was too..tangy, spicy, sweet-all that chaat is required to be. The 20 Rs. pricetag has frugal me thinking 'I can buy a  kilo of sweet potatoes with that cash!' but you know what? I doubt I'll be able to get that very same taste, and the pleasure of receiving a leaf-full of mouthwatering goodness is well worth the 20. Can you take mum there? why not? I do tend to steer clear of the chaat street near the clock tower- the proximity to an open drain rattles me and will rattle your mum too; a nice clean tree-shaded chowk will be just fine

Merry Christmas!

I, Grouch

It is 2 am, and I am lying in my berth on the train. The train is supposed to reach Dun at 8am, but generally gets there at 0830. This means that I only have one hour to get home, breakfast, bathe, and cook lunch before getting into the office. I know I need to sleep, but am unable to do so because a group of young men are partying in the berths below me. I am generally quiet despite the calls for rum, the frequent use of naughty words in a desperate attempt to sound cool, the loud and inane conversation. I try and think back to my college days when something like an overnight train trip with friends was An Adventure or at the least, a Bonding Opportunity. But I seriously wonder if we were ever as oblivious to the needs of others around us. Or am I only wise in hindsight?

At first glance, it seems that I have a right to complain. A train carriage is a public space after all, and everyone expects lights out after 11 or so. Twice, when they start playing dance music, I ask them to lower the volume. They are nice boys, they respond immediately, and I thank them.

I only voice my objections twice; but for the major part of the night- from 11 pm to 4am, I think purely evil thoughts about them. Once, I drift off to sleep but wake up whimpering from a nightmare. Its all because of the partying, I think. I am feeling angry and vulnerable. But then it strikes me that I am the only one who has a problem with the noise. No one else complains. There is an old lady -they call her aunty- who needs to get off the train in the wee hours. Instead of sleeping, she has decided to join them and is roguishly pulling their collective leg. Was I being a grouch?

And today at the office. I was speaking to a colleague, P, about our ill friend's health..
C (to P): Vis still feeling dizzy? how is his bloo..
(Third person, He, stands between C and P)
He (interjecting) : namaste
C (to He) : ah! namaste
C (turning to P) : V's blood..
He: how are you?
C (to P..errr..He): press..I am fine! how are you? just  a minute..
C (to P): pressure?
P (replies with details)
C (turning to He): Sorry, we were talking about his health
He: (walks away pissed off)
C: hey, wait! I was in the middle of a sentence..we were worried about his health..why are you angry?
He: It's ok..apparently I am not important enough.

Was I a grouch?  Am I one?

I can't do this interacting with humans thing. I need a farm with a couple of dogs and lots of plants. grrrrrrrr..

It wasn't all toil and trouble..

For starts, I stayed here.

 

That's the valley of the Kosi river (not the flood prone one, that's in Bihar. This one is in Ukd and just learning its flood capabilities). The little patch of sand in the centre of the snap is the river bed.

I visited houses that had been built by people with poetry in their souls. Accessibility be damned, most houses were built for the view. Essentials are a stone courtyard with plenty of sun where the entire family lives all day

in the winter.

And a little backyard which both gets the sun AND is close to the warm kitchen.

This house defines warmth and cosiness..the stone, the little babies, the smoke curling out, the pumpkins soaking up the sun..

What is not visible in these pictures is an aspect of the traditional houses that I love. In stark contrast to urban houses which are built to deter other creatures from entering, these are built to welcome them in. There are little triangular niches under the eaves to welcome nesting birds, some of the older houses have a beehive in the wall adjoining the kitchen..It makes economic sense of course, to have honey and pest-eaters close to you. But it also illustrates an awareness that humans are but a part of a larger ecosystem.

Toil and trouble..

Am back a sadder woman. The last week's travel was a little harrowing for me.

Yes, the scenery was great and while walking in the mountains of Nainital, I could feel the approbration of the 10-year old chicu who had a crush on Corbett. At one point, we reached the top of a mountain-where I would stay for the next two days- late at night. I stood in the courtyard at midnight and was surrounded by sparkles- both above and below me. The sky was clear, moonless and  liberally sprinkled with stars. Below me spread a valley with a hundred little villages, each house a tiny and intense point of light. Only the band of darkness where the high Himalaya were, enabled me to distinguish between earth and sky. Despite the cold, I stood there for a long, long time.

In the midst of all that beauty was great injustice. The family I stayed with had three young children, all girls. They were intelligent, beautiful and hungry for love. For the crime of having given birth to them, their mother was continually berated. Within half an hour of my arrival, the matriarch of the family began complaining- in front of her grand daughters- how expensive it was to feed them. The mother was anaemic, and malnourished with shoulders like a coat hanger. Despite this, she will be forced to go on giving birth to children till she finally produces a boy, who will be spoilt far more than is good for any human and who because of his upbringing will carry on the misogyny.

My colleague refused to drink water at any of the houses that belonged to scheduled caste villagers. These families did not offer water to me either- they had probably learnt the hard way that it is a crime to offer their 'tainted' water to visitors. I made it a point to ask for and drink water at each such house and was rewarded first with astonishment and then a smile of welcome. But of course, this only serves to make me feel good and will have no impact on their lives whatsoever.

On my way back, I exploded at my good and patient Mian leaving him sad and bewildered. I travelled back wishing my life came with an undo button. When  I got here, I learnt that a colleague is seriously ill.

Plan for the next week? get bucket of sand, bury head

In hot water

That, quite literally, is where I will be over the next week.
I am working on a livelihoods project and the chap on the phone has asked me to meet him 'at rabu-da's shop at garampani on monday'. And now you have all the information I do, with the exception of one precious phone number..I set off tonight expecting adventure.

I will be travelling in the hills for the next week and a half or two. See you when I get back.

Mata Hari might have had a point.

A few years ago I listened aghast as a friend confessed to me that he had spent the last few weeks sleeping on a mat and a cardboard sheet. Why? Because he did not know where to buy a mattress from in Pune.

'Why didn't you ask me?'
'I wanted to see if I could manage on my own resources' he sheepishly confessed
'I am one of your resources!' I snapped.

It was entertaining to watch his face as the validity of what I had said dawned upon him. But I too am guilty of that. My wanting to do things 'by myself' often results in my not making full use of the tools at my command. Especially when those involve makeup..

Living mostly alone means that I am fairly adept in doing basic odd jobs around the house. I don’t need to call in A Man to change a lightbulb for me; unblocking a drain is child's play. Driving nails into a concrete wall is entirely another matter however. I do need to buy me a electric drill sometime soon (preferably pink, why not?), but in the meantime I do the best I can with a hammer.

The best is not always too satisfactory.

Which is why I needed to pull out the heavy artillery- super lengthening mascara to the rescue! Some flourishes of the wand, followed by one slow bat of the eyelashes and I now have this.

Just using all the tools at my disposal.

Sunshine and cookies

When you next visit Rajpur, toil up the steep path past Lhasa and keep on doing it. The exertion does not matter- you are earning your dessert.

Because near the middle of the slope, on your right is Chhaya. This is a café perched on the lip of the Rispana valley. The place makes the most of its view and is designed like a sunroom with huge windows and cane furniture. They sell pastries, cookies, coffee and a decent assortment of lunch items. Their chicken potpie is highly recommended; my usual fix is a coffee and cake. This makes an eminently satisfactory meal- especially for around Rs 50 after a morning walking around in the hills. My only quarrel with them is over their fondness for lemon essence. I am speculating here, but it seems that at one point Santa gave them a giant barrel of the flavouring, and they now feel compelled to use it everywhere. Yellow cake, zucchini bread, nimbu soda- it does not matter. Artificial lemon has an overwhelming role to play-which is sad considering the easy availability of fresh, fragrant lemons. On Friday nights, they fire up a brick oven and make pizza, which is rather good and entirely free of lemon essence, or so I've heard. Despite the essence-in-a-bottle, the cafe is a pleasant place to sit for a while.

Chhaya also has a little shop alongside where they sell hand-made quilts and clothing. The things are rather good- take a look around.

Mum'll love the place, but accessibility is a problem. Public transport vehicles stop at the base of the hill and autos dislike the climb. Talk one into taking you up. As long as you don’t let her know what the auto-wallah charged, things will be ok. And remember they stay closed on Sunday.

Incidentally, if you walk further up the slope to the very top, you come across a lovely old house with wooden blinds. This is Studio Alaya- Mecca of the sustainability aware, socially responsible, aesthetically picky treasure hunter and home of the most adorable rocking horse I've ever seen.

Why I don't say 'no' to a project

One of the more juvenile -and reprehensible- habits that M and I had fallen into when working together was writing notes to each other during meetings. I came across this exchange in my notebook the other day:
C: I am not sure they have understood the larger goal of the project. Should we initiate a short session discussing that?
M: I dont think they like us..
M's reply wasnt really the sad non-sequitur it sounds like. This was a new education-based project being initiated, and the partners seemed absolutely unimpressed with the two women hosting the meeting.

Imagine my reaction then, when I was again called to intereact with the same partners, but in my role as civil engineer. Initially, I needed to establish my credentials- something I thought I had stopped needing to do 8 years ago. I am glad I persisted, because I was given wonderful gifts at the end of it.

After nearly a year of scheming to go to Pithoragarh, I was sent there with a day's notice. I stayed in village homes hosted by truly generous families. The photo of the golden glacier was snapped from the porch of one of the houses I stayed at. And the people..
Most were quietly friendly, like this stunningly beautiful grandmother

But there were also the imps. I met these siblings during work, and enjoyed talking to them and taking photos.

They would come running up to see the pictures on my camera and jostle each other out of the way.
Far more dignified was their ring-leader. Not once did she come up to me or chat, preferring to oversee her gang from a distance. That child is pure drama..note the pretend-cigarette.

Toy town cakes

Nearly all the time, Mian and I eat as close to natural as possible. Whole, unrefined, unprocessed, local. Often, the only convenience food in our kitchen is the dried pasta that's made in a factory from refined flour and shipped in from I-don’t-want-to-know-where.

And sometimes I swing in the opposite direction and decide I don’t want any more multi-layer flavours, back-to-the-earth goodness, or carbohydrates more complex than integral calculus. Give me simple, I say. Sugar that zings straight to my synapses, transfats that make a bee-line for my arteries and chemical additives that flirt with my immune system.

It is then that I turn to Sugar Box. As the photo illustrates, there is nothing natural about the things they sell there. And in a way, I respect them for it..they are extremely honest in that they do not pretend to be anything they are not. The pastry in the photo might be called Strawberry, but nothing in the colour, filling, or flavour hints at a nodding acquaintance with anything that might be grown on this earth. And it does not matter. The 'cream' is tasteless but plenty, the sugar cannot be ignored, the mouthfeel is eminently satisfactory in its fluffiness. Sometimes that is all we need. And at 35Rs for a pastry, one has cash left over to embark on the detox diet of one's choice.

Not gourmet, not like mum makes, but an acceptable junk food fix. I know of two outlets, near the clock tower and in Indira Nagar, there might be more. What about mum, you ask? Well, its clean and respectable. Whether she loves it or hates it depends on whether she spent her youth celebrating the arrival of super-snazzy instant coffee powder or lovingly tending to her pot garden (pun utterly intended)..you decide.

Sweetness in the air

Travelling by Vikram on Kanwali road in the evening is a miserable experience. There are traffic jams, it is noisy, and even being crowded with the rest of the passengers does not lessen the impact of the cold winds that blow in from everywhere. The people sitting inside are tense and in an uncharitable mood; they try to make themselves as rigid as possible to ensure that no one crowds them even further. And then on a certain stretch of the road, they close their eyes and inhale deeply. Bodies relax, tension dissipates, eye contact is made and smiles exchanged.

All because of the warm and sensuous aroma of jaggery. Unlike sugar, jaggery has a complex taste- sweet, salt, caramelly, malty, and unexpectedly spicy. When it is melted, the aroma makes one swoon with a happy sigh, especially on a cold night. This is not the warmth of a duvet, it is the generous smiling warmth of an embrace. It is sweet but not cloying, warm but not oppressive; it is unrestrainedly sexy. And it alone is the reason I make it a point to often go down Kanwali road in winter.

For most of the year, Saharanpur Chowk is my least favourite place in town. It is crowded, noisy, littered and sends me home with a headache. From November to February, it is still crowded, noisy and littered, but also fragrant.

Candy shops line the street for maybe a hundred meters past Saharanpur Chowk as one travels up Kanwali road from the station. They are unnoticeable most of the time- as I write this, I find myself unable to recall what they sell in the warmer months. In winter though, each shop sets up a candy making unit at the back. The sweets they sell- 'gajak' - are designed to beat the chill. They are made entirely of warming foods- jaggery, sesame seeds, ground nuts- that provide a bit of warmth, sugar and protein for 60-100 Rs a kilo. Buy Mum the sweets, but subjecting her to the traffic is not necessary.

Unless she is interested in the candy making process which is fascinating and reminiscent of the proceedings in a witches' kitchen.. In each shop a huge (1.5m dia or so) iron kadhai rests on a rough stove. In it, a thick brown liquid simmers with an occasional 'glop' as a bubble rises to the surface. This is the jaggery that brings customers here. On the floor is a mound of bright tinkling sesame seeds waiting to be mixed with the jaggery. And suspended from a hook on the wall is Rapunzel's braid. Actually, no..it's a glistening golden rope of sugar that is being stretched and twisted till it is perfectly ductile and made of hundreds of fine threads. Sadly, I don’t have a photo of that..though I do have one of the candy-makers I bought some gajak from a couple of days ago.

Fauxlooda

Yes, just after I promise to accept Dun food at its own value, here I go again.

But see, for me falooda is a very specific food. A tall glass of super-cold, sweet, frothy milk- preferably bright pink and flavoured with rose water- and always, always, a good heaping tablespoon of crunchy-slippery basil seeds. Originally Persian, it is now firmly a part of the wonderful mixed goodness that was the Bombay of my childhood. My Parsi cookbook lists it, tightly wrapped plastic packets of violently coloured 'falooda mix' are sold in Pune throughout Ramazan and my mum would make it for me during the summer holidays.

A falooda is defined by the seeds- these are called sabja, and are of the 'kama-kasturi' plant which is a stunningly fragrant member of the basil family. The seeds are supposed to be cooling, and so dispel heat rashes, crankiness, and other such summer-holiday mishaps. It is traditionally flavoured with rose water or syrup, which is also reputed to be soothing. Restaurants nowadays carry saffron or mango flavours, which is quite sacrilegious since these are warming flavours, and falooda is more of a cooling medicine than a high-calorie indulgent icecream. Anyway, that's my story and I'll stick to it.

All this is just to explain why I refuse to call the wonderful concoction sold by Kumar's Sweet Shop a falooda. It is a helping of silky smooth kulfi, topped with rice noodles in a sweet syrup, further crowned with condensed milk. It is definitely tasty, and I do eat it often, and I do think that it is difficult to get this amount of sheer indulgence for 40 Rs. But it is not a falooda.

Kumar's Sweet Shop is at the Clock Tower Chowk, and all their sweetmeats are worth fighting your way to the shop through the crowd of hungry shoppers. Take mum there, she's probably better at elbowing others out of the way than you are. Be prepared to drag her away though..



Thanks to uppercrustindia for the image.

Travelling in Kumaun

I got back a few short hours ago, and I still have not collected my thoughts. What I have done, however, is downloaded my pictures. Here then, are some images of the fortnight I spent in the mountains.

I spent Diwali with my Mian, and to go to work the following week, I needed to walk down a mountain to catch the bus to take me to the place from where I could walk to the place I'd meet my colleagues from where we would all drive down to the village. The walk was beautiful though, with the entire valley still covered in mist.

 

I travelled alone in the lower Gori Ganga Valley, near Munsyari. My work required me to visit three villages there, all situated several kilometers away from the nearest road head. A steep walk of a couple of hours brought me to the first chai stall of the little village of Golpha. Looming over the chai stall is the Bainti Glacier, that as far as I can make out from the map, flows down the side of Nagling peak.

 

No less dramatic is the road to Bona, though sadly my photograph does not do justice to the wonderful striations on the rocks. They were marvellously coloured in all manner of blues and greens. As for the stream itself, I drank from it and a more refreshing drink I've never had.

And finally, home. The train I take back to Dun lands me there at 04:30, which is a most unreasonable hour to wake my landlady. And so I generally spend a couple of hours in the waiting room. many months of doing this has led to my thinking, 'Ah, my travels are over.' when I step into it. I stretch out there, recharge my phone, read a book. Today I found a paper someone had left the day before. I had a pen, and I bought chai. What better way to unwind?

Being The Other Woman There

My father died when I was two. In most families, this would have meant an instant crushing of hopes, a reining in of the pursuit of happiness. It did not mean that for me and my sister. All because early on, my mother gritted her teeth and swore not to 'let her children feel the absence of a father'. In most things, big as well as little, we were allowed to explore and experience all that we wanted to- including some things that probably would have had Baba hrrumphing. There was one limitation though, that my sis and I felt the injustice of and protested. The deciding criterion for everything- choosing restaurants, activities, professions- was always the same.

'are there Other Women There?' my mum would ask.

'So what?' We would say, our feminism bubbling over, ' let us be the first! Other women will see us and come!' The irony of protesting for our rights with the woman who had instilled in us the confidence to do so was lost on us then.

I recognize irony now, and smile when it presents itself. Three decades after my mother needed to create a new set of rules for a suddenly altered life, I have adopted some of those rules into my own. All other things being equal, the deciding factor that entices me into one restaurant instead of another is the old question of 'are there Other Women There'.

That question caused me to enter Aapka Dhaba instead of all the other places on the Inamullah building street. Not only is this the cleanest and neatest by far, but it is also the only place where I've ever seen Other Women. This is the first eatery as you walk from Tehsil Chowk to Prince Chowk, and is on your left- maybe a 100 metres past Tehsil chowk. While the sign is faded, the restaurant itself is quite noticeable, being an open-front restaurant paneled entirely in beige formica.

And whatever the reasons for choosing it, it is a smart choice- the food is beyond sublime. I do eat there throughout the year, but the food comes into its own in winters. A rich and spicy broth with succulent pieces of meat and a couple of spongy rotis to mop everything is the perfect dinner on those cold and dark evenings. I walk up and say hello to the baby-faced and bespectacled owner. By now, I have 'my table' and if it is unoccupied, that is where I go. I hear a cry- 'Madam is here! See to Madam!' and someone comes up with a glass of water. As I eat, every now and then someone will come up to press a little extra gravy on me, or ask if I want a roti. By the end of the meal, I am invariably smiling.

A meal there- of a half-plate of curry or kheema and a couple of rotis- costs around 30 - 40 Rs. You won't want to drink the water, so factor in another 15Rs for a cold drink- and a mango drink goes wonderfully well with the rich curries. These prices are for 'meat' which is buffalo meat; chicken or mutton will cost a bit more.

Don't take mum there. The buffalo meat will distress her, the gun shop a few metres away will make her uncomfortable. And most important, while I have occasionally seen Other Women There, they aren't there all the time

That said, should you wander in on a weekend afternoon you might see a woman sitting by herself at a corner table. She will have a bag of groceries on the seat next to her and a book propped up on the table. She might see you peek in and smile at the thought that now she is the Other Woman There reassuring travelers that its okay to enter. Do walk up and say hello, I'd love to meet you.

*The photo of the little Tandoor-wallah? Taken by Maliha, who is proof that vegetarians also can have a good meal there..