beingdesh

Author: beingdesh

  • We are what we eat and whom we meet.

    How about listening to locals talking about their life and aspirations while sipping a chai and dipping a Parle-G; or sharing a drink with an unknown traveler listening to their experiences; or cooking meals in someone’s kitchen creating chatpate menus; or weaving sari with a local weaver; or gobbling those lovely cutlets on Indian Railways while chatting with the most known strangers; or just covering the entire length of the country in a month, away from the weekly routine of working and waiting for weekends? Sounds decently interesting? Just a bit of what my India, or desh will be like for the next month.

    For a month, I will be traveling across the country, biting my way through local cuisines and eating the brains out of all the adorable people I meet. It excites me as I get to do what pleases me the most, eating, learning, writing, and above all talking to people.

    Ironically I have a much organized and clear plan for the chaotic Northern India, and a much more random one for the prim and proper Southern India. Half my tickets are booked, none of my stays are planned, and I am still to figure out of use a DSLR which my sister is lending me for a month. But most importantly I have planned what I intend to taste at each location and the kind of people I want to meet.

    There are few people who have inspired me a lot recently, most notably Paul Theroux and his travel stories captured in The Great Railway Bazaar, and few travel writers but most notably a girl named Shivya and her writings at The Shooting Star.

    I will be crossing most of the following cities on my travel, in case you happen to be in any one of them would be glad to catchup. The list includes: Varanasi, Agra, Mathura, Delhi, Shimla, Punjab (Amritsar, Chandigarh, Ludhiana), Bangalore, Pondicherry, Coonur, Kochi, Kannur, Bekal, Mangalore, Goa and Mumbai.

    To follow all the updates from my trip please keep visiting the blog, like the Facebook page, or follow @desh on twitter.

    Featured image by Ankit Varshneya.

  • Fear of Motion Sickness

    The idea of traveling is often accompanied by a variety of emotions and a switching mental state. Love, laughter, disgust, amazement, fear, curiosity are all significant emotions one can relate with travel. But nothing disturbs our mental state more than the fear of motion sickness on travel.

    Motion sickness is a condition in which a disagreement exists between visually perceived movement and the vestibular system’s sense of movement (Wikipedia).

    In simpler terms it involves travelers puking, or feeling uncomfortable in an about-to-puke stage (called nausea) while traveling on different modes of transport. Interestingly throughout my life I have been through all of the above listed emotions when it comes to motion sickness.

    As a kid I was completely occupied by the idea of vomiting on travel. I recall the bus journeys we took to Bilaspur to catch trains, or the long drives from Korba to Jabalpur, or the shared taxi rides from Bhopal to Devas, I had left my mark on an entire state. Avoiding food, gulping soda, keeping a clove in my mouth, drinking less water, popping Avomine pills or keeping the window open- I tried everything, but everything failed. The constant fear in my mind of vomiting on road journeys, the disgust of actually doing it, and the love of my parents when they helped me clean up sort of sums up how I traveled on that dusty, warm, red-soiled, bumpy, teak-wooded M.P. landscape. Just to add  I was traveling on the worst roads in the world.

    And one day it stopped. I went through an entire road journey without throwing up. I was amazed by the sudden stoppage of uneasiness and vomiting. What a relief it was!!!

    But nothing can actually beat the relief one gets immediately after the act of vomiting. The freshness which follows vomiting is in a close competition with the event of a first rain, or that of taking a dip in an icy chilled Ganga at Har ki Paudi, or drinking water having saunf.

    But I started missing it, motion sickness was inseparable component of all my travels as a kid, almost as inseparable as a Digital Camera is to any travel nowadays, and from that day the way I traveled changed forever.

    Although like all things motion sickness came back again and again in all my travels, and non-travel situations, stirring up various emotions and creating memorable instances. Few of them which come to my mind:

    1. I was almost about to land in Mumbai when I saw the acres of slum encroachments visible near the landing strip of Mumbai Airport. All of  a sudden I smelt a strong smell too. I was amazed at the degree of stench and filth of the slums that it was able to reach the interiors of plane flying above it!!! Till I realized that a kid sitting behind me had puked.
    2. We had just had a brilliant Kerala style ayurvedic massage in Munnar and stepped out for a light bite. All of a sudden I see my friend who had undertaken the same treatment running all over the place and vomiting. The situation was extremely funny and evoked a sort of a contagious laughter with all other friends catching on to the situation.
    3. Every morning we used to reach Shimla bus stand early in morning, in between the steaming chai vessels, an army of sweepers cleaning the stand and the buses coming out of yard. One significant feature of Himachal buses are their vomit-stained sides from the previous days. In Himachal I realized that motion sickness is just a way of life. If spitting outside the window and leaving a Guthka mark is common to buses in M.P., vomiting is normal to people in Himachal. So when motion sickness came back to me after so many years on road travel, I felt normal, without any guilt or disgust.

    More than the stories I guess if you are or have been suffering from this sickness I have my own set of cures for the same. Please try them at your own risk:

    1. Never ever brush your teeth by Colgate in morning before you leave for journey, Colgate Gel works but not regular Colgate
    2. Mix three tablets of Hajmola in one glass of cold Limca and drink it, works wonders
    3. Avoid dairy products and high on sugar drinks
    4. Have fruits which leave a kasela swad in your mouth like Jaamun, Amla
    5. If you stop on the way on a temple, and if the prasad is Coconut, keep it in your pocket and eat it after the journey

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    Do you have interesting stories related to motion sickness or some whacky cures for the same which you would like to share?

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    Featured image by Prasoon Gupta

  • The First Sip

    Years ago when I was a kid, I had accidentally discovered and realized the existence of Alcohol. I had stumbled upon a bottle of Whiskey, while looking for something in my Father’s wardrobe. Till that point of time I had seen people drinking on-screen, but I certainly couldn’t imagine my father doing the same. There was something different about that moment when I held the bottle in my hands. Excitement, curiosity, or guilt? All I knew was that I will never drink alcohol when I grow up. There was something extremely repulsive about it back then.

    Slowly things around me were changing, I started noticing the bottles of VAT 69 more prominently than Helen Aunty’s cabaret numbers while watching a 70s movie; I realized that the reason Murali Bhaiya made those brilliant appetizers at Nucleus Club parties – the taste of those egg cutlets and smell of that fish fry still lingers vividly in my memory; I realized that drinking alcohol can be fun, can make uncles go mad in New Year Parties, can lead aunties to talk about behaviour of those uncles and can lead to kids getting excited about it. There was always that bit of excitement in class whenever our Chemistry teacher threw out the name of C2H5OH from his mouth. Few of my friends had taken up smoking and chewing tobacco but drinking alcohol was still faraway.  Alcohol in those days to me was a distant dream and I told to myself, I will never ever smoke. But drinking, yes will consider that for sure.

    Few years later engineering college presented the first opportunity to breakaway for many of us. Of course the stupid cinema of 90s had coloured our thoughts to such an extent that many of us still believed colleges to have sprawling lawns, a healthy sex ratio, more pyaar than padhai and those amazing costumes (girls wearing frocks with puffed shoulders and flowery belts and guys wearing tight jeans with Action shoes). Fortunately (much more than unfortunately) I landed up in a dry state. Although the presence of  lawns in my college was evident, I would rather not comment on the rest of parameters mentioned above.

    Gujarat has been a dry state because Gandhiji was born there. It would have been much more interesting if Gandhiji would have been born in Punjab, very very interesting.

    Despite being a dry state, in Gujarat alcohol is easily available. Be it petrol pumps, paan thelas, soda waalas, almost everyone is a supplier or claims to be one. During my engineering years I still thought about drinking sometimes, but the phattu me (or the law-abiding me) was scared to take the plunge. Maybe I was waiting for the right time, maybe I just found spending money from home on drinking an inappropriate thing. As always I was confused to take a call.

    It was in this state of confusion, (just before the placements, end of 3rd year) we set out on a trip to Abu. I had read about Dilwara temple in school textbooks, and heard stories about Abu Road station’s brilliant omlettes and rabdi from Delhi junta boarding the Ashram express. Although I had never realized that Mt. Abu was flocked by Gujarati tourists for another major reason, to get DRUNK. Legally that is.

    The trip was a memorable one for many reasons. 17 odd guys (and healthy ones) going for a trip packed in one Tempo Trax from Ahmedabad to Mt. Abu; one of my friend showing his ability to sleep anywhere, from railway station platform, to roads, to bus floors; visit to Dilwara temple on the final day of trip; all of us running out of money and a saviour coming up with 1000 Rs. But I will always remember this trip as the one I had my first sip. And what a sip it was!!!

    We gathered some money to buy a bottle of White Mischief (yes almost the cheapest Vodka available), a couple of bottles of Sprite, some lemon and Lays American Cheese and Onion chips. 8 of us sitting, 7 of them have had their first sips, and I was the only debutant. Visibly nervous, I was being constantly lectured by my friends about both the goods and bads of drinking. I was in no position to think that much, my motive was just to go for it. It was a mixture of emotions. Excitement, curiosity, or guilt?

    My friend passed me the glass, adding the caution, tera pehla hai, chota banaya hai. As I held the glass in my hand all those memories and thoughts which I have mentioned earlier passed before me. The strongest vision being of Dev Sahab drinking a Vat 69. Cheers they said and I gulped it.

    All I felt was warmth. I could trace the path through my oesophagus all the way to my stomach. I didn’t feel the sprite, neither did I feel the lemon, it was all warm. And I have had it in one shot.

    Hold the drink they said.

    And I kept on gulping them until I was four down. I was feeling warm in a so-called hill station. Slightly dizzy too. People were talking, and as always I was also talking. It was my first sip, and honestly it wasn’t anything special. It was something very normal. Not a big event as I had anticipated it to be. They asked me to go out for a walk so that I could feel better. But I told them I felt good. Or maybe I still didn’t know how I felt like.

    Was it excitement, curiosity, or guilt?

    As I recollect now this wasn’t actually my first sip. I had Mohua (an Indian liquor produced in tribal areas) at the end of first year, but it was a non-significant event, just had a bit in a dona.

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    What is your story of your first sip?

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    Featured image by Prasoon Gupta

  • Mini food-sammelan at Out of the Blue, Powai

    Few weeks back, I joined a bunch of interesting people for an extremely engaging and mazedaar discussion on food. The discussion was accompanied by a lovely dinner served at Out of the Blue, Powai. Before I start I would like to thank Reema (my afternoon post-lunch-food-discussion-buddy on Twitter) who made sure Shirin sent me an invite for the meet. Also thanks to Kunal and Shirin for organizing this.

    Out of the Blue is amongst one of my most frequently visited places in Mumbai, and the visits have increased since they have opened closer to home at Powai. I have visited the Bandra one many times quite memorably after losing a drinking bet in Bandra; once with a pretty girl, once with a dumb girl (I think both of them were the same, maybe); with friends and with family. The visits to Powai have been mostly with my colleagues. But this time I got a chance to meetup with few foodies at a food bloggers meet organized by Burrp.

     From right: A retired chef, a baker, and a big bhookad

    The bloggers included:

    • Shirin, works with Burrp, eats and writes for a living, what an awesome life!!!
    • CaramelWings, a commercial pilot, looks-Punjabi-is-Marathi kind of rare girl, loves KRK, makes lovely brownies which she doesn’t share with everyone and writes about food at Caramel Wings.
    • Krytie Saxena, ex-Marriott Chef currently working for a production house, and reinstated my belief in Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential. She writes at Foodietryingstein.
    • Reema , is a Bong-Mumbaikar who is married to a Tam and is a converted vegetarian. She ensures that I feel hungry post-lunch by posting tweets about Gulabjamuns and Jalebis. She writes at Sumthinz Cooking
    • Adarsh, works with Zapak, used to work with Zomato, and possibly created that chik-chik feature (shake for recommendations feature) on their app. He has promised to take me for an Andhra meal. He reviews restaurants at The Big Bhookad.
    • TheBlackSakura, works with Zapak again, loves baking, knows a lot about seafood, is quite fit for a big-time foodie, and blogs at Thoughts on a Plate.
    • BellyfirstTweet is a Capoeira dancer and a well-traveled photographer. I am sure Bhagyashree (of Maine Pyaar Kiya) hates her as she ate off a Pigeon once. She writes at Belly First. And her photographs are brilliant.
    • Kunal, works with Out of the Blue and leads their marketing efforts. I need to ensure that he too starts blogging.

    We started with Chicken and Ham Fondue and my favorite dish at Out of the Blue, Desi Fondue. More than the striking similarity with my name, I like it because it gives me a feel of a creamy Dal Makhni, but with a lighter seasoning and a decent helping of cheese. When I asked Chef Juliano (Exec Chef, Out of the Blue) about its origins, he replied that it was an accidental innovation, with its recipe being a closely guarded secret. To be honest I have tried something similar myself at home and it hasn’t turned out to be half as good as the Desi Fondue at Out of the Blue. That’s one reason I will keep coming back to this place.

    During this period we had a lengthy round of introduction with topics switching between humble origins of the Fondue, street food in Indore, how to check freshness of fish, abuses and awws for the Britannia uncle, great old-time restaurants in Mumbai losing their charm, cupcakes, traveling to China, Brazilian martial arts, how to clean and cook a pigeon, roadtrips in Punjab and many more.

    Switching back to food, for the main course I ordered a Grilled Rawas which was served with Lemon Butter sauce. I loved the dish for its simplicity. The fillet was grilled with a simple parsley-dominated marinate which as the Chef described allowed the one to enjoy the natural flavors of fish. I like my fish to be simple and not over-influenced by masalas, and I got exactly what I wanted. I tasted lemon butter sauce for the first time that day, and I think it will go as well with Aloo Parathas as it went with the fish. Contrary to what I had assumed the lemon butter sauce requires much more effort than simply mixing the core ingredients. Chef uses two different utensils (ceramic and steel), melts the butter in steel, shifts it to ceramic and mixes fresh lime juice (as citrus doesn’t go well with metal). Talking to a Chef always throws up so many interesting insights, these guys do put in a lot of effort in every dish!

    On the other plates I noticed Grilled Basa served with Caper sauce, Lamb Shanks which looked really bulky but equally yummy (and got Salonee extremely excited)  and a four meat sizzler. Somehow I didn’t want to complicate the simple flavors of my fish that day, and I didn’t play around a lot with other items.

    All dishes were accompanied by a Caesar salad which gave an extremely fresh feeling in the mouth, lettuce and cherry tomatoes were topped with a creamy dressing and just the right amount of croutons.

    After this I had to run out for a late night office meeting and I missed out on the fun everyone had at the dessert counter. It was an evening where I realized that there is no better appetizer than talking about food itself and nothing better than meeting people who think and eat like you.

    Featured image by Salonee

    Disclosure: Restaurant’s Public Relations agency covered all the expenses associated with the food tastings mentioned above. For more details refer my disclosure page.

  • Discovering the passion for macaroons

    In purely structural aspects Macaroons are reminiscent of cream filled biscuits one used to have as kids. It was fun to lick the cream off and then munch on the biscuits. Going by appearances one can also relate them to NanKhatais. But the first bite of it and one knows that Macaroons are way different from those childhood recollections. Those hard crumbly exteriors of Nankhatai have given way to the delicate texture of these baked confectioneries which are enhanced with appealing fillings.

    The Passion Fruit Macaroon is the Saffron crusted one

    (more…)

  • The Curse of the Ring

    It was my first winter in Ahmedabad. And a cold winter it was. I remember very few things from that period, maybe there was hardly anything worth remembering. Not from that winter, and not from the few months which followed it.

    Although I do remember the irritating smell of fresh paint in the new hostel, the constant playing of Sayonni by two lovely seniors, who were never awake in mornings, and who hardly wore anything more than a lal chaddi. And yes, I recall sleeping a lot, waking up to my roommate singing Kishore Kumar songs. I remember him slowly breaking out from his pre-college cocoon, ready to fly, but confused how to flutter his wings. I remember the dingy and dark classroom, so much different from the first semester, when things were brighter, when gardens seemed greener, and people around me seemed so cheerful. I recall the guys not taking a bath, and I certainly recall guessing which girl had n0t taken a bath. There was a new food court in plans to challenge Brijwasi, putting my new found weight loss to test, a 15 KG miraculous loss was unsustainable few said. I remember me evolving from a small town slightly confused person, to an extrovert and loud, but still a confused person. Film club, cricket club, elections, cultural festival, joy, fights and sorrows, the second semester in DAIICT was about everything, other than studies.

    I remember that it was around this time that I started reading a lot. Past couple of years had been spent in flipping through thick volumes of PL Soni and Morrison and Boyds of the world, but it had still not killed my childhood passion of exploring books. More than gaining knowledge and killing time, reading at DAIICT was about walking together with a brilliant flock of students and faculty who also read a lot. I remember picking up classic fictions from friends, few biographies and short story collections from library, and also at times fiddling with Asimov and HG Wells after which I decided to stay away from Science Fiction as I found it slow-paced and inconclusive.

    It was during these times that I encountered Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings in my friend LKP’s hands. LKP (read la ka pa) always used to carry it around with pride and laziness. A torn book with yellow brittle pages and green cover had been a subject of two recent blockbuster movies and innumerable discussions (although nothing beats the amount of discussions on Matrix during that year) at hostel. Quite naturally I went ahead and borrowed the book.

    It was a slow start to the book, as I progressed I flipped back and forth to have gaze at the Elvish key and the map of middle earth. The initial journey and formation of the fellowship was still not arousing the level of interest I had expected.

    And then Chicken Pox happened.

    It had been spreading in the hostel, I got it, missed 4 weeks, missed the mid-terms, screwed my academics, who cares, this semester was not at all about studies.

    A lot of home-care, further weight loss, and few neem baths later I was back to college. I tried to get a grasp of the acads but they were too distant now. Trying to complete Frodo and the fellowship’s journey was of much more interest to me than exploring shortest path algorithm or breadth first search. So it was a week before the final exams that I picked up the book again.

    And then Viral Fever happened.

    The exam and its results are something which I don’t want to discuss. But over the next couple of months I went through an intriguing journey of discovering rural India and its tribal populace with one of my favorite professor and a bunch of inquisitive teenagers. Even during this period I read a lot and discussed my readings with friends and professor. After the rural internship and vacation I was back on campus again, the bright semester had started (somehow I felt, the odd semesters were always brighter and better, the even ones despite the fests were somehow marred by something or the other) and I decided to pick up the book again and start reading.

    And then conjunctivitis happened.

    People close to me know that I am a bit more than the usual superstitious fellow, and the next thing I did was to give the book back to LKP. A few months later I went ahead and saw the movies, and I have seen it hundreds of times since then admiring each and every piece of what Tolkien imagined and how Peter Jackson articulated his imagination. But it has been extremely difficult for me to order that book. In fact I have never dared to touch a copy of it again.

    The small yellow pencil, wearing a friend’s wrist watch, putting on the same jeans for each and every exam, the timing of a haircut, sitting at the same place or doing the matchstick trick during a cricket match, eating the same breakfast on important days, not drinking on certain days, scratching the forehead before an important meeting etc. etc.

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    Is it only me who is afraid of superstitions or do I have others around for company too?

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  • A Day in the Life of an Indori Jalebi

    Indore is my kind of place: vibrant, extrovert, loud, confused about its future, and yet rooted to memories it has grown with. Despite being known across India for its food, the place is rarely explored except for people from Central and Western India. One can claim to have had its namkeens and sweets, but it’s a different thing to be there and be part of the Indori culture, so heavily dominated by its gastronomical aspects.

    I have traveled to Indore on numerous occasions, as a doting nephew to two loving aunts, as a caring brother and as a loving friend, and as a traveler exploring Indori food.  And on every occasion I have returned gratified although with an upset stomach due to excessive eating. It is difficult to go through the details of Indori food in length of a post, so I thought of having a companion whom I have met on every trip to Indore, and who could help us navigate the way Indore lives and eats (synonymous terms at Indore), the Jalebi.

    Jalebis are crispy saffron-colored sweets popular across India. They came to India through Iran, although India had its own version too, the Imarti. Jalebis are prepared from refined flour batter, fried in Ghee or Oil and dipped in sugar syrup. Imartis on the other hand are prepared from Urad Dal batter. There are other versions of Jalebi too like the Mawa Jalebi which is popular in Madhya Pradesh or the Chenna Jalebi popular in Orissa, both of them tasting a bit like Gulabjamuns and equally appealing.

    Jalebi at its core symbolizes everything about Indore’s culture and people. It lives the way an Indori does, in a bright and a colorful manner, sometimes arrogantly crispy on the exterior, but with a soft and gooey heart. It is an amalgamation of everything Indori, and is surely the most interesting person to know in town, as it can lead one to not only a plethora of culinary introductions, but also give one a snapshot of Indori life. It is an important component of the Indori food construct, it is not the superstar of Indori cuisine, but it helps us navigate through its delicacies as it is popular, pervasive, and present across all the meals.

    Every morning Indore wakes up to the smell of Jalebis served with Poha. Poha is snack prepared using water-soaked flattened rice and few basic spices, garnished with the famous Indori Sev and Jeeravan (a masala similar to Chat Masala, without the Amchur component). At Indore, the Poha is always fresh and soft as it is prepared and kept over a steamer. The soft feel of the Poha gives way to the crunchiness of Jalebi, with the spicy clove flavored Sev mingling with its hot and syrupy sweetness. A crunchy and refreshing start to the day, topped with a cup of hot, milky and sweet tea.

    A Jalebi can take two distinct flavors based on its thickness. The ones like the popular Chandni Chowk Dariba Jalebis are thickish, with a mushy-juicy center, crisp exterior and much more seeped syrup. They leave a more long lasting flavor as one tends to nibble on them for a relatively longer time. The others are the thin more crispy ones, like the ones served at Haldirams or at Indore with Poha in mornings, not so sweet, and very difficult to eat once cold. Most of the Jalebis lie on this spectrum of thickness, with the ones on the extremes tasting the best.

    Back to Indore and its lazy afternoons. Post the lunch and a nice siesta Indoris are ready for a dose of Kachoris (both stuffed with dal and with potatoes), Samosas, and Batla Patties (A Pea filled snack, with a covering of Potato). What I have noticed that the Jalebis served in evening are thicker and softer, probably because it is served with crisp evening snacks. Along with the snacks, sometimes a plate of thick dahi or a glass of lassi (the famous one at Ghamandi Lassi) is combined with Jalebi to create a tempting Khatta-Meetha combination, driving Indoris to work and have engaging conversation throughout the evening.

    Further in the evening the old city area in Indore Sarafa-a jewelry market turns into a salivating marketplace of delicacies. Here one would find Jalebi’s elder brother- the Jaleba. Served only in sizes of ½ Kg and 1Kg Jalebas are the perfect for families and friends to share and enjoy. And it is the perfect way to end a snacky evening tour of Dahi Wadas, Kachoris, Garadus (Yam deep fried and tossed with chutneys, like Delhi’s aloo chat), Bhutte ka kis (grated corn cooked somewhat prepared like Poha) and Shikanji (a fusion of rabdi, lassi, falooda) one can have at Sarafa. And there are few dishes like the Jhannat Kachori (Kachori filled with red chilies) which certainly can’t do without the pairing of Jalebis.

    Even when the markets close and it is late at night Indore is still awake and craving for a glass of hot sweet milk garnished with Chironjis. At the bus stand or at Rau one can grab a glass of milk with a healthy layer of malai and gulp it down with a Jalebi, probably cold and prepared sometime in evening, but becomes more than edible with the hot milk.

    After a hectic day of work and eating one has to just wait for a few hours, it will be morning again and Jalebi will be back with Poha.

    Indore would go back to be same again: vibrant, extrovert, loud, confused about its future, and yet rooted to delicious jalebi-filled memories it has grown with.

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    Which is your favorite city for eating out? Any city which beats Indore?

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  • Return to Korba

    Over the past 2-3 years I have travelled across various parts of the country. Most of these trips were planned and executed around a friend’s wedding, and given I have had so many friends getting married in the recent past, and at locations such as Indore, Dhanbad, Raipur, Kerala, Rajasthan, Interiors of Maharashtra, and Delhi, these trips have resulted in experiences worth mentioning. On some trips the destination overpowered the entire wedding experience, and at some the wedding was an event to remember. Needless to mention I have also returned gastronomically satisfied from most of these trips, learning a lot about the diversity across Indian food preparations, wedding delicacies and food on the road, rail, air and even water.

    But out of all the trips the one which I made this weekend holds a special place, simply because of the people and place involved. And yes as always slightly because of my flirtations with food on the trip.

    I was going back to Korba after about 9 years, a period in which I have moved away significantly from what I was at Korba. A relatively simple person who was mostly immersed in books, gully cricket, and mostly lost in his own thoughts went on to talk, travel, eat, make friends, and talk a lot. I became more expressive and confident, adapted new habits – both good and bad, met a lot of people from different backgrounds, slowly started spending more money and became more experimental about life in general.

    It is interesting to note how roles change once we are back in Korba, whatever we have done in the past so many years, when my school friends get together, we behave as we behaved for all those 14 years in school. Surprisingly, they are the only ones who know how to make me sit quiet. Very rare! And for us everyone is still the same, no one is a Doctor, MBA, Engineer, CA, or a businessman; everyone is just the same old DPS Korba student they were, and I am still the Pattu they met in 2002.

    Korba has changed, the township hasn’t. The city seems well maintained with brilliant roads, shining shopping complexes and even a flyover! Although all the forests around the city have disappeared and all I saw on the road from Churri towards Korba and beyond were just power plants.

    The township remains the same, all our addas are still there as we left them. But I heard that the kids are gone (after 6th most of them are packed away to a IIT/Medical coaching location), people hardly come out, there are no fights in club for badminton courts or on Mansarovar to play cricket, and those community gatherings and activities which gave the township its life have become rare.

     

    Random pic about Korba

    Oh, by the way I also tasted the famous Chhattisgarhi Daal Wada with the spicy brick red chutney (a cross between a schezwan sauce and a pickle masala), my favorite Indian Coffee House Cutlets –potato and beetroot stuffed and shallow fried tikkis (although I tasted them in Nagpur as I knew I won’t have time in Korba), 4 different dosas (one outside the CST subway, value for money Butter Sada; second from Nagpur Coffee House, now Rs. 40 as compared to Rs. 14 back in the days of school; third at a friend’s home at Bilaspur, simple homemade dosas served with a spicy peanut and dal chutney; fourth on the return journey at Bhusaval junction, a regular dosa with a Jeervan like spice sprinkled on top, hot and fresh), and some good food at the wedding. But for me the cutlets stood out, and to benchmark them I even had the railway cutlets (https://beingdesh.com/2010/04/the-story-of-indian-railway-cutlet/), but I would say the Coffee House ones win, again because of the memories attached to it. On the healthier side we munched onto tonnes of Oranges and Sandwiches parceled in Raipur. The craving for sweets was satisfied through Spongy Rasgullas, Flavored Dry Fruit Bites (a sweet which according to me is the true competition to my other favorite, Mysore Pak), and Santara Barfi (a petha style sweet, flavored with orange juice).

    As always I have deviated from the core discussion around Korba to food, but then things have been this way since back I was child, food has always been a key component of my discussion, at Korba, or after that.

    In hindsight moving out of Korba was probably good for me, as I understood life and India in a better way and become truly Desi. But still Pattu remains a part of me, and I hope it continues to be.

  • 11 memories of 2011

    1. Watching Sachin at Bangalore scoring 100 in a World Cup match in Feb. If I would I have jumped from the stands at that very moment, it would have been a great death. And also at the end of it all we won the cup, the cup which mattered the most on April 2nd.
    2. Sitting comfortably on a slowly moving houseboat in Kerala backwaters. Amazing trip to Kerala followed by loss of my costliest cellphone ever and a wonderful wedding of a wonderful friend.
    3. Silence of the noise party at Palolim Goa, and the story of why it never happened. The most amazing of trips with my bestest friends…
    4. Losing a dear friend. Yesterday night as we drove past Lonavla, Naresh was the only person I could think of. Sachin’s birthday, the online world, DAIICT bakar and watching Katrina Kaif songs will never be the same again.
    5. Sitting on Sam dunes and watching the sun set. Nothing else, just so so peaceful and nice.
    6. Gaining weight, gaining a lot of weight, losing a LOT of weight and then putting some back again. The year when I was struck by Jaundice which led to a month of salary lesser than my maid and no holidays leading to no Ladakh for another year.
    7. Dancing at weddings. Too many weddings this year, although I did plan it well enough with some tours. I guess I danced pretty madly at Katti and Dhari’s wedding, Ankit and Apeksha was relatively sober.
    8. Meeting pretty girls randomly. A Brazilian Chef, few Danish linguistic students, an international affairs student interested in mahabharat, a  playwright, a lawyer with an amazing knowledge of tennis and cricket, a journalist who could have better been a food critic, a marketeer with love for wines and cheese and a few others. But as expected this just resulted in more stories getting added to my database. Swear.
    9. Consolidating the REAL friend-list. Hardly any additions to the new friends category, people who were close kept coming closer. Few who were distanced kept going far away. Very few recalls from the past and accidental meetups with old buddies.
    10. Idlis, dosas, upmas and vada. South Indian was the cuisine of the year, if my countless visits to Matunga’s Madras Cafe with Harsh and other friends is anything to go by. The Hyderabad Chutneys Sambhar was one of the best things I had during the year. Also idlis and dosas gave me company during the most food deprived time of my life, Jaundice.
    11. Sutts and the amazing bakar around it. The chai-sutta breaks at office led to really engaging conversations covering all aspects of life with the office gang (I was a pretty active passive smoker this year). Just that the participants kept going down every month.

    Featured image by Harsh Mehta

  • Our obsession with the 100th 100

    कब बनेगा शतको का शतक?
    (आज तक, 193 times since Feb’11)

    Ever since end of February 2011 all of us have been waiting for Sachin to score that century. Personally I have been counting every run of his backwards from 100, from the 16 left against Pakistan at Mohali to the 27 left at Melbourne the wait for that perfect figure still continues. Throughout this time I have been through a multitude of feelings. I have been logical and appreciative of opposing bowlers at times; erratic and abusive to the bowlers, Dhoni and even Sharad Pawar at times; emotional and thinking about the century too much; nostalgic and thinking about classics from Perth to Chennai to Sharjah; a fool to neglect all the other action around him; a connoisseur of the game and loving every moment of the awesome test cricket which has been on offer this year and above all obsessed with him reaching his 100.

    Reaching 100 is not just a milestone for Sachin, it just a manifestation of all our childhood dreams. We have been always chasing that 100, that perfect number. Ask a Father back in 90s and he would have told My kid should get 100 in Maths, बाकी अंग्रेजी वगेरा के नंबर कौन देखता है.

    So the child would run behind that target, he would get a 25 on 25 in unit test, but that is like getting a 100 in Bangladesh or in a Ranji match. One needs a 100 in exams, so he would then get it in Half Yearly, only to hear Son, its still not the finals.

    That kid would burn the midnight oil to get that 100, he would reach 97, 98, 99, but it was always the 100 which mattered. All along this time there were classmates doing brilliantly in multiple areas (like Kallis: scoring 100s and taking wickets), becoming excellent orators (like Dravid, Sanga, scoring 100s and winning hearts with their speeches), being naughty (like Ponting, scoring 100 and being that arrogant naughty brat in the class), becoming school leaders like Head Boy/Girl (like Kumble taking wickets and showing his leadership mettle both on and off the field, or like Ganguly, always leading from the front and scoring 100s too) and going around with pretty girls (like Warnie, one of the best bowler ever, and pretty smooth with girls too :)).

    But there was always that silent humble chap in the class trying to score a century in Maths (or maybe Physics, Chemistry, Biology, our quest for excellence never goes beyond the Science subjects). The entire set of teachers, kids, and parents just looked up to him to score that 100, and he was just expected to do that, where as the rest of the class was doing many other things. Many kids and parent idolized him as the perfect student, as millions around the world have idolized Sachin now, as the perfect student of the game.

    The simple issue here is, for us Sachin is they way we have lived our life for over 22 years, beyond his 100th 100 there is nothing else left for us to chase. Some might say that we have reduced Sachin to a mere number, but its just the way we have been with him, we have just wanted him to score hundreds, hundred after hundred, without thinking about simple things like India’s victory, Sachin’s happiness, and just Cricket.

    For me the attempt to give him Bharat Ratna is nothing different from the Scholar Blazers/Markers Cup/CBSE Merit Certificate (just stamping our approval of his perfection)

    I wish everyone leaves Sachin to his own, like Dravid leaving the cricket ball. The wicketkeeper (read the ghost of that 100th 100) would be there to catch him, but Sachin for sure knows his way around.

    Even the perfect student wanted to participate in debates, become the School Captain or talk to girl sometimes ;).

    Featured Image by Vikas via WikiMedia Commons