While I was on travel last month I came across a travel writing contest being organized by Mystikal Holidays, a Kerala based travel firm. I was in Shimla and wrote a small note on it.
You can read the note here.
So I have won couple of days at this good looking place at Kovalam (Uday Samudra Beach Resort). So who wants to join me in Kerala :)???
The chaos around Varanasi represents the enormous variety of religious traditions which Hinduism stands for, at the same time also reflecting the freedom of belief it stands for. But to call Varanasi a city laced with simply Hindu traditions is not enough, it’s a city which is quite literally bathed in the Ganga, and ready to absorb all the filth around to come up with a refreshing feel day after day, just like the river itself.
Varanasi offers the kind of freedom- both artistic and religious – which no other Indian city offers. An Indian would feel both puzzled and ashamed after looking at foreigners learning Sanskrit, practicing tabla or picking up Hindustani classical music. Guess a foreigner is equally amazed by the visual appeal of the evening Ganga Aarti and the ceremonious funeral pyres. Be it the freedom of expressing oneself creatively or realizing eventual salvation from the body, the city stands for freedom in its true sense.
As I crisscrossed the staircases along the ghat, I witnessed the chaotic crowds merging into an eternally silent river, as if it was just there to pacify it. The dominance of Indians at the ghats near the Kashi Vishwanath temple started thinning down as I started moving towards Assi Ghat. I started exchanging smiles with more and more “high” foreigners on my way, some on a healthy dose of bhang, some on Indian culture, and some on something really high. I saw them clicking pictures, reading Hindu religious texts, meditating, and enjoying few lovely cafes which have sprung up in the vicinity of the ghats. I think one of the reasons why Varanasi holds a special place amongst a lot of foreign traveler’s itinerary is this sense of “high” which the city provides them, with or without being actually high.
When it comes to food Varanasi offers the variety to shake up even the rested souls. Popular items include Litti-Chokha the flagbearer of Eastern U.P./Bihari cuisine, chaats which are a milder variant of their Western U.P. counterparts, kachori-subzi, and dairy items like hot thickened milk, thandai, lassi and milk-based sweets. The long stay and involvement of foreigners has resulted in few brilliant cafes, bakeries and Italian joints along the ghat area. But a trip to Varanasi is incomplete without having kachoris, a kulhad full of lassi, and to top it all – a benarasi paan.
And then comes the filth. And the garbage. And the extraordinary excess of it.
On my second day in Varanasi I decided to take the holy plunge, but I was welcomed with a floating parade of the top consumer brands in the country. An enticing ensemble of beverage brands including mineral water bottles, soft drink PET bottles and juice boxes dominated the bathing section at Assi Ghat. I felt sorry for my friends selling shampoos and detergents, and for a pretty foreigner wrapped in Zeenat Aman-like Sari (from Satyam Shivan Sunderam, but well covered!!) who actually managed to take a dip in the mess.
The sad part is that Ganga is a supremely appalling state. It is so sad that the slogans written on the ghats tend to be rather painfully funny. Along with consumer products and the usual suspects like polythene and human/animal waste, dead bodies appear out of nowhere to give a friendly appearance. And it’s just not about Ganga. I will never forget the incident when an Autowaala asked me to get down in Pandeypur in Varanasi, as half the road was covered with garbage and the other half was a pit full of water.
But as I ended my gastronomically satisfying and visually chaotic yet colorful time at Varanasi, I also carried a sense of shame, both in the way we have treated Ganga and the way we have disconnected from some aspects of our culture, something which the foreign travelers have picked up on.
More than anything the visual of burning funeral pyres alongside thousands of people bathing in Ganga in all colors of life made me think about life and death and so many other possibilities.
Overall experience: Chaotic yet peaceful, colorful yet grim, tiring yet relieving.
Food experience: Don’t miss the kulhads of lassi and chai, and kachoris and chaats. Be careful of the stuff you eat though, it can quickly turn from a Gastronomical dream into a nightmare.
Places to stay: Cheap ashrams and guest houses both at Assi and Dashashwamedh ghat, don’t spend more than Rs. 200-250, and in peak season not more than Rs. 400-500.
Things to do: Boat ride in the evening at the time of Ganga Aarti, Sunrise, Walking through the markets and witnessing chaos and people spitting the city red.
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Have you been to Varanasi yet? What were your experiences in the city?
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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
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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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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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.
विस्फोट, तुम फिर आ गए!
जीवन की कीमत तो तुमने समझी नहीं
कम से कम
भय की परिभाषा तो समझ लेते.
मुंबई शहर में लोग हर क्षण है मरते
ज़िन्दगी की भागदौड़ में दबते कुचलते
इस भाग दौड़ थकान के बीच
किसे है समय भयभीत होने का.
भय है बढती महंगाई का, नौकरी का,
भय है घर बार का, सब्जी तरकारी का.
अरे विस्फोट तुमसे हम क्यों डरे
मुंबई की बारिश की तरह हो तुम, रोज आते जाते,
रोज की बारिश से
किसे है समय भयभीत होने का.
अब ये मन भयभीत नहीं
यह बस सुन्न हो चुका है, थक चुका है
एक प्रश्न पूछूँ तुमसे – उत्तर दोगे?
क्या तुम नहीं थके?
– अभिषेक देशपांडे ‘देसी’
महिना था फरवरी का,
समय था वोह अफरा तफरी का
Placement का चल रहा था त्यौहार,
क्योकि आजकल वही तो रह गया है प्रबंधन शिक्षा का सार.
मैं बैठा था interview कक्ष मैं, सवालों से जूझता
कभी हँसता, कभी लडखडाता
अचानक मुझसे पुछा गया,
आप लगते है कहानीकार
हम देखना चाहते है आपके विचार.
मैंने उठायी कागज़ कलम,
सोचा प्रस्तुत करू हास्य रस, या फिर थोडा गम
विचारों की धारा बहने लगी
मेरी इस नौकरी को प्राप्त करने और हैदराबाद जाने की इच्छा बढ़ी.
बिरयानी की आई महक,
मन न जाने क्यों मेरा गया चहक
चिरंजीवी का आया विचार,
तेलुगु सिनेमा की जय जयकार
वोह चावल का ढेर, पप्पू के संग,
गोंगुरा का अचार जमाएगा रंग*
चार मीनार की वोह गलिया,
जहा पकेगा इश्क का दलिया
पर इश्क के लिए तो चाहिए लड़की,
तेलुगु सीखे बिना छाएगी कडकी
सोचा मैंने यह सब करूँगा,
तेलुगु सीख, लड़की पटा कर, शादी करूँगा.
कुछ वक्त पश्चात आई यह खबर,
मिली नौकरी छायी ख़ुशी इस कदर
पर फिर मैं रहा गया मुंबई नगरी,
न गया हैदराबाद न छायी प्यार की बदरी.
आज विचार आया की काश कुछ ऐसा होता,
मुह मैं डबल का मीठा और संग साथी अनूठा होता
मुंबई की गलिया नाप नाप कर मैं हु थका
यह था मेरा अनोका रिश्ता, जो हो न सका… हो न सका.
* Pappu is thickish daal served usually in Andhra meals. Gongura is a super tasty pickle served along with rice and pappu and sambhar and the crispy veggies in an awesome andhra meal.
This poem is dedicated to the wonderful lady who made me write this story in interview and all the awesome Hyderabadi/Andhra people.
Life has been a bit off colour lately, as if what happened last month wasn’t enough here I am at home, for the past two weeks, eating boiled food and fruits and sleeping like kumbhakaran throughout the day. In the past few days I have developed love for idlis and extreme hatred for daliya, spinach, hospital and medicines. In a lazy weak format, deprived of all the chutputa food and chutputy bakar in the world here is a man just lying in his room, and bored. And uff, this needle on my hand bugs me.
Given I sleep so much I am having my fair share of dreams, and they have been mostly horrifying. From playing with my worst fears and flirting with my weirdest nightmares they have ensured that I don’t sleep that soundly. To fight with them, I go on kickstart my own train of thoughts, those lovely memories which have kept me happy over the past few years now.
So everytime I wake up from a bad thought here is what I do, I close my eyes, take a deep breath and think of:
Omlettes: Of the lovely ones I had in Goa, or on that Trihun trek (with a chai sipper, choc eater, and great driver), ones which are so videshi with minimal spices and loads of cheese, ones with all the masala tones of green chilies and kanda. World’s best anda bhurji at Andheri station, or that decent one which I used to have at SP mess to help me go through with the food, or the egg biryani be at Raj Palace, or be it at Paradise Hyderabad. And those lovely Gadar Andes I cooked along with Abhishek at Gurgaon with loads of Jeera.
Indori Food: Well I have talked about it so many times, but aloo ki kachori at lal balti/GSITS, poha/jalebi anywhere, sawariya ki sabudana khichdi, namkeen (double laung), Sarafa ki galiyo main Jaleba, shikanji, vijay chaat house ki batla patties, joshiji ke dahi vade, bhutte ka kis, garadu, gurukripa main bhojan, aur ghar pe mangode aur daal baafle. Did I mention mawa baati, shikanji and ASPI? Indore mahaan hai.
Lazy trips: With mostly nothing to do apart from changing CDs in car, pepping up the greatest driver in the world by offering him cans of Red Bull, eating dhaba food, enjoying the scenery, talking to other car-mates. Jannat.
Dosa: I have never tasted Dosas better than Bangalore or Korba’s Indian Coffee House. Both of them stand out. Bangalore’s Vidhyarthi Bhavan being my favorite, enjoyed with Atishay Bhaiyas khilkhilati hasi and Ananda’s coffee gulping on the day when India beat Aussies at Perth post the monkeygate match. Or the World beater Benne Dosa or Paddu served at that small shop on the way to Basvangudi, or staple on treats (just 11 rs back then) of which I had 11 in Davangare once.
Aloo Parathas: I fell in love with them in Shimla, they were like Sharmila Tagore of Aradhna, young, hot, shiny with all the makkhan on them, I was like Kaka eager to fall in Love and make the haseen galti of munching those daily morning before I started my day. For one and half month everything in Shimla bored us, Aloo Parathas were our only hope. I tasted the ones at Moolchand once, and for me the taste is still there on some part of my tounge.
Naturals: More than ice cream Natural’s was a remedial place, I used to take hopeless friends there, enjoy the first cup listening to them (grunts which I mostly ignored) and the second talking crap to them (which I enjoyed). There was seldom the third one (with just one exception with whom chances of fourth came up) but I loved the place. 28 Rs. bought them a malai or a tender coconut and more than that peace of their mind. Lokhandwaala one with its shoftu couch was better.
These were a few positive thoughts, I need more, help me. Maybe I think its just the overdose of spinach and lauki speaking here…
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If down, how do you get back to thinking positively?
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beingdesh 