Should I Read Books

Should I be reading books? ..rarely does this thought come to me..Today I thought I may want to sit down and think about it.

Parents are generally worried about the extra-curricular activities of their child adversely affecting the academics. Mine worried about books overpowering books. For me, Nancy Drew came before Gulmohar English reader; Gone with the Wind challenged the basics of physics while Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy rivaled the bonding theories of Chemistry. History was understood with Freedom at Midnight and geography traversed with Jules Verne’s various adventures. The number of sleepless nights I have spent reading books legally beside a lamp and illegal under my blanket will far outstretch those spent on pretended studying. While the bulk of A Suitable Boy was unsuccessfully hidden between M.L.Khanna and ABC’s of Physics, the inevitable Mills&Boons were thin enough to be stowed away in notebooks and shared with classmates. I must thank J.K.Rowling for waiting till I was in engineering before she committed Harry Potter to print. Failing that I am not sure what vocation I might be pursuing now.

With a job came the liberty to buy books. Many afternoons were spent at the erstwhile second hand book market of Flora fountain in South Mumbai, gathering numerous treasures and layers of tan. The new life of was shared with the Agony and Ecstasy of Michelangelo’s creation long before I could admire the ceiling of Sistine Chapel with my own eyes. The days spent ‘on bench’ in an IT company were utilized wandering The Far Pavilions. Mumbai, my workplace became more than a city to me while reading Maximum City in the suburban train journeys. The city unfolded itself before me through the pages and enticed me to fall into an illicit affair with it.

Marriage was not untouched by books. Our relation was founded on an affinity for Satyajit Ray’s mysteries, nurtured on the opinions about the World Wars and blossomed with travel guides duly packed on vacations. Harry Potter and The Deadly Gallows almost cost me my marriage as it implored to be finished at one go, forsaking even my better half. Just a month back my teenage years were revived with the Twilight saga. I involuntarily kept smiling late into the night while sharing Bella and Edward’s challenges.

Changing times have changed my preferences of books. From exploring the secret passages with Enid Blyton to the tribulations of heart with Jane Austen to finally questioning the world through Non-fictions, reading may have come a full circle for me. To me books have been like a friend who when put on the shelf propelled my life even with its ‘back’ turned on me. But staring at each new foreword beckoning me to an imaginative world of letters versus the daily grind of living threatening me the question ‘Should I be Reading Books?’ becomes a redundant one.

Chicken Kebab
Ingredients
For Boiling
300 gms boneless chicken ( sliced into 2-3 inch slices)
2-3 cloves of garlic
½ inch ginger
3 big black cardamom
3-4 cloves
2-3 1 inch sticks of cinnamon
1-2 Bay leaves
1-2 leaves of javentri/mace
A few shavings of nutmeg

Green Chutney
2 cups coriander leaves
½ cup mint leaves
1-2 green chillis

Masala
2 medium sized onions sliced lengthwise
2tbsp - Garam Masala (any would do , but if you want a distinctive flavour you can dry grind the ingredients mentioned in the boiling part and use that)
½ cup chopped coriander
1 tbsp Amchur or Anardana powder
1 tsp red chilli powder
1 tbsp ground cumin powder
Salt to taste

Oil for frying

Bind all the item except the chicken given in the boiling section into a small piece of cloth. In a pressure cooked put this along with the chicken pieces and fill it with water.
Cook it for 2-3 whistles. I generally list the chicken rest in this mixture while i get all other items ready.

Grind the coriander, mint and chilli and keep aside.
In 2tbsp of oil fry the onions till they are dark pink in colour.

Take the chicken pieces out of the cooker and let then cool enough to allow you to add it to food processor. I know that actual chefs might balk at the thought of kebab out of boiled instead of minced meat. But this is the best way for me to make it at home. I do not much care for the kebabs available in UK. They are nowhere near to what I am used to. There are two kebab that I still dream about. One was Kakori Kebab I had in Sahib-Sind-Sultan in Hyderabad. It just melted in my mouth. Awesome. The second was a greenish type of kebab I had at Kareem’s in Bombay. Can’t remember its name. Anyways this will have to do for the time being :-).
Ok so process the chicken at very low speed in the food processor. If it becomes too flakes, add a little bit of stock (the boiled water we had left in the cooker) or the green chutney prepared earlier. It should be such after processing that it can bind together. I have seen my mom using channel daal (yellow split lentil) while boiling chicken to get this binding. Some also use cornflour. I have however not had any problem in getting the mixture to hold so I do not use any of this.
Now mix this processes chicken with all the items listed under masala and the fried onions. Adjust the salt. Make equal sized balls and then flatten them into tikkis .
Heat 2 tbsp of oil in a skillet/ tawa or frying pan. Add the flattened balls and cook them on medium heat for 5-7 minutes on each side.
If needed garnish with onion rings and chat masala.

Telling Tales

I have always been interested in mythology. I would not take any sides on whether ramayan or mahabharat are true. For me, some bits of it has to happen to allow someone to write about it. It is like a historical novel, where some of the things have happened for sure..but the author has taken the liberty of adding much spice to it, thus making it so wonderful that goes into the annals as mythology. I had someone gift me a book from the ‘world famous’ series for mythology. That was when I realised each civilization had its own Ramayan or Mahabharat. My grandmother was a great story teller as well. We had illustrated snapshots of both these epics bought specially for me and my brother. On summer holiday afternoon, either my grandmother or my mother will read to us (we could not read Bengali) stories from the Upendro Kishor Raychaudhary’s books (Satyajit Ray’s grandfather..creativity does run in the blood). I don't recall the names, but I think they were Mahabharter Golpo (Stories from Mahabharat). My brother and me would drift off to an afternoon nap with thoughts of Nal-Damyanti, Bakasur etc. I dare say kids nowadays would disregard this kind of pastime.

My favourite is Mahabharat(conveyed in 1.8 million words), mainly because it seems more subtle in terms of right and wrong. The characters are in shades of grey. Even today anyone can identify with Kunti, a teenage single mother, or understand the humiliation and vindictiveness of Draupadi. The thirst for power of Duryodhan or the machinations of the best spin doctor ever, Krishna. After all which political party would not like a tactician like Krishna on his side, who could always find the loophole in promises made, and work out the weakness of opposition. Although Bhagavad Gita is supposed to explain the bigger aspects of spiritualism, I think it is already imparted in bits and parts all along the storyline of Mahabharat.
During the preparations for The Battle, both Duryodhan and Arjun go to Krishna to ask for his support. Duryodhan without knowing the importance words can have only looks at tangible benefit, the Narayani Sena of Yadavs. But Arjun knows that it is not numbers which lead to a victory. It is the mindset which does. You also read about how Krishna instigates Bhim to attack Duryodhan on his thighs during their final duel, fully aware that striking below the waist was not within rules of the fight. This is wrong, we know. But the good thing is you see Krishna, an incarnation of the preserver, Narayan being punished for leading on Bhim. Gandhari, Duryodhan’s mother curses him that his dynasty will be eliminated and he himself would die an inglorious death. Even God himself is not spared for his wrongdoing.
It is small incidents like this which for me carry the real message. The message for which i think these epics were written. The need for reading between the lines is in fact apparent in the very begining of Mahabharat. Ved Vyas requests Lord Ganesh to be his scribe, while he composed the hundred thousand couplets. Lord Ganesh had a condition, that Ved Vyas would have to keep up with his writing speed. If Vyas stopped dictating, he would stop as well. Vyas agreed but then cleverly added his own condition. Ganesh would have to understand the meaning before he wrote anything down. So should we. While we 'read', we should 'understand' as well. Only then the real worth and importance of our Mythology would reveal itself.

It is probably worthwhile to mention for those who would like to read more, that there are two very good books which will give you a wonderful version of Mahabharat. One is ‘Mrityunjay’ by Shivaji Sawant (originally in marathi but hindi and english translation are available) and the other is Draupadi by Pratibha Ray. They are good books to create interest in the wonderfully complex caharcters of our epics.

As promised earlier the recipe for Rabri is shared here. I thought for a long discourse as above, it probably helps if there is a small recipe to follow :-)

Rabri
Ingredients
1 tin of Evaportaed milk
½ tsp cardamom powder
Sugar..according to taste
Nuts to garnish

Take a wide mouth utensil, I used a big frying pan. Pour the evaporated milk in it. Mix the cardamom powder or pods, whichever you have. Let it heat up and then adjust the flame such that it is always at the point of boiling but never actually boils over. In this situation a thin film will start forming the on the milk, what we call malai. Use a flat spoon and push the malai on the sides of the frying pan. At times I also just take it out and put it in a separate vessel. You have to keep doing this till a very thin layer of the milk is left. I generally check whether the liquid takes a few sec to fill back if I draw it back with the spoon....meaning that its consistency has increased and made it more viscous. At this stage you can add the malai from the sides of the frying pan or from the separate vessel into the milk and mix with a light hand. Add in sugar as per you need. I however have never had very sweet rabri, so i just add ½ tsp for 1 tin of evaporated milk. Take off the heat and preferably transfer into small bowls for serving. Cool and decorate with nuts and saffron.

This is a very simple recipe if you have evaporated milk. I really do not fancy doing this from scratch. The colour of the rabri is pinkish because of the use of evaporated milk.

Happy Holi

Happy Holi!!.

A working Monday is not the best way to spend it. I miss home very much on the festivals. Though Holi is not one of my favourites, but even I cannot resist the riot of colours. The crisp cold air warming up in the sparkling sun..heralding the onset of spring. You can see the naked branches of trees starting to sprout little buds of life. Palash trees probably steals the show. It is locally also called ‘flame of the forest’. And it actually is. I have had a couple of chances of visiting forests (courtesy my father) in March and April. You can see the orange flowers of the palash trees colouring the edges of the forest. It is pleasure for the colour deprived winter eyes.
Back when chemical colours were not popular, these flowers would actually be used for playing holi. Boiled in with water, it gives a wonderful amber coloured liquid. In fact my father had two big buckets of this done for us one season. It allowed me to play holi with water, which I didn’t do much, being prone to sudden colds).
It is also a festival of freedom. With you face smothered in rainbow colours, we all become one. For some it allows them to be someone else, for other to be more life their real self. Inhibitions are overcome and liberties taken, which add just the little bit of spice a dull life might need.
Mythologically there are quite a few stories connected to holi. The foremost one being prahlad and holika. Prahlad was the son of a demon called Hiranyakashyap. Hiranyakashyap had ordered everyone to worship him. But as destiny would have it, his son became an ardent devotee of Lord Vishnu. Try what he might Hiranyakashyad could not get Prahlad to forsake his devotion. In a last ditch attempt he asked Holika, his sister to get into a fire with prahlad. Holika was supposed to have a boon that fire could not harm her. They thought Prahlad would be scared with the prospect of burning. Well, turned out that Holika’s boon only worked if she was in the fire alone. So she was burnt while prahlad came out unscathed by chanting Lord’s name.
More on these stories along with Rabri. For now the recipe for Malpua.

Malpua
1 cup of Plain flour(Maida)
2 Tbsp rice flour(optional)
½ banana
1 tsp cardamom powder
1 tsp fennel seeds (saunf)
3-4 Tbsp condensed milk (option- you can just add more sugar)
¼ cup milk
4 Tbsp sugar
Oil/ghee for frying


Mix all the ingredients given above and get it to a thick paste consistency. For better texture, grate or mince the banana in the mixture.
Heat oil in a frying pan. The oil should form a layer of a few millimetres. When it is moderately hot, put a spoonful of mixture and spread it out into a small circle. Do not do it the dosa way. Instead try to lightly spread it by tugging at the corners
Turn to other side and keep frying on medium heat. Once it attains a light golden colour you can take it out.
At this stage many people dip this fried pancake into very thin sugar syrup (chashni). I however think that makes it very rich to eat. And also it takes more time. So I generally stop after frying it.
Do remember however that if you intend to use sugar syrup, the sugar content in the mixture should be less.