Cooking...

Over the last few years, I have been venturing into the kitchen a lot more times than in my entire life span so far! Most of the times I go to the kitchen to wash the vessels or dry clothes (no don’t get me wrong – the access to my balcony in only through the kitchen!!).

These days I try and help my wife with cutting vegetables, frying papadams, making bulls eye and flipping it so that it no longer remains a bulls eye and other things.

All my life, I have never had the passion to try to cook something on my own. Even when I do the things that I said in the above sentence, my wife is always around the corner keeping an eye on whether I’m doing things according to the “ethics” of cooking. Compared to me, my brother always would love getting into the kitchen to cook a lot of stuff. He still does venture into the kitchen solely with the intention of cooking. Even when we were younger and bachelors, he would get into the kitchen and create something nice to eat.

When my parents used to travel to Kerala from Chennai and both of us used to stay alone at home, I never had to go hungry with him around. Had I been alone, I would not have ventured into the kitchen to do anything at all. I would prefer to eat out or not eat at all. I could never ever think of going into the kitchen to cook something for myself.

On a few occasions when I had the false confidence that I could do something fantastic in the kitchen and ventured to do those things, they have always ended up in, well what can I say?I'll let you decide once you read the following incidents.

Once when I was alone in Chennai, I thought I would make some tasty lassi. Let me give you the receipe to make some really good lassi. Ingredients needed – curd, sugar, some water and a mixie to beat the curd. You pour the curd into the mixie, add sugar and water. Close the lid of the container, put the container on the mixie machine, switch on the equipment and let it roar. What do you get? Well I thought this is what needs to be done to get a perfect sweet lassi. Apparently not! If you do this you get some lassi left in the container and the rest of it splattered all over the kitchen walls, on the floor and you will look you just had an abishekam with lassi all over you. The most important thing while making lassi is to ensure that you hold the lid of the container down so that it does not fly off! And this is exactly what happened with my first and only venture into making lassi! What should have been a pleasant experience turned into a mammoth exercise into cleaning. Thankfully my parents were not around during that time. Otherwise I really don’t know what they might have said!

When I was of a much smaller age, perhaps around 10-12 years of age, I once asked my grandmother whether I can have the privilege of making the dough to make purries for breakfast. She had the confidence and I had the false confidence that I can do this in no time. We were around 10 people during that time in Udaya. This was during our summer vacation. So my grandmother gave me all the necessary ingredients to make the necessary dough and I started off on this venture. First I poured the water into the atta and started kneading the dough. Unfortunately the water was too much, so I put some atta. This time the atta was too much and I could not knead the dough. So I poured some more water and as expected that water was too much. This went on probably for a while and by that time I had everything under control. Finally I went over to my grandmother and told her that the dough is ready to make puries. The only issue this time was that instead of getting dough that would be enough for 10 people, I had made so much that I could probably feed the entire neighbourhood. This was the last time that I ventured into kneading of dough. After I got married I tried to help my wife with kneading of dough a couple of times and always she would never allow me to do so. It is probably this reason – though I know for sure I have not told her about this experience!

Once a few of our friends decided to have a get together in another friend’s house. We said lets get together at this friends house and cook the food that we wanted to eat. So a few of them said they were good in cooking the chicken, another said they would make the chappathis and the like. They asked what I could do and I said I could make payasam – that too semiya payasam. So then it was decided. We bought all the ingredients for our cooking venture, met up at our friends house on the decided date and started with all enthusiasm. Since payasam was the last item that would be required, I told that once the majority of the stuff is ready I would start on the payasam and that I would not take too much time.

Let me give you the recipe for making semiya payasam. Most important – milk, fried semiya, sugar and a pathram (utensil) to cook the payasam in. Pour the milk into the pathram, add sugar and put the entire packet of fried semiya into this. Keep stirring and breaking the semiya into smaller pieces. After a while the payasam tends to becoming a solid mass. You need to pour more milk and continue to stir. After a while this too starts becoming a solid mass. You pour more milk and then start looking for a bigger utensil. Pour the contents from the smaller utensil into the bigger utensil with more milk. Continue stirring until this too becomes a solid mass. At this point you will have all your friends looking at you and wanting to kill you. You should not mind this as by this time, it would have reached a state where you need to look for a bigger utensil. If it is not available in your house, you should have the courage to go and ask the neighbour! Finally you decide that there is something of a small issue and announce to the world that you infact were not making payasam but something that is more solid. You try and pour the so called payasam into a plate so that you can use a knife to cut it like you would do to a cake. And yes, it is best served cold. Because once it is cold, the knife would be stuck to this cake/payasam. The only issue is that in all probability the knife would break and you would be required to buy another one!!

Once this venture was complete – till date nobody has ever asked me to make payasam. For that matter, nobody has asked me to cook anything at all.

Do you think I should venture into the kitchen ever again? Do you think I stand a chance to maybe join Masterchef India? If I join the Masterchef India program, I probably would stand a chance to win, as all of the stuff that I make, would never ever be part of any recipe of the world.

WISH ALL MY DEAR READERS A VERY HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR and yes, to all the cooking enthusiasts - Happy Cooking.

RAINS in the Desert Land

RAINS...finally arrived early today morning after a very long time.

We had just returned home after the Christmas party and had just tucked the kids into bed when we heard the sound...the sound of rain drops on top of our AC. This sound cannot be compared to the sound of rain falling on our roofs a long way from where I was currently listening. The sound of rain falling on tiled roof ("odu") in Udaya, Tripunithura cannot be compared to rain falling on top of an AC!!.

Rain in this land can bring a lot of havoc and devastation - like what Gonu and Phet did in the recent past (cyclones that hit this land). Gonu happened a couple of years ago, while Phet happened earlier this year. Gonu was more powerful compared to Phet - but both bought a lot of destruction in this desert land.

I remember the last time I went to Kerala, I did so during the rainy season. It was about 6-7 years since I had left India and had not seen rains like I did so during my last visit.

Even when I was staying in Chennai, it did not rain as much as it did in Kerala. Rain in Chennai is always horrible - thanks to the dirty roads that Chennai has!

During my last visit to Kerala, I used to try and go out when it was raining. On one particular afternoon when it was raining really hard, my kids and I, each took an umberalla and went up to the roof of my house. We stayed out in the rain for a while and enjoyed the scene of rain pouring down from high above. My kids were running round on the terrace of the house each of them holding tightly to an umberalla. Finally, sadly, I had to come down since my kids would not stop running around in the terrace.

During my summer vacations in Udaya, there used to be instances when it used to rain. I used to sit on the door step of Udaya, watching the rain fall. Occasionally I used to go across to the ambala kulam (temple pond) just opposite to Udaya and watch the rain fall. It used to such a wonderful sight to see water falling and forming little concentric circles in the kulam.

I also used to make paper boats and let it float in the pools of water that used to form just outside the doorstep of Udaya. Sadly, most of them would sink in the torrential rain!

As a kid, I used to be scared of darkness - especially when darkness used to be accompanied by rain, thunder and lightning. I remember holding tightly onto my aunt's hand and my umbrella and chanting "Rama Rama..." while we were on way to the Statue Junction in Tripunithura (I really dont know why we were going to Statue Junction on such a night).

On a few occassions, I have been to Irinjalakuda - to my wife's house during rainy season. From the bedroom upstairs, I could look out into the backyard of the house. Lots of trees, all of them dripping water, lush green plants all around... I can never forget these scenes.

Coming to the land of the desert, these kind of joys are never found here. The only thing that we have done during the time its raining is to take our car and go for a drive with the kids. They used to be really happy and would never want to come back home.

I hope it does rain better than what it has today. At least when the weekend starts - this way I can sit on my couch at home and dream of Udaya, Tripunithura and Irinjalakuda while listening to the pitter patter of raindrops on my AC!

KRISHNA APARTMENTS

A few days ago I was reading an article by Arvind Adiga about how he used to stay in a colony close to his grand parents villa. This article bought back a lot of good old memories for me - since this particular colony that he was referring to was Krishna Apartments. This colony is situated on Poonamalle High Road - some place between Hotel Dasaprakash to one side and YWCA on the other.

This was the colony were I literally grew up. My father had come to Madras (as it was called in those days - way back in 1973) and stayed on till a few years after it had become Chennai! We stayed in this colony till about 1999 and then moved out of the colony.

When my dad had just moved into this colony there were only 2 blocks - A and B. But a few years down the line a few more blocks kept being added. This colony now consists of blocks A to I. This colony is laid out like a "U" shape - the blocks were along this U and a road where the kids used to play, cars were parked, programs took place, was in the centre of this U.

We used to stay in Block E, 2nd floor, flat no. 1029 for a while and then moved over to Block D, ground floor, flat no. 1013. This is where we stayed until we left the colony.

When we were in 1029, the flat was literally facing the back of the colony. We would never ever know of anythign taking place in the front. 1029 also had 2 balconies - which were open for some time. The place next to Krishna Apartments in those days was place that was filled with lots of trees and hordes of monkeys. This is the place were the building "Cresent Court" currently stands. These monkeys were always creating trouble. They would "invade" houses which had open balconies and would run away with eatables. Most of the houses that were facing this side, later put on a fence of sorts, to stop these monkeys coming and invading our houses!! Before we had put up such a fence on our balcony, I remember once, where my brother and I had just returned from school and were having our evening snacks. Out of the blue came a fellow - who by the way had entered from our bedroom window, came and sat on the back of our chair, literally pulled out the sandwhich that we were eating, and ran out of the balcony. Both my brother and I were quiet shell shocked. I think after this incident, my father decided to cut out the open access for these monkeys.

Both my brother and I had a set of friends - belonging to each of our age groups. When we decided to shift our house from E/1029 to D/1013, this group of friends came across to help us shift all our stuff across. It was really fun, as we kids, were constantly running up the stairs to 1029, pick what ever we could get from my mother who was manning one side of the shift, run down the stairs to 1013, drop the stuff where ever we found some place and then out of 1013 back to 1029. This went back and forth till just about everything was transferred. Literally, we had shifted just about everything from 1029 to 1013 and all this in matter of few hours. Even the paper that we had under the cupboard (that we had placed under the cupboard for support) too had come over to 1013!!!

During special occassions like Republic Day, Independance Day, we used to have functions in this colony which were then followed by games and occassionally with a dinner. There were occassions when movies too were shown. Navarathri time also used to be fun - poojas, dandia dances, prasad that we used to get after the poojas ....

As kids we were very interested in participating in programs and games. There used to be a Didi (Agarwal uncle's daughter) who used to be the main choreographer for such programs. She would get all of us kids to perform various skits, dances and the like. We used to practise in her house for weeks before the actual program used to take place.

When we became a little bigger, we used to organize various games for the smaller kids and other people in the colony. These games would have prizes. It used to be so much fun during these days when all the friends would gang up in somebody's house and plan out what needs to be done, what to get and stuff like that.

We also used to play cricket with other colonies. We used to go to Don Bosco school early on Sunday morning, jump the wall into the school, play for a few hours and then return back home.

Muthu Medicals, Babu's shop, a few doctors clinics were all in A block. From block B till I it was only residences. Neeru in block A. Ravi, PQ (Prakash) in block B. Sriram, keelu in Block C. Keetu and myself in Block D. Mohan/Mahesh in Block E. Sunil in Block F. Suhail in Block H. Venky, Raju & Rakesh in block I. Superman uncle (he looked so much like the late actor Christopher Reeves), Mrs. Pinto, Mrs. Ramachandran, Vimala aunty, Mrs. Chari were all people who stayed when we were around.

My friends used to call me Ramu and knew that i had a gopal attached to my name. They kind of thought that it was Ramu gopal and that of my brother's, by the same imagination, was that of vinu gopal. It was only later did they realize that my brother's name did not have even an ounce of resemblance to my name.

This colony also reminds me of when my brother got married. We were still living in this colony when he got married. By the time I got around to getting married, we had already shifted from this colony. In fact I dont even remember if anybody from the colony came for my wedding reception!!

I feel very sad that I have never gone back to Krishna Apartments since I moved out of the colony in 1999. My mother had gone to this colony earlier this year when she had visited Chennai. She also met a few of these people who were pleasently pleased to see her after all these years.

I dont know if my brother has ever gone back to this colony after 1997/98! He infact had moved over to Muscat way back in 1997/98. I'm sure he too will recollect all his friends names who were with him during those days.

I hope to make a trip to Krishna Apartments the next time I visit Chennai. One question in my mind is how many of these guys will I recognize and will they recognize me as well. The other question being is when will I be able to go!