Hot day

Nagpur mercury soaring... just a few days more and we shall make our annual randevous with 'Geography' to be in the news as the hottest city of India!!

Can't wait...

Making Meen Kolumboo

It was another one of those exasperating nights when Hubby came home proudly carrying a (dead) fish which he wanted me to cook at 9.30 p.m. just as I was hoping to retire in front of the TV or curl up in bed with my latest mystery novel...

Cook it I had to or my wifey genes would not let me sleep in peace; but i did not want an elaborate recipe because i just didn't have the energy for it. And today the demand was for curry.

Suddenly that favourite dish of the Mudaliars came to my mind: Meen Kolumboo, and it had tasted quite mean! Had been pretty easy to make too- one call to my sis in law later ( who did not fail to admonish me for not having dinner ready yet) - i was all set. So here's the recipe for all you eager beavers-

One Kg of fish - any curry friendly fish will do, in my case it was Rawas.
7-8 red chillies
a fistful of tamarind: to be soaked in warm water and pulp extracted
garlic - 5-6 cloves
dhania powder, jeera powder, dash of asoefitoda(hing),
mustard seeds - half tsp
curry patta leaves,
methi seeds - half tsp
Oil - two table spoons
dash of pepper powder
a tsp.jaggery

Method:

Wash and prepare fish pieces for cooking.

Roast and grind the red chillies with roasted coriander and jeera if not using ready made powder. Peel and dice garlic.

Heat oil in a kadai - non aluminium please. (It is very bad karma to use aluminium for anything sour!) Splutter the mustard seeds followed by methi seeds. Now add curry patta followed by red chillies, coriander, jeera paste. As the chillies get cooked, red color will rise to the surface of the oil. Now add the tamarind paste and salt and let boil. If mixture looks thick add a little water ( but curry must not become watery!). When it has the consistency you want, add the fish and cover. Simmer for just about 5 minutes - remember fish cooks fast. When fish is flaky and done, add jaggery and a pinch of black pepper. Serve with boiled rice.

Wasn't that super easy and super fast.

Tip: this curry tastes yummy for breakfast the next day too; its the BEST accompaniement for dosais...

Shepherd's Pie

This is one dish i LOVE to make, and people love to eat - so as you can guess, i end up making it often, though i DO try and save it for special occasions only.
(About this dish - it is originally a poor 'shepherd' guy's dish invented in England. A combo of meat and potatoes that can be carried along as the fellow tends to his sheep all day outdoors. It has evolved over the years and in my hands has become even richer and not at all something the original cook would identify with at all!)

INGREDIENTS

• Minced meat (kheema) - 1/2 Kg
• Potatoes - 1/2 Kg, or more, if u like them!
• Onions - 2, chopped fine
• Tomatoes - 5-6 medium size, also chopped fine
• Capsicum - green, red, yellow ( any color u can find or ALL) : 3-4
• Garlic - half a pod, peeled and chopped ( at least 10 )
• Milk - two cups
• Cheese - use as much as u like! ( i used two cubes today)
• corn flour - one tbspoon
• Woosterchire sauce - one tablespoon
• Capsico sauce - one tsp
• Garnish of oregano, freshly ground black pepper, chilli flakes
• Butter - two tbsp
• olive oil or any cooking oil - 1/2 cup

Shepherd's pie consists of two main components - mashed potatoes and cooked kheema and veggies

HOW TO MAKE MASHED POTATOES

Peel the potatoes and cut them into large cubes. Cover them with water - about 3 cups - and leave to boil in a heavy bottomed sauce pan or kadai. When the potatoes or almost soft and water completely evaporated, add two cups milk, with cream if u like. Keep mashing the mix. When smooth and creamy, add salt,pepper, butter and grated cheese. Whisk together well. Keep the mashed potatoes aside for baking later.

HOW TO PREPARE THE MINCE

Wash the kheema and drain properly.

In a pressure pan/ cooker, cook it with some minced garlic and pepper and salt. ( Do not add water or oil is using a separator vessel. If cooking directly, just add a little oil so kheema does not burn). Cook for about 10 minutes after the first whistle of the cooker.

Now heat oil in a medium size kadai.

Add chopped garlic - the remaining - and onions. Brown nicely

Add Tomatoes -

Add enough salt for the veggies at this stage

When tomatoes partially cooked, add capsicums.

After about five minutes, add the cooked kheema - ( if it has become watery on cooking, u can remove some of it for the lucky dog! Or u can use it in cooking up the kheema further)

Add some garnish like black pepper and chilli at this stage.

Keep stirring till mixture almost dry - but not completely.

Dissolve one tbsp corn flour in a little water and add.

After two minutes add woostershire sauce and capsico.

HOW TO ASSEMBLE THE PIE

Take an over proof square or rectangular glass casserole. Oil the bottom. Put in the cooked kheema mixture and level it down. Now evenly spread the mashed potatoes over the kheema to cover it completely. Grate cheese to cover the mashed potatoes. Add  a dash of butter or olive oil. Sprinkle pepper and oregano. Bake in the oven for 15 - 20 minutes till cheese melts and turns reddish - NOT brown plz!!

The pie is ready to serve!

Hi!

I am in Pune at my net cafe - my alternate home, and a sense of deja vu pervades.
I came here to give daughter Neha company and no sooner have I arrived, she is ready to pack her bags and go to MY favourite place - Goa!! Training time, it seems : but WHAT can you train people for in Goa I wonder ? The many ways to drink feni? Lie under a coconut palm and meditate on life? Or more pro-active 'sports' like getting out to the pool side/ beachside and grabbing a 'lounge' before the phirangis all get them? ( It is SO frustrating, I tell you! The last time I was in a nice resort at Goa, i couldn't get to lie around at all on any of the deck chairs provided by the hotel - from the crack of the morning, which in Goa happens around 9a.m. at the earliest - to sunset ALL places were always taken by these half nanga goras or their soaking wet towels, and if you tried removing one, someone else would pounce on you and declare - hey! my friend's coming back over there...Do we have to 'reserve' a place for ourselves in our own country?) But no - what they are hopefully, wishfully training these ppl is in Taxation. Good luck to them!

I said it's deja vu because this happened the very first time I came to Pune on a visit like this 3 years ago too. She had to go to Mahad that time for audit. Tried to talk her boss into cancelling it, said her mother would be all alone...and boss said " well, isn't your mother a BIG girl now? I am sure she can look after herself..."

So here i am, stuck alone again wondering how I will "kill time" for 4 days and a strange thought occured to me - not strange so much as illuminating -

Do we kill time or does time kill us?

Just think - time is supposed to be endless, it has no beginning and no end, it is WE perishable mortals who have tried to 'capture' it in hours and days and weeks...there will come a 'time' when you and I will be%

Aviraj...

I was mute witness to a tragic 'bargain' today.
Aviraj, a plump, innocent looking ten years old child was torn from his maternal grandmother's lap and handed over to his 'Appa', his father's father in the presence of four witnesses - so called renowned members of Society - and the sinister long shadow of the police sub inspector , who was not visible but lurked in the car just outside our gate.

Clearly, he did not want to go, but still he went queitly with tears in his eyes that he tried to supress and not one backward glance. At ten, he knows the reality of Society and that he has no choice.

Neither did his mother; is that the last lesson she taught him by example - that what is ordained in life happens, you can't fight it?

He lost saw her on the night of 13th October, when he was suddenly packed off to " study and spend the night " at his cousin's house. In his house full of father, grand parents and great grandmother he had a feeling that he was leaving his mother desolate and alone - she hadn't eaten the whole day, her eyes were swollen with crying and everyone seemed angry with her. Some telepathy made the child run back to her and ask " are you so fed up with life and being constantly beaten by papa that you will do something?" NO she looked him the eye and promised him, I will never commit suicide, I will live for you and for your nana - nani; I will not leave you in the hands of these 'darindas'.

Next morning he was brought back by his uncle and aunt and saw a few hundred people gathered outside his house. His mother had NOT broken her promise he was sure, but his father had NEVER promised him anything, had he?

His beautiful mother was lying there, peaceful at last. She has consumed poison and killed herself, said his father and his grandparents, but he knew better. He knows better - he does not need to know about the post mortem report which says that his mother died of suffocation/ asyphyxation ,there was poison in her mouth but none in her stomach. That was not the only thing missing in her stomach - chemical analysis clearly showed that she had not eaten in two days. there were scratch marks on some parts of her body too...

Her father and mother - when they were eventually told of their daughter's demise a few hours later - shouted and were telling anyone who would listen - " our daughter was murdered... I gave 4 lakh rupees to this man, her HUSBAND but he still beat her and abused her... he took money from me and spent on his other woman, his rakhel, called Pushpa Patil." Yes, the in laws will tell you, this woman exists - this man DID go to her.

Cut and dried case - right?? Aviraj's father should be arrested and should be in jail.

Sure - the father spent some hours in the jail and had to run away to Nagpur and get anticipatory bail. Aviraj's mother's father - that is! His uncle was not so lucky - he spent a week behind the bars in Amravathi, his mausi's husband, who was only present on the scene because he had come to Amravathi from Wardha to pay condolences to his wife's parents on losing their eldest daughter.

How come? What had they done?

Well - they, the parents at least - commited a lot of wrongs in my book.

First - they had an intercaste love marriage all those years ago because of which no one in the 'samaj' would agree to an alliance with their daughter.

Second - When they finally found a guy who would say yes, they married her off to him not taking into consideration the fact that HE was 10th pass while she was M.A. B.Ed. So what ? they said. He comes from a respectable, rich family and has a flourishing business with his father. Our daughter will live well. ( the flourishing business was a myth, as it later turned out

Third - when she told them he beats her and asks her to get money from her parents and her in laws don't let her work and earn herself - they don't even FEED her for days though she cooks for everyone, they still left her with her in laws. " She insisted she would not leave him" they now say. " Instead of walking out, I will try to reform him and make him work, he is not a bad person" she used to say.

But her father did not get arrested for these crimes ofcourse...

He got arrested because he supposedly 'stole money from his daughter's in laws' on the same day that he also did his daughter's last rites' - yes, he did them, not her husband.

Further, in the presence of a few hundred of their relatives, he also managed to 'kidnap his grandson and run away with him'. (If any of the witnesses were to be truthful they would affirm that the boy cried out to his nana nani " please take me with you, otherwise my father will kill me like he killed my mother")

Yes - my dears. That is the state of law and order in our country which is fast hurtling into a bright techno future and is soon going to be a top world economy!

That the police, AFTER noting down his statement about his daughter's ill treatment and his son in law's wayward ways and threats and fleasing of them, registered an FIR against him.

That the sub inspector accompanied the father in law to Nagpur to re claim the grandson.
"Better let him go" everyone advised the man. " you are already supposed to have kidnapped him - tommorow if they play foul and harm the child in any way, the blame will come on you - and why do YOU want to take the liability - he is THEIR grandson, a 'Chargan' ( that's their name) like them, let them look after him!"

The nana's logic is different - he suffers from mysenthia gravis and is constantly on costly medication - his wife has BP and heart problem - " what future can two sick old people offer him?"

So might, political clout and money power has won again. As Aviraj consoled his grandparents before leaving them " my mother is gone...what has happened has happened...don't cry please... I will get an education, grow up and look after you, I promise..." and then a fearful look comes into his face and they can guess he is thinking " if I live that long ofcourse..."

Please pray for Aviraj's long life... and hope the gods look out for him like they never did for his mother... can we do anything else?

p.s. jutice in not completely dead, may be. When he - the nana - applied for anticipatory bail in Nagpur, the High court judge quashed the FIR against him and noted - " it is nothing but a counterBLAST by the parties who stand to be potentially accused of murder" But even he advised, informally, that till otherwise proved, the boy HAS to be in the custody of his father . He is the only legal guardian now.

Tender Ties...

Back to the Mrs. Grover mentioned in my last blog - when mom walks the catwalk.
She was the granny who used to faint during rehearsals and still went on to win the first prize at the Beauty pageant cum fashion show!

After she was declared the winner, she burst into tears, right there on the stage. Not just a sprinkling of ' joy and victory' but a torrent - and despite the fancy get up she suddenly started looking her age again. The organizers were at a loss what to do with her when a man went on the stage to get her. He looked old too - but better 'preserved'. He hugged her and tenderly kissed her forehead and just held her till she gathered herself. " What a unselfconscious and caring husband !" I commented - no, that's her SON someone corrected me. OK - that made sense, if she was in her 80s the son would be post 60 too - and sons CAN publicly hug and kiss their moms ( Nikky sonnie - are u reading this??)

Later my mother introduced me to a young girl and told me this was the grand-daughter, and it was HER clothes and her ideas for granny's grand evening. She used to accompany her granny EVERYDAY to the rehearsals and when she had her crisis of confidence, or felt physically weak, the grandaughter would pep her up, bolster her confidence and keep her going. It used to be very touching to watch , everyone remembers... she talked to ger granny like a mother talking to her young child " come on Ba, just this one more time..then we'll go home and I'll press your feet ..."

Not that the girl had no life of her own - she is a travel and tourism post grad and is flying to Dubai shortly on a new job. But for those days, she was completely at her grannie's disposal.

Mrs. Grover's photos with her glittering crown were flashed in all the newspapers the next day. But I couldn't help thinking - the REAL jewel in her crown is that gem of her grandaughter, who needs anything else when one has her?

In contrast was Mr. Palonjee Dinshaw - the almost 90 guy who was crowned the 'best' among the guys. He had an unsteady gait but a jaunty walk ! He used to 'totter' briskly, humming loudly the song that used to play for him " babuji dheere chalna - " Everyone thought he was a jolly old fellow, till he made his 'victory speech'.

" Hi - I am Palonjee HASSANJEE Dinshaw - son of Hassonjee as u can see from my name? I want to ask youngsters today - why don't you say your father's name anymore when you introduce yourselves? Are you ashamed? Now that you've made something of your life, do you not care to aknowledge WHO gave you life?"

" Listen to this old man's request... always remember your parents with gratitude!"

His voice broke and he became emotional too then. But I couldn't help noticing that no one came to the stage for him. After a few moments he collected himself and walked off the stage. His jaunty step was gone though...

when mom walks the catwalk!

The downstairs house was abuzz with some new activity for some time...

" Badi madam ko le jana hai" the driver would tell me ( i am the choti madam - believe it or not!) every afternoon.

"We eat brunch everyday these days...i have to go at 1.30..." mum told me mysteriously. So one day, I followed her...oops, sorry to be so dramatic, i accompanied her.

My guess was correct - it was a randezvous... 17 old ladies, were meeting up with 18 old guys and spending the whole afternoon to the tune of " baton hi baton me ishara ho gaya...baithe baithe jeene ka sahara ho gaya..."

Ostensibly ( yaane ki keheno ko ) they were practising for a Fashion Show called - the Second Inning. And - hold your breathe - it was going to be a fashion show cum beauty pageant!! You HAD to be above 50 to participate, but looking at the rag tag group, they were more in the vicinity of 70+ I think that's because folks who are just above 50 don't want to aknowledge they are anywhere near this mark... by the time they can accept it to themselves, they are above 60 and when they do it publicly - they are already over 70!

So these "young at hearts" as ALL of them called themselves, were gathered for practising, I went for a sneak preview, and i am sorry to say, my immediate reaction was - " what a sorry bunch!" I looked at the ladies specially, and thought, my mother was easily the best looking, no competition at all!!

So I couldn't understand why she was so insecure and was into the third round of shopping of something 'appropriate' to wear for the 'funky round'. Dad had refused to go anywhere near a shop now ( having accomapanied her for the first two forays) and it was my turn now...

We walked into a Ready mades shop - the most polular in Nagpur - called believe it or not -GAYSONS!! My mother marched to the counter and said - " mere size ke fitted midi skirts, capris ya bermudas dikhana"

When the man at the counter looked at her bemused, I tried to 'rationalize' ..." well, we want it for my daughter, she wears the same size as her granny..." ( not quite true ofcourse!) But my mom would stare me and him down and say - "NAHI - mere liye hi chahiye - jaldi, jaldi dikhao!"

She would pick up some of the stuff offered - even a tight skirt that ended well above the knees - and disappear into the trial room... few minutes later i would be beckoned " how does this look?" Before I could open my mouth to react, she would declare " I think this is nice but bit too tight over my tummy, no? Let's try something else..."

Finally, we selected dark brown capris with a wine colored sequinned top, sandals to match, and I thought my mom was set. No competition at all from any source.

The day of the final show dawned - all the family and near and dear relatives and friends gathered at the venue, all of them thinking " chairs toh mil he jayenge.... aise show ko kaun ayega!"

The place was packed an hour before the scheduled time... people who came later, had to stand at the back! And it was not full of other contestants relatives either, folks off the road had walked in, full of curiousity to see what the old folks were upto.

The curtains opened and even i gaped with my mounth open! Those 'paunchy, ordinary looking' old guys were all looking so striking and distinguished! All dressed in some ethnic wear and i only then realized that what a variety there is even for men's wear. From the time of the Peshwas to suited brown babus with top hats and walking canes, each guy was a surprise - helped by tons of make up too... the ladies....ohhh the ladies.... my mom looked TAME in her bold capris!

There were grannies wearing tight jeans...tattered, skin tight, faded,,," dangerously low" all kinds! Skirts of all lenghts, even an 'aji' with a colorful skarf wound round her in a Hawain get up.... but the peice de resistance was Mrs. Grover - the oldest lady of the group... a frail 80 eighty years old who , mom told me later, often fainted during rehearsals, and had to be revived with glucose and tea.

when SHE walked on the stage the collective audience howled in disbelief but appreciation too... this lady was in a black tight skirt with a slit no less, a sleeveless slinky top, a glorious afro wig, 4 inch high silettos with wrap around tie ups round her slender ankles...glitters on her bare arms and a cigarette in her hand, actually lit! She held it with one well manicured hand, even taking a puff and threw flying kisses to the "guys" with the other... ohhh... ohhhohh - what a sight!!!

you know it has been almost a month since that show but the city is still agog about it - and why not? Excerpts were aired over ALL calbes, UCN, Zee news, AAj tak...someone said, i don't know whether to believe it - even CNN in their India news segment!

the local nsps are still carrying letters to the editor about it... " Shameful! Do old folks have to degrade themselves like this...is there nothing else they can do?".... "Glorious... now we know age is no bar!"

But i know one thing - my mom's life is transformed big time - at age 72 she has realized, nothing is impossible. So have I...a just turned 50..the path ahead doesn't look so gloomy suddenly!