This was the last one of a set of six, bought in February 1988. The occasion was our wedding anniversary. We had shifted from Bombay to Lucknow in the summer of 1987 and my parents were visiting us for the first time. And it also was probably the first time, since we got married in1973, that we were together for this event. The campus where we lived was far out of town, sprawling and well maintained. My parents fell into a routine – morning and sometimes evening walks too, leisurely days in the sun! My mother took over the kitchen and one of the luxuries of campus life, we could join them at lunch every day!
And at sunset Subhash and my father would sit down for the evening ritual of a glass or two maybe, of whiskey. The town was a good 20 Km away and we ventured out in our proud possession, a non-AC Maruti 800 on Saturday evenings. While Hazrat Ganj was the usual destination, my father had little interest in walking the shops or eating chat, which my mother loved. So he would spend time in the British Council Library, which was housed in the Mayfair building, while the rest of us did our ‘ganjing’!! But that week in early February, he insisted on buying us an anniversary gift and the set of hand cut crystal glasses was what we got – I suspect partly because he did not approve of his son-in-law’s lack of interest in such plebian matters as the glass in which the whiskey was being drunk.
And they have travelled with me all these years – Subhash used them for evening drinks, with my father till he was with us and then with friends till he too passed. Over time, use and movements took their toll and when it came down to the last two, I started using them for my morning smoothy. And it felt good to start the day, remembering the old times. So, it was with a sense of loss that I saw the last one crack a couple of days ago. And I’m not sure why I took a picture. But this morning when I got up and wrote a birthday greeting to my brother-in-law Ramesh, I remembered that it would have been Subhash’s too!! He would have been 76 today. Happy Birthday – enjoy a whiskey where ever you are!!
It is strange, the ways we remember those who have left us. My mother passed away a little more than 2 years ago, at the age of 86. An independent and feisty woman, she led a full life in Chennai but came to live with me for the last 4 years of her life, after she had a hip replacement.
Since I had moved to the hostel at the age of 18 years, this was the longest time she and I had lived together in my adult life. In her twilight years, her usual zest for outings and her fondness for Tamil serials surrendered to the inevitable physical decline that goes with advancing age. But her interest in food carried on to the end, and more of that in another post!! The specific reason that I am remembering her today is that the mango season is here!
Amma (Ammama to the next generation) was fond of mangoes, period!!! She grew up in the backwaters near Alleppey in large houses, with many mango trees. Her childhood memories always had the mango eating competitions among cousins, the many local varieties that they had in the estate, the quantities of mangoes that were put in brine, pickled, dried…..and it was a love that stayed till the end. It was no matter that in her late 70s she developed diabetes, and mango was one of the fruits she was advised to avoid. She was fairly good at keeping off sugars (although she had always loved sweets) and only succumbed occasionally to her favorites – imrati and ras malai. But she was very stubborn when it came to mangoes!
And the few years she was with me, I indulged her – from the very first Banganapalli in early April to the very last Chausa in August! Her favorites were Dasheri and Chausa, but any mango was better than no mango! She liked it in any form, but enjoyed it most mixed with her rice and curds – something many would find strange, but was not unusual for us. She was also disciplined, never indulged herself with a second one. And as we had lunch together, she would recall the many varieties of her childhood (all part of the lost biodiversity, in our chase for the perfect hybrid), leading to mother stories of her younger years.
I am fond of mangoes too, but not to the extent of ‘any mango is better than no mango’ – and her happy face enjoying the mango flashes before my eyes, as I try to enjoy the Banganapallis that are in the market. My response to the mango these days is more like that of Manu Joseph “…….although I have largely given up on the idea of the perfect mango. Perhaps, these only existed in my childhood. Perhaps they only existed because I was a child. Perhaps they only existed because I remember them as perfect. Right now, every mango I eat is sour at the seed, however golden and beautiful it is to look at” [ Hindu Sunday Supplement of 5th May, 2019]
This morning I called an old friend for a general chat, something we do a few times a year. And she asked me why I was not posting any blogs these days…….and yes, I have to admit that the frequency has declined gradually. Every now and then I resolve to change that and post a few, but have not been able to sustain the interest. In any case, it was not as if I was promoting it any big way or that I had a big following. I have been quite clear that the purpose of the exercise was more to record my thoughts and events for my own future recall. Since the apoptosis of memory cells seems to be accelerating, I think it will serve me well to be regular in this effort.
Joint communal prayer on Friday, is an integral part of the Muslim faith. All of us in this country would have visual recalls, if not of actually have seen, from the media visuals of rows of men offering prayer. These pictures are on the front pages every Id, just as we have those of visarjans (be it Ganapati or Durgma), rath yatras (most famously of Puri), the Dussera display at Mysore or the Onam boat race of Kerala. They are all part of our annual calender as a nation.
But things feel a bit different this Friday, although Ramdan is only to start next week and Id is 5 weeks away. Tension has been brewing in the city where I live, over the last 3-4 weeks about the prayer being conducted in open spaces. While tensions have been developing on many issues across the country, a growing helplessness had led me to discontinue watching any Newschannel on TV and decreasing newspaper subscriptions from 3 to 1 ( and I am mulling over the need for that too!!). Since I am fully retired, and have limited social engagements, I am building a personal barricade of sorts I find. Is this good I wonder, or just selfish! A way to block out the noise and so find peace!! But is this the peace I want? I can only honestly say that I am confused…….
I did, however, step out and attend a non-party, non-religious group meeting of citizens last week, which in response to the recent disturbances wanted to reassure ourselves that there are enough of us who do not think in terms of division alone!! And sitting there among a 100 or so attendees, of which 2/3rds were probably Muslims, I realized how few Muslims I have had close associations with. The only times I was among so many Muslims was when I used to take an occasional class in one of the Denominational Universities, or attend a ‘nikah’ of a colleague or student ( and there were few enough of those). And in that meeting and in the chatter of the WhatsApp group that was born that day, I was confused and concerned, by the sense of gratitude that Muslim friends felt towards the non-Muslims for having stepped forward to give support. It brought home to me how physically and emotionally disconnected my life has been, as must be that of so many others.
For me a human is a human is a human….. every human is a sapien first, and has evolved over many millenia from the apes. The human intellect and its achievements has probably accelerated the rate of evolution, but are we also accelarating the reverse trajectory? Only time will tell, and I do not regret that I wont be around then.
P.S. Over the last week, I have been trying to rectify some of my ignorance about the religion ‘Islam’ (a difficult task for a a-religious person) using Google (of course, our master teacher!!). I wish there was a better way to learn more.
When I saw the announcement for a curated walk through Connaught Place or CP (it is still that to me!!) under the title of ‘bookworming’, I was intrigued. Digging deeper, I realized that this was a term used for a walking and experiencing a city through a book! And the book selected in this case was Sam Miller’s “Delhi – Adventures in a megacity”. This was more than I could have wished for – a combination of my 2 favorite activities, reading and walking. And the book in question was one I had read a few years ago.
Sam Miller is a flaneur, which is a French word “for someone who wanders aimlessly through cities” despite having the means to “travel by car, take a taxi, or ride the train; or perhaps even stay at home”. Miller chose to walk in an outward spiral starting with CP as the center. And since this walk planned to cover the first couple of loops of the spiral, the meeting point was early Sunday morning at the Rajiv Gandhi Metro Station. We were a small group of 6 adults and a young child, and we set off with the lead walker and organizer, Shriti. She gave us a background to Miller, his book etc, since probably not everyone was familiar with the book..
The walk took us along the inner circle corridor of E and F blocks, and we crossed over to the Palika Bazaar. This ‘infamous’ underground market, which Miller calls ‘sunless, shrunken, sunken doppleganger of CP’, was a popular destination for shoppers in the pre-mall days!! No one was keen to dive underground, and so we walked over to catch a magnificent view of the iconic Jeevan Bharati building designed by Charles Correa. I must admit that in all the years I have been in Delhi, I have never seen it from this angle.
Then we crossed over to the outer circle, and walked counter clockwise, to take in the Statesman House, which lies at the corner of Barakhumba Road. Further on, we took in Gopal Das Bhavan (where Miller, who was worked for BBC, had his offices), the Fire Station, Shankar Market, Minto Bridge, the VIP entrance to the Railway Station before we crossed the road to take in the youngest sufi shrine of Delhi. All that you see on the road side is a masjid, and then as you go through the small lane at its side you come into the peaceful, paved courtyard that is the dargah of Hazrat Abdul Salam Chisti. This dargah dates back to the early part of the 20th century, and protrudes into the Lady Hardinge Medical College grounds. They had a much larger piece of land earlier, the major part of which was taken away for the new medical college which came up in 1916.
We continued around the outer circle and ended the walk at the iconic Regal building, or Re(g)al Theat(r)e (with the missing G and R, its original name.
This was in its time, a grand cinema hall with ornate balconies and embellishments, columned foyer etc. built to match the grand theatres of London. It with few parallels in the country, Opera House in Bombay and Mayfair in Lucknow come to mind. As single screen halls around the country bow out to the multiplexes, this one has now become a wax museum – the famous Madame Tussad’s, no less!
For me the outing was more than just a walk, as I have been seeing CP since 1955. I grew up in the New Delhi of the 50s and 60s and lived in the sarkari part of it. The go-to market for us was Khan Market – CP was an occasional luxury. During school and pre-med days, it was usually for the occasional family outing to Kwality for an ice cream sundae treat (and that institution is as it was then, although I have not had the ice cream sundae for many decades), an annual expedition to the Khadi Gram Bhavan (still at the same location in Regal Building, albeit much modified) at the time of the Gandhi Jayanti sales, an occasional family expedition to the movies especially in the summer vacations, when cousins were visiting. Many are the morning shows (9.30 am sharp) and matinees (3.30 pm) that I have seen in Regal, Rivoli and Plaza. And then there were the 6 college years at Delhi Gate, when CP was the place for movies, eating out (United Coffee House, Wengers, South India Cafe, all Institutions that still survive) and occasional shopping. Till I left Delhi in early 1973, there was no structure taller than the buildings around the circle itself, all the radial roads were open to low volume traffic in both directions and the central area was a tree filled park. In the late 60s and early 70s, various new structures appeared – Shankar Market, Apna Bazaar in its own (the first department store!) building across from Shankar Market and some landmarks disappeared. The iconic India Coffee House, at the site where Paalika Bazar stands, moved to the new location on Baba Kharak Singh Marg, where a row of shops with various State Emporiums came up.
Between 1973 and 2009, I was only an occasional visitor and did not witness the transformation of the area – the first high rises, the Jeevan Jyoti building, the new Statesman House, the business centers that developed along KG Marg and Barakamba Road, the rejuvenation of the central Park and widening of Barkhamba Road with the building of the Metro. Since I moved back to the NCR in 2009, I have reached CP only about half a dozed times or so. And major efforts have been made to re-do the frontages, clean up and re-pave the corridors etc. especially around the centenary of the Delhi Durbar of 1911. But I was disappointed to see the paan stained corners and the dirty corridors of the outer circle, which smelled like a long continuous urinal. This is suprising, since the whole area seems to have become a long chain of eating places and ‘Bars’. One would think, that at least the owners of these establishments would take some interest, keeping their clientele in mind.
Much remains the same, while much has changed too!! And I really felt good about having made the effort to reach CP for a #morningalk with a difference!
#ilovewalking, #mymorningwalk
The arched windows – preserved for the most part
And other arches, revealing the less sanitized inner parts
Everyone has a ‘comfort food’, an item of food that one associates with childhood, home, mother…….and for me for ever so long it used to be ‘curd rice’! How I grew out of that is another story, but for these last many years my ‘comfort food’ has been a drink, the filter coffee. Children were not allowed to drink coffee, but amongst my earliest memories is one of my grandfather, sneaking me a sip from his ‘tumbler’! Of course, no chinaware entered our Brahmin house then. It was a time, long before plastic had entered our lives in any manner or form.
Coffee was a ritual and was made only in the morning and at tiffin time, which was the late afternoon. The first thing that was done in the morning was to light the wood fire and put water to boil. My mother would have already had her bath before this and cleaned the fire and put kolam on the walls of the stove. Once boiling, the water was added slowly to the ‘peetal’ filter. These were in various sizes, and on any given day, the one used depended on how many people were in the house and were eligible for this morning ritual.
The morning coffee was extra special, as the milk was fresh. Since we did not have our own cattle, the milkman walked his cow to our door, and my grandmother would stand guard with a hawk’s eye, to ensure that the milkman did not tilt water into the vessel from a source tucked into his mundu! My maternal grandmother did keep cows, and I remember her standing and supervising the morning milking, in this case to ensure that the ‘servants’ did not steal some of the milk. The milk was boiled, added to the ‘decoction’ along with sugar, usually a generous amount for my grandfather as he had a sweet tooth. (Technically, since the water percolates through the powder packed in the upper perforated vessel into the lower vessel, the coffee is a filtrate, but is always referred to as the decoction.) The mixture was tossed between the davara (the lower dish) and and tumbler, and the frothing coffee was carried almost with reverence in the folds of the saree pallu, (since it was too hot for the hand) to the recipient.
Dawara and tumbler
The hand grinder
I do not recall many of these details from those early days, but they were discussed in later times when the adults were reminiscing about the bygone days, and the decline in the quality of coffee! The men were the first recipients, and I can imagine my mother bending and leaving it a couple of feet from my grandfather, since the daughter in law had to keep her distance.
Once the first round was over, any decoction remaining, was put into a separate container for those who may demand seconds. My father was one of those, and I can hear his “Kamlam, arai cup coffee” (Kamlam, half cup coffee), which was his routine to the end. Those were frugal times – more water was boiled and added to the same filter, and the second harvest of weaker coffee was what the older children and the domestic helpers got.
Many of these rituals continued for many years in our house. I do not remember the roasting and grinding of the coffee seeds in those early days. But I can smell the distinct aroma of the roasting coffee seeds, in our Delhi house in the late 50s and early 60s. It was a ritual unique to our house as we did not have other Tambrahms in the neighborhood. The roasted seeds were stored in air tight tins, and ground with a hand-grinder in small batches so that the freshness was retained.
The switch to pre-ground coffee powder happened in 1965 when my parents moved to London. When they returned in the late 60s, a lot of things had changed. My mother no longer had help in the kitchen, the Government apartment they were allotted did not encourage the strong smell of roasted coffee I am assuming! Although by this time I had reached the age of eligibility for coffee, I was in the hostel and had a cup on my occasional visits home.
The years in the hostel had hooked me to chai, the only available option. Coffee (if it can be called that) was a late night activity, for study breaks, in which boiling water was added to a vigorously beaten mixture of Nescafe and condensed milk. The real ‘coffee’ was enjoyed on the occasional visits to India Coffee House in CP. Later a branch was opened on the college campus and made the wonderful brew more accessible. After marriage, for many years we continued to go to India Coffee House for the coffee fix. Then I spent 2 years in US, and drank large amounts of the perk coffee, Maxwell House being the brand that was popular in the lab where I worked. The lab tech would get into work at 7 am and the first thing he did was put on the machine. As I walked into the lab at 8, this aroma would be floating down the corridor. And is perked the whole day, and we all drank volumes of it, although I needed milk and sugar, unlike many of my American colleagues. But if anything, it turned me off coffee…..
For many years after I came back, coffee was an occasional indulgence in a restaurant maybe, and chai became the staple drink at home. My parents shifted to Bangalore in 1981 and my mother went back to roasting and grinding her coffee beans. This went one step further, when a friend gave her a coffee plant which in 3-4 years started to yield enough seeds to suffice for the 2 of them for many months. We were in Mumbai in the 80s and made many trips to Bangalore, and it was then that I really learnt to appreciate good filter coffee and heard again of all the rituals that go with it.
After shifting to Lucknow in 1987, my parents started to visit every year, spending 6-8 weeks initially and after my father passed away my mother spent 2-3 months. In the early days she always came with a good stock of home ground coffee powder, as my father did not drink tea. She continued to do this, although Subhash and I had the luxury of enjoying the morning coffee only on Sundays.
My mother moved to Chennai in 1994, found her local source for freshly ground coffee powder with the exact amount of chicory added and continued to enjoy the brew. I kept my supply lines going through her visits, and the occasional trips Subhash and I made to Chennai. And it continued even after I moved to Gurgaon, and after my mother moved to Gurgaon, my brother kept the supply line going. And over the last few years I have become more and more of a coffee connoisseur. Over my many European visits, I learnt to appreciate the strong flavor of Nespresso brewed coffee. I gave up milk in general in mid-16, and particularly with coffee. I got a French press. Black coffee allowed me to enjoy the flavor of the bean itself. I started to explore all the fancy new coffee sources, the single estate coffees etc. I brought back a Nespresso machine on one of my trips, and the capsules are standing order for anyone visiting me from Europe.
After the Chennai source for the filter powder dried out for a variety of reasons, I started to source the it from other places. But, the coffee was never up to the mark, and after my mother passed away a year ago, I found that I was making it less and less. Then about 6 months ago, by chance I struck gold, and found this easy central Delhi source. And now I am back to enjoying my filter coffee – not every day, but a couple of times a week, realizing that it is ‘comfort’ food for me, with memories of childhood and my parents. Now I think I need to rescue my dawara-tumbler too!
The New Yorker – “All of his (The Delhi Walla’s) work together may add up to one of the most eccentric and encyclopedic ground-level portraits of a megacity in the Internet age.”
Then we crossed over to the outer circle, and walked counter clockwise, to take in the Statesman House, which lies at the corner of Barakhumba Road. Further on, we took in Gopal Das Bhavan (where Miller, who was worked for BBC, had his offices), the Fire Station, Shankar Market, Minto Bridge, the VIP entrance to the Railway Station before we crossed the road to take in the youngest sufi shrine of Delhi. All that you see on the road side is a masjid, and then as you go through the small lane at its side you come into the peaceful, paved courtyard that is the dargah of Hazrat Abdul Salam Chisti. This dargah dates back to the early part of the 20th century, and protrudes into the Lady Hardinge Medical College grounds. They had a much larger piece of land earlier, the major part of which was taken away for the new medical college which came up in 1916.
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