Breakfast in Paradise

It was one of the finest mornings in late November. Our eldest cousin brother in the family, whom we affectionately called Kochachan, came home with an exciting news! It was the 30^th day of demise of our aunt’s father a couple of days later. Normally a news like this wouldn’t have generated much of an interest among us kids in the family. Usually my dad would’ve represented our family and attended such events. But it was destined to be different this time.

The function was planned in a resort named Orange County in Coorg, known as Scotland of India! The resort, one of the finest in the country, was owned by aunt’s family. We were to have an overnight trip on a train followed by a bus journey through one of the most scenic routes in southern part of India. A day was planned at the resort and were to return home shortly afterwards. Paying homage to a departed soul never was so appealing!

Kochachan, along with my elder brother and I started the trip from the railway station in our small town of Changanacherry. It was a late evening train to Kannur, one of the northern districts in Kerala. The night journey was quite uneventful. We reached Kannur station as the sun was about to wake up. Got out of the station and crossed the main road and found a tiny tea shop that welcomed us with piping hot black tea. The lovely dawn was made even better with the aroma of the tea. As we had to cover about three more hours by road, we soon found ourselves on a bus to Madikeri, a famous hill station town in Coorg.

I remember falling asleep again soon after the bus started. Couple of hours later, closer to 8 o’ clock, my brother woke me up. The bus seemed to have stopped in the middle of a forest. It was lush green all around us. We could also hear the sound of a waterfall somewhere nearby, but couldn’t see it though. We got out of the bus and was told that we have a 30 minutes stop there to have breakfast. I wondered aloud about the prospect of finding food in the middle of that wilderness! That’s when Kochachan pointed to something across the road.

We crossed the road and at a short distance we could see smoke coming out of a mud chimney. It was an uneven slope from the main road which we climbed down to see a little hut thatched with palm leaves that has become quite dry with age. The driver of the bus was heading to the hut and since there didn’t seem to be any other signs of a restaurant we all followed him. Hunger had already started to do the job and I could hear my tummy getting ready with an orchestra.

We were about to step into the hut. That’s when my brother made an awesome discovery! A narrow country road was seen next to the hut which led us to a small yet pretty waterfall the sound of which we heard earlier. The early morning mist along with chirping of birds and gorgeous butterflies covered with a riot of colours playing around us, all painted the picture of exactly how Alice would’ve felt in Wonderland!

The clock was ticking and since we only had a few minutes left, we headed back to the hut to have breakfast. We literally had to bow our heads to get inside and were welcomed with a few wooden benches and desks. On one corner we could see a live kitchen in action. A couple of frying pans were placed on top of red bricks and fire from the woods collected from the forest fuelled them. A lady was making fresh pooris, an authentic Indian breakfast dish, in one of the pans and the other one had some curry being boiled. The burning firewood seemed to provide more light in the hut than the 60 Watts bulb that was hanging inside. This completed the hotel.

Some of our fellow passengers were just finishing the breakfast. As we sat down on the benches, the owner of the hotel placed clean banana leaves in front of us that served as plates. I was half expecting him to recite the menu with available items. Instead he came over with a bowl of steaming pooris freshly made and served us three each. I loved pooris and awaited the combination of bhaji a delicious dish made of potatoes. Instead the guy came to us with a dish that was bright red in colour. For a moment I thought it was some curry made of beetroot or so. But we were served with the last thing I expected as a curry for poori. A fresh catch of sardines cooked in grounded red chilly flavoured with locally available mint leaves and a bunch of other secret ingredients.

We were all taken aback for a moment as it was the first time in our lives we were greeted with this combination of curry for pooris. Nevertheless hunger conquered all other emotions and we dived into the breakfast served. ‘Heavenly’ would’ve been an understatement! As we gulped down each portion of this strange breakfast combo, we could feel our taste buds dancing around as though in a combination of ballet and jazz.

The aroma and spices of curry married to the freshness of poori accompanied with the relaxing sound of the waterfall placed in a magical environment was the perfect setting for world’s best hotel! It was indeed breakfast in paradise! A befitting prelude to our journey to the heart of Coorg, a wonderland in itself.

 

The 2-Minute Story

Just like any other average IT guy from Bangalore, during the initial decade of the Millennium year 2000, I was super excited with my first ever onsite trip as part of my project. That too to the dream land of US! The double bonanza in my case was that it was going to be my first flight in my life as well.

I only had a few days before the three months visit. Being single at that time, there wasn’t too much to pack in any case. Nevertheless I got myself a few stuff that I thought will be required during my stay in Atlanta. While the preparations was on, Anjana my cousin sister, who was in Bangalore at that time, was concerned about my food there. As customary for most of the single Indians then, she advised me to take a few packs of Maggi Noodles. She said it’ll come handy in case of any difficulties there. Maggi at that time was only Rs 10/- per pack.

Though it was going to be my first international travel, I rated myself above average when it came to travelling in general. I took special pride in the fact that I could adjust myself to any situation, especially food. With the confidence of a seasoned traveller, I rejected her idea as quite trivial and responded to her with a cliché statement, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”. Little did I know that I was in for a big surprise when I crossed the border of India!

I reached Atlanta on a pleasantly warm summer afternoon in the first week of June. It was a 16 hour long transit flight via Paris and I was naturally tired. I hit the bed as soon as I got into the rented apartment. I slept like a log and by the time I woke up it was eight o’ clock in the evening. I got out of the bed and the first signal my brain sent was of hunger. It was a studio apartment which had a well equipped kitchen. But what’s the point in having a great kitchen if there is nothing to cook?!

Since the place we stayed didn’t have a restaurant, I decided to take a walk to a gas station I had earlier spotted near our residence. The fridge at the store there had a few frozen food items and I opted for a Lasagne which was one thing I felt I could try. I brought it back home and heated it up and had a good feeling about a pretty filling dinner. The next thing I did was to message my sister and let her know that I started my life very well as a Roman! All what she said was, “Wait and watch”. I brushed that comment aside and hit the bed again since I had to start with the office early morning the next day.

A couple of days went by. I was enjoying the change of place and appreciating the difference in food unlike what I used to have in Bangalore. It wasn’t too long before reality hit hard. The breakfast served at the residence was quite a monotonous menu as it was the same food every day. The junk food I could get at the office cafeteria was making me feel bored to the core. I really longed for some ‘real food’. Somehow my sister’s face started appearing in my dreams with her classic smirk saying, “Didn’t I tell you?”

Days were going past and the frustration of not able to have anything that suited by taste buds haunted me big time. One day a colleague suggested visiting the nearest Indian store. I had no interest as I never bothered to cook. Nevertheless I tagged along and reached Shivam, the Indian store where you could buy lot of things from India. I was browsing through the shelves of the store without any interest what-so-ever while my friends were busy buying groceries.

As I was about to turn back at the end of an alley, my eyes got stuck on a familiar bright yellow pack. The words Maggi Noodles appeared on the pack which seemed to beckon me. I almost ran to the shelf and was about to grab the pack when I looked at the price tag displayed. It said $ 3 per pack. Considering the currency exchange rate, it was close to twenty times the price in India!

I could see my sister laughing at me from the face of the pack. I tried to hide my face and took a few packs paying a handsome amount from my allowance. The price you pay for not listening to your sister!

Tail End: Dedicated to my loving sister and all brothers like me who never listened to their sisters and ended up in deep trouble.

My Alchemist Moment

Ever since Corona hit the shores of UAE, we’d confined ourselves to the safety of our home. To be precise, from March 2020 till today as the calendar announces the beginning of a new month, September 2020. New ways of life demands new ways of passing time. How else do I justify my new found interest in balcony gardening? Something I never paid attention to and left as an exclusive passion by my sweetheart. My involvement was limited to appreciating the beauty of the flowers and clicking a few pictures occasionally.

All these got changed with the extra time I had in hand as there was no travelling to and fro office. It all started by seeing the tomato plants blooming and eventually producing beautiful looking baby tomatoes. The happiness of plucking tomatoes that grew in our own balcony was beyond words. There were a few other pots as well, some with plants and others empty. The sack of potting soil was lying in one corner of the balcony.

As the interest in gardening started budding in my mind, I searched for the packets of seeds we got from a local supermarket a while ago. Among the packets there was one of cucumber. Since the hot summer season was still a couple of months away I decided to plant them in one of the empty pots. Never did I imagine that filing a pot with some soil, planting a few seeds and watering them every day and waiting for a sprout can all be such rewarding feeling. The happiness was multiplied to see lots of tiny yellow flowers filling the pot. I could sense my better half watching all my excitement akin to a little boy who got a brand new toy!

The cucumber plants with their yellow flowers gave us a lot of joy for a while. Then it started dying down one by one. The increasing temperature was one of the reasons I believe. Nevertheless I was not going to stop with one set back. Seeds from every other fruit and vegetable we bought at home started to find its way to various pots. Some of them sprouted and others didn’t even bother to show up. Many of them followed the path of the cucumber plants.

Planting of seeds became such a frenzy that I soon ran out of pots. I started thinking of getting bigger pots as I was determined to recreate a ‘Hanging Gardens of Babylon’ in Dubai! As the summer months hit Middle East it was getting even more of a challenge to grow the plants with temperatures climbing and was soon going to cross 40 Degree Celsius! Hence every time I raised the point of buying new pots, my sweetheart shot the idea down stating it’ll be a worthless effort and convinced me that we’ll buy it closer to end of summer.

I visited the Hypermarket nearby, though rare, during these Corona times. Every time I walked past the aisle where they placed gardening items, the pots there seem to beckon me. I’ll stand there and look at them with the dream of a blooming garden and almost immediately the image of a hot summer sun breathing down an intense fire put a burning hole in my dream. In between, an opportunity even came up when one of the occupants from the next block was moving out and were selling their big porcelain pots. The asking price was quite high and considering the summer story, the thought of buy got a thumbs down. The game continued and my dream remained at large.

While this was going on, a thousand miles away near the shores of Mumbai, Shabana Begum was restless at her home. She was stuck in Mumbai for the past three months due to Covid while her family of husband and two grown up boys were in Dubai. They stayed a couple of blocks away from us though we had never met them. In addition of being away from her family for this long, Shabana was equally worried about her other ‘children’. She had a lovely garden in her balcony with a variety of plants, flowering and otherwise. Her major concern was that in the entire home she was the only soul who showed some concern towards the plants. She was truly worried about their plight especially with the summer hitting its peak.

Shortly enough she managed to get onto a flight to Dubai and as soon as she reached home, a heart breaking sight greeted her! What remained of her beautiful garden to which she put her heart and soul was reduced to a handful of plants which luckily survived the heat despite of being rudely ignored. Soon, another unpleasant news also was broken to her. The family had to shortly shift out of the apartment due to personal reasons.

With an aching heart, Shabana posted in the women’s WhatsApp group of our apartment about her intention of giving away her pots. There were no pictures though. As luck would have it, my sweetheart was one of the first ones to see the post and even before anyone else could lay claim on them, she was quick to respond. It was agreed that we’ll visit Shabana next day and take the pots.

We reached there thinking of a couple of pots and what greeted us was nothing short of a jackpot! Multiple outdoor type large pots with such assortment of plants, that even belittled by dreams, were waiting for us to be grabbed, all for free!

I stood there in her balcony awestruck in silence! All what I could do was thank three people. God first, then my wife and finally Paulo Coelho!

The Universe conspired!