Kitchen Adventures

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - Aug 2017 

It is that time of the year again. The time when your home becomes a house. The usual noises and sounds disappear. No dropping of your kid to school, no one to say bye to when you leave to office and no one comes running to you with cries of joy when you return home. It is that time of the year for all those expats who are lucky enough to have their family with them to empathize with the vast majority who do not get to be around their family for a considerable part of their life.

School holidays in Middle East forces many like me to be a ‘bachelor’ when the family heads back to their home countries. I know a few who consider this as regaining the long-lost-freedom. There are others like me who live these days like a zombie. All of a sudden, life seems to lose its charm. Somehow the energy levels become all-time low.

I do try to catch-up a bit on certain aspects for which I don’t get time otherwise. I get to open our library and say hi to all those books which were untouched for a long time. While catching up on these things it is also the time of the year when I get to do a bit of culinary experiments.

I should thank my mom for teaching me the basics of cooking long back so that I don’t have to depend on restaurants for survival. I am a strong believer that both boys and girls in our families should be taught these skills right from the age when they are old enough to handle kitchen duties. Though I am not the one who don the role of master chef in our family, I’m quite sure that my wife will vouch for the meaningful assistance she gets from me in the kitchen.

With the family away and I get to handle the kitchen all for myself, my adventure mode sets in. The most recent attempt was to prepare a dish with green gram. Fortunately it turned out well, at least good enough for me to survive for a few days. I’ve to be honest and admit that this is not the case always.

I still recollect one such bitter experience a couple of years back. A poor cabbage was the victim that day. I decided to try a traditional Kerala recipe for cabbage with a mix of coconut. A nicely chopped cabbage was ready in a few minutes. All the rest of ingredients were lined up and waiting for their turn. The pan was heated up and preparation began. One by one each of the ingredients found its way into the pan. I began to feel proud already. A bunch of items a few hours back that was sitting idle on a supermarket shelf is about to turn into the world’s best cabbage dish! It was nothing less than magic!

The dish was almost ready and the aroma filled the air with the traditional Kerala recipe saluting me for a job well done. I tasted the end-product and was quite confident that both my wife and mom, if around, would’ve given me an award for the preparation. That exact moment was when the devil put an idea in my brain. It was inspired by one of the regular culinary columns from a popular women’s magazine published back home in Kerala. It was a column by a well-known media person who loved experimenting with his dishes.

The thought that I’ve proved my culinary skills with a good dish was not enough. How do I differentiate myself from the lesser mortals like my wife and mom? Needless to say that such thoughts are the after-effects of leading a corporate life. I looked around for that X-factor to differentiate my dish. My eyes got stuck on a bright yellow color. It was an innocent looking lemon lying around with no connection whatsoever with the cabbage recipe. But the creativity in me overruled logic.

Promptly I cut the lemon and squeezed it all over my brilliant dish. I ensured that the lemon reached every corner of the dish. It was time to taste my invention-of-the-century. A spoonful of the dish and my world of pride came tumbling all the way down! It was a disaster to say the least.

A lesson well learned but I’m happy that it didn’t stop me from trying more. This is also a reminder to all of you out there that nothing is out-of-bounds for you in your home. Try your hand on everything. Be happy if it turns out well. Try again if it doesn’t.

My experiments in our kitchen continues even today. God bless you all! 

The Martyrs

It must’ve been brutal. There were slashes all over their body. Three of them, all recent recruits. Their white colored skin were all covered red now, with the obvious. A quite promising career ended in the hands of seasoned criminals. Two of them were identified as key suspects, though yet to zero in on the actual murderer.

Their cries must’ve gone unheard with the machinery in operation. It was quite evident that the victims went through extreme torture that’s unwarranted. They were literally holed up in a cylindrical shaped room and were tossed violently all around before they breathed the last.

Everything stopped with the siren going off indicating that its time. Rest of them in the room were quite safe except for minor cuts and bruises. Soon the body of these three were found completely drenched in deep red. They were like withered flowers.  Droopy and dead.

The investigation is still on to figure out the killer. Who will it be? Who will be so heartless to make a pure white kerchief turn blood red while in the washing machine?

Is it the new red leggings of my wife or the bright red shorts of my son?

The mystery remains...

The Green Gaffe!

I always thanked my dad for instilling the travel bug in me. The very fact that he was a bank employee gave him the option to avail Leave Travel Concession. This was one of the perks for which he was entitled every year. Instead of consuming it annually, our preference was a five year chunk so that we could cover the maximum distance and the most number of days.

One such trip was to explore Delhi, the national capital followed by erstwhile Bombay and finally Goa. We had a tried and tested strategy which obviously worked out to be very economical those days. It was to target those locations where we already had relatives. This naturally helped to cut down the cost of accommodation and also to some extent, food and local travel expenses. I must remember with utmost reverence that those were the times when people never showed faces of displeasure when they had guests at home. Due credit goes to dad's amazing networking skills!

There we were, one fine day at the most happening part of the country, the wonderful city of Bombay! Dad's uncle was staying at Bandra, one of the well-off suburban areas in the city. They gave us a warm welcome and we relished their spirit of hospitality.

One of those days, dad's cousin decided to take us around the place and show us the real Bombay. It was a morning that saw slight drizzle. We took to the streets of Bandra which was trying to hide itself from the skies that opened its eyes. Little puddles of rain water clothed the roads. The tarred surfaces appeared polished and so we began our tour-de-Bombay.

My teenage mind was all excited to see a new part of the country. I looked up to the skies and shouted to the falling drops, "You just can't dampen my spirit with this!" We had started early in the morning and soon our stomachs started to add to the noises around us. A decent looking restaurant was round the corner and we decided to break the fast there.

I really am unable to trace back the time from which I started disliking mint leaves aka pudina. I was never able to appreciate the odor of the leaves and the dishes prepared, with that as an ingredient. I became so averse to pudina that I even wondered if I was allergic to that! Dad knew this pudina-phobia of mine and had warned me that you may find quite a few of these up in the North. I managed to avoid having a food item which had pudina while in Delhi and I was pretty confident that I could repeat the feat in Bombay as well. I somehow had this notion that south Indian cuisine does not use much of pudina.

The menu at the restaurant was not very enticing as most of the options were North Indian and I dreaded the green devil that will accompany the dish! Pages turned, options evaluated and finally at a completely insignificant corner of the menu I discovered a gem! A food item that brought some respite to my eyes but more so to the mind. A south Indian delicacy which I was sure not to have any of the stuff I hate the most. None other than a jewel from the land of Nizam, The Hyderabad Biriyani!

While the rest of the folks were open to experiment with their taste buds, I was contented with the good ol' South Indian food out of the sheer fear of pudina! Moments passed by, chit chats were reaching its pinnacle and slowly the food we ordered started showing up. The flavors of Bombay did a colorful pageant right in front of us. Tantalizing aromas filled the air. The renowned Indian cuisine which has created plentiful gourmets around the world woke up the counterpart within us. Everything we asked reached us except the one I was awaiting the most, biriyani. Guess, Hestia, the Greek goddess of hearth who presided over baking of bread, planned to test my patience level!

Everyone at the table was courteous enough to wait for my dish. But as the wait grew longer I suggested the rest of the folks not to wait any further. It seemed as though the restaurant folks are awaiting the next locomotive from Hyderabad to bring the biriyani! After what seemed like hours, a steward clad in a black and white vest came with a silver tray with an item he proudly announced as Hyderabad Biriyani.

He placed in front of me, an intricately designed copper-finish bowl with contents full to the edge. This was accompanied by a silver plated spoon so as to make the person feel special for ordering something as exotic as this. All what it took was one look at the bowl and I was totally disillusioned from tip to toe!

There it was, the carefully ordered menu item artistically decorated with pudina leaves so as to make a bed of green inviting me to dive in and have a painful death!

Gifting a Blunder!

I had known my dad's cousin, for a few years, as the lady who chose to remain single amidst the traditional family she was part of. During family functions, she was a topic of discussion as the one who committed an act that is next to a cardinal sin! Though no one despised her at home, I always sensed a melancholic tone when people spoke about her.

Perennially our society has been one that strongly based itself upon the notion of matrimony for existence and procreation. Every child who is born into this system is raised with a constant reminder of the need for this age-old institution. This belief gets deep rooted so much that, anyone who dares to tread a path that is different is seen as an outcast. This nature of the public always remained a fascination right from the time I started decoding the algorithm of relationships in a family.

The chapters of my life flew by and one fine day I ended up at the doorsteps of the same lady. I was to stay there for a couple of months as part of completing my Post Graduation project in that city. My alternate agenda was to explore more on the psyche of a single woman on whom the society had attached a taboo.

Pages on the calendar were flipped twice and by that time I had my realization in place. I could figure out the discrimination, the so called civilization had shown on her. In fact I really admired her for resisting the act of bigotry for almost half a century! She was indeed happy being single and had no regrets whatsoever, unlike the concern people had for her. I could feel the sense of freedom she cherished and not to mention her own space she treasured!

Single or otherwise, maternal instincts form an inseparable part of the genetics that constitute the fairer sex. I experienced that with the care she extended towards my well being. I was truly thankful to her for making me comfortable during the couple of months I lived there. It was more like an eye-opener for me towards the definitions world had in store.

It was time to bid farewell to the wonderful camaraderie we shared. I thought of parting ways by gifting her something she valued. She being an avid reader, what else other than a book, could be the best gift? Hours were spent to fish out a befitting book that spoke volumes about living life to the fullest. Something that genuinely complimented her spirit of being single!

I got the book covered in a lovely gift wrapper and presented with a contented heart. Her naturally beautiful face glowed as I handed over the gift and soon enough she started unwrapping it. Till date I am not really sure of the sort of emotion that crossed her face, as she took a first look at the cover of the book!

It read, 'Who Will Cry When You Die?'