The making of not so perfect Malabari Parathas

           The other day I decided to make Malabari parathas as I was bored and hence hungry. I am hungry when I am hungry and on many other occasions like when I am stressed, worried, tired, relaxed, bored and when I make such lists. I have these special cravings too which is not surprising if you know me. On some days I want to eat banana halwa, on some days kaju katli, rave unde, bread-toast, holige, puliyogare; depending on how the chemicals in my brain are playing, which in turn depend on non-availability of the very dishes, and mind you, I like a lot of things and I am completely unaware of what’s coming next as tantalizing thought bringing in uncontrollable craving. It is a different thing that none of these thoughts get converted into 3D structures. In those times I realize that I am early in this world by a few decades. If I was born a little late by half a century or so, I would have been able to print out my favorite jalebis.

When I went to the pantry, I did not have refined flour and I used the whole wheat flour. I mixed a little less oil as I am a little health conscious and soon the dough was ready. When I made perfect layered dough balls shaped like roses, soon to be rolled into parathas, like the chef Kunal Kapoor showed in his video, I was in complete awe of myself. ‘How do you do this Medha? You are a perfect doctor, a perfect wife, a perfect home-maker, a perfect mother and now a perfect chef !’, my heart and brain were both full of my own praise and I started rolling those dough flowers into parathas. Soon the layers started merging into a single layer like the famous idiom of a crumbling cookie. But luckily when they were cooked on the tawa, they did somewhat look like Malabari parathas as if saving grace.

Whenever I ate Malabari parathas in Davangere during my medical college days it was with kadla curry. No need to say that I did not have soaked chickpeas as my special expeditions to kitchen always happen at the spur of the moment. I decided to settle for palak paneer and of course if you are a seasoned cook, you guessed it right; it was aloo palak.

When I finished my ordeal working in the freezingly cold kitchen I realized that what I had were not-so-perfectly made Malabari parathas; and aloo palak instead of kadla curry.

I plated them and served them to the people of the house who had heard the name of ‘the one which shall not be named’ dish more times than the number of parathas I had actually made.

The teenager son said ‘mom, it is really tasty’. I thought that I passed the exam at least by minimum marks as he is always a nice and hungry boy.

Then my ever-supportive husband said ‘why do you think it is not perfect? it is fabulous’. My husband who is always submerged in work saying this meant that I may have done a decent job. But the proof of the pudding came from my daughter. She generally doesn’t eat. If she eats, she doesn’t eat well. If she eats well, she doesn’t compliment. But that day she said ‘mom, it is very good’.

What can I say? Imaginary tears rolled down my eyes because I did not have the patience to sit and cry as I was busy eating the fruit of my labor.

We may not be perfect in anything we do. But doing even average job of everything can make our life almost perfect as we are not even aiming at perfection. Moreover it is the people in our lives and not anything else, that makes our mundane boring life worthy.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

International women's day should have been a holiday for all the women. But the word 'international' has retained only as much significance as the international conferences where you call just one speaker from either Bangladesh or Nepal and give world's best award paper, best thesis award, best teacher and many other 'best' awards to whoever fancies to register.

However today was a holiday because we voted on the last leg of assembly election in Uttar Pradesh. The name should have been 'Prashna Pradesh' since I still have as many questions about it as i had when i came here about 13 years ago.

So on international women's day, it is relevant to talk about Uttar Pradesh too because when it comes to women's rights we lag behind by miles. Here women too seem to be responsible for it as much as we like to blame men. I hear stories from women in early forties (that is my age too and i am still struggling with my son's homework !) who have already achieved the highest goal of acquiring daughters in law, about how they cannot have detergent allergies on hands because they simply dont have to do anything at home. Moreover, when their bodies ache due to laziness, their bahus give a massage to fill them with some more laziness.

The topic of men of this region is beyond the scope of this post. Just imagine pan stains. It might give you some picture.

My intention is not to malign my present state's name, but it is just my observation.

But women's issues transcend all the barriers, whether age related, regional or religious.

When a child is born, God knows how much drama happens in our households about the gender of the baby. Rather it happens even before the woman gets pregnant. People flock astrologers to ask if they are lucky enough to have a heir to their family. They behave as though they are some kings of Moghul empire and the future of whole 'Bharatavarsha' is at stake. I have heard recently that the sex of the child is determined by merely a virus. So much for pleasing starts and planets!

When i was a child, i never faced anything remotely to make me feel that i was different. My mother never asked me to learn cooking. She would say 'it is no big deal. You will learn it once you start cooking'. Since i was good at studies, i always felt special. I was this extremely clumsy nerdish girl who was lazy to do any domestic work. My father had more confidence in me than i had in myself.

Only thing i cringed about was my periods because i became untouchable if i was at home during 'mahine ke woh din'. But since i had left home in 8th std itself due to lack of high school in the village, i always planned my home visit as per my 'woh panch din'. I still plan my life around these days and if there was a pause button like youtube videos, i would have hit the 'meno-pause' button long time ago.

It is foolish to assume that the problems are solved once you become a 'clean' woman because whenever you throw a tantrum which you have been doing from time immemorial, your menopause has to take the blame for your crankiness.

On this day i would like to express my desire to meet a man who cooks three times daily, makes children study, manages maids and grocery issues and worries about children's future ( worrying is also a part of this job profile, you see ) after showing his excellence in his career.

We women are precisely looked down upon for this issue because we are not successful professionals. Moreover we don't know what is the torque of Hayabusa. What a shame! Though we know many other things which men have no idea about, we are convinced that ours is some inferior sort of information.

What takes the cake is the way women are projected in our films. The tiny clothes, wine glass, a cigarette in hand and thick mascara eyes are shown as quintessential part of being a woman. How many of us, who have successful careers and a balanced family life relate to such depiction?

Yes. On women's day or any normal day, i have a lot of bitterness in my mind. I dont get to do even one fourth of what i want to do. I have never faced any gender discrimination by my parents or in laws or husband. I have had a very privileged life. But i feel that i am at a great disadvangeous position just because i am a woman.

Did i run away from my situation? No. Do i perform all my duties well ?Yes. Ok. Then that is the essence of being a woman.

And, finally, if there was a thing like changing gender at our will, would i like to be a man? Not at all. Because I truly believe that women are superior beings.

Work hard ladies. Ignore hurdles and be bold in your decisions. It may take you towards your happiness.

 

 

I dont know what i was trying to convey when i wrote this !!

Disclaimer: This post is only for people who don't mind reading a long post having no educational content.

I am back with yet another frivolous write up. I try never to stir a hornet's nest by only flirting with safe topics like maids. It is very unlikely that my maid will ever read any contemptuous remarks I make online, in spite of the times we live in,when we have no left hand available to take chutney because it is busy with clicking and swiping movements.

We choose to forget our mom in law's rule of washing hand after serving each food item which according to us is quite flawed because it doesn't allow you to touch sambar after taking rice. Since my mom in law is also on Facebook and reads all my posts (and always gives positive comments) I better shift to safer territories.

I remember our childhood times when we were totally impressed by topics like 'how independent are we?' which was a sure shot formula of winning the audience. People convinced us that we are not free of illiteracy, poverty, gender bias, corruption etc.

Taking a cue, I am asking myself the same question as our 70th Independence Day is approaching. I am going to destroy the myth that people discussing such questions are intellectuals.

My day starts with alarm clock that rings at 4 am. I give it a small peck and silence it. But like a good baby it cries again at 4.30. I can really give it a good whack just like I give my children, but I don't, because it doesn't serve the purpose. If I don't want my heart beat wild like Bollywood song blaring on our Pooja processions (and if I don't want to dance like mad, like people in those processions) I need to get up. Can I make upma for breakfast because it is easy? No. My children expect me to cook gourmet cuisine and I must make the cut by at least cooking some decent stuff. What will happen if my son is interviewed in future and asked for his earliest food memories? It will be a preplanned suicide of my reputation. Moreover my son should have something to say to my daughter in law about his 'maa ke haath Ka Khana'. See, I am not free of jealousy! No! India is not free!

And coming to my favourite topic, my maid! Can she come before 5.30 or after 6.30 in the morning so that I can cook the breakfast freely? No, I look for a place for cutting vegetables, roll the chapattis in some corner while she washes utensils like India after 1947. She has many more households where people have a fixed routine. They get up when she rings their door bell.

Can I stay peacefully at home reading books and eating?My clinic assistant calls me to inform me that I need to go there. I am surely not free on any given day with children's homeworks, birthday parties, washing clothes, cooking and ever bothersome problems in clinic. (with GST and all which flies just above my cranium)

Am I free with my online activity? The moment I look for a black colour sheer top in Amazon, my Facebook is flooded with ads promoting off shoulder tops, cold shoulder tops in all colours and if I clicked there I would know what people bought along with those. And if I click on them too I am given options in various flimsy clothes and what will my patients think if they got a glimpse of my fb page while i surf in between seeing them?

Can I write something on controversial topics like gender equality and for that matter the gender itself, religion, race, language or North and South divide?

Except on gender equality (men have turned very intelligent of late. They never ever say anything remotely misogynistic, which is a big development in itself) other topics could break your carefully crafted image. Just a 'like' on topics like 'I am proud to be a Brahmin' can get you trolled by millions. If you wish happy Eid to your friends, you will be branded a congressman which might be quite an abusive word now. If you appreciate Modiji for demonetization you will be a bhakt that translates roughly to Hindu terrorist. If you condemn terror attack you are an Islamophobic. Don't even mention cow slaughter and lynching !!!

Even a small topic like nepotism in Bollywood caught the imagination of entire 'Bharat' like Baba Ramdev's Swadeshi cosmetics range.

So are we free? If you want freedom better write only about maids.

 

'Mom, can I go to play?' my daughter asks me trying to make her face look as innocent as she can.

If my answer is a yes, she will hug me and say 'world's best mom' and disappear in a moment.

If my answer is a question rather than a yes , like 'have you finished your lunch?', her face will contort at unimaginable angles and she will say 'world's worst mom'. As a performance enhancer she will add some tears from her tear glands which are always at the beck of her call.

All this conversation is happening at 5 in the evening. In fact I have given her lunch at 3 after coming from my clinic. Meanwhile i have finished surfing through fb, read google news, a couple of quora questions and upvoted anybody who either wrote a tear jerking reply , showed his secularism or nationalism. After this i had my forty winks and have gotten up. Still my daughter's plate looks just the way i had given her.

She has meanwhile watched cartoons, drawn some pictures and fought with her brother probably.

Eating is nowhere in her agenda!

'Without finishing that, you are neither allowed to go to play nor any of your friends is allowed into the house' I say with a stern voice.

'Despacito....' she starts singing as an answer.

'What? '

'Mom, there is one more song i like. Shall i sing?'

'No, first finish your food'

'I'm in love with the shape of you and we push and pull like a magnet do' she starts. She continues and I am surprised at the lyrics and their grammar. When I think of objecting to her singing the song, i realize that our bollywood songs have even worse lyrics in a language she understands better than English.

Moreover i have a bigger issue to deal with. Her food.

Whoever said it is difficult to tackle teenagers? I am elated since my son has become one. Except that he doesnt want to study, i am mightily pleased with him. Give him books to read and food to eat. I am rewarded with a happy smile.

But my 8 year old is a difficult puzzle.

She doesnt want to eat and i need to feed her all three times daily if i want peace.

'What do you want for breakfast?' I ask my son if i am in good mood.

'Chitranna' is his answer.

'Shall I make aloo parathas instead?' I negotiate.

He gives me a thumbs up and his trademark smile. I am a happy mom.

'You never ask me what I want' my daughter says.

'You don't have any favourite food my beauty. You will say maggi noodles. So i don't ask' i laugh.

'Yeah, brother is your favourite child. That's why' she whines.

'Okay, tell me something among healthy food. I will prepare' .

'Come on come on turn the radio on' she starts singing and laughing.

 

Have some bhang to endure the silliness.

Happy Holi to all from a person who chooses to remain indoors the whole day.

My maid told me that she wanted a leave of two weeks for her daughter's wedding. It meant that my house would be totally under my control for a few days. My house has been under the rule of various maids for all these years. Each maid and each era were quite different. There were late-coming -maids, silent maids, talkative maids, indifferent maids and nosey maids. This list may make you suspect what kind of an employer I am to have so many maids and why they all left in first place.

When my maid took leave, my first instinct was to panic. When you have small babies, for all practical purposes your maid is your goddess and you are her devotee. Imagine, the goddess on whom you repose your total faith suddenly disappears.

But it was just my conditioned reflex to the stimulus. Panicking if maid takes leave is just like the dog drooling on hearing the bell. My kids are older now. And I have a dishwasher to save me from one of the most brain-numbing jobs. The other most brain-numbing jobs include sweeping, mopping, cooking, making kids study, grocery shopping, seeing patients, visiting in-laws etc. In short, anything that compels me to take any responsibility numbs my brain instantly. But the good news is that I can tweak most of these jobs in various creative methods like my maid does, to tide over the crisis.

While I got busy with cleaning, I found a lot of places where neither my maid’s thought nor the broom reached. Ms Shobha De would have called them ‘G spots’ or ‘Gupt spots’. It was quite evident that my maid was completely unaware of these secret spots. It occurred to me that I needed to downsize the contents of my house so that we can actually see and reach those places with the broom.

Ms Mary Kondo’s book came to my assistance and decluttering started with gusto. In the process, I held many objects in my hand to test what sparked joy in my heart. Nothing worked. To my surprise, not even clothes and jewellery elicited any spark, leave apart screwdrivers or gas cylinders. This meant that I have never understood myself and that my house would literally be empty in a few days. Meanwhile, I also noticed that food sparks intense joy in my heart, brain, tongue and stomach simultaneously. This was quite a revelation. Life changing magic happened while tidying up with Mary Kondo. Now I know that my motto in life is food.

My toil continued for many days. I was piling up and then organizing all the stuff in a ‘semi KonMari technique’ because doing it as pure ‘KonMari’ is not in a true Indian woman’s blood. We can’t throw a torn underwear, forget about discarding designer clothes.

I was doing all this work on my own because my husband had gone out for a few days on work. Kids were having exams. That meant I could not give false applications to their class teachers that they were suffering from viral fevers or their cousin came from America after 15 years.

I had to cook, clean, declutter by testing all strange things that I had hoarded over the years looking for sparks of joy, see patients and still remain sane. Sometimes I got confused while checking my patients if I was looking for a spark of joy or a disease.

In the end, I felt I had worked so hard to run the house that if I had had an affair with George Clooney as a reward, God would have got convinced that I had done it for some sort of family welfare. He would think hard and finally, conclude that I probably needed some white children to balance the colour palette of the household. By the way, Mr Clooney would have had a fair chance of sparking joy.

Decluttering your house can really boost your confidence. The horizons of my thought even reached Mr Clooney.

Mary Kondo did me one more favour. While I managed my house better than when the maid was there, I felt quite empowered being independent. I decided that it was time to empower my husband too. In my house, husband cooks now.

My maid returned after all. That day I slept heartily while my maid was cleaning. Once she finished, she told me that she was leaving. I told her that I was tired and had a little body ache and she should close the door and go.

‘Now that the winter is gone, just move your hands and legs a little bit and do some exercise. Your body ache will go’ she said.

Now you know why I have had so many maids.

 

I never leave my house once I come back from clinic, come what may. The only exceptions to the rule are potentially morbid conditions like not taking my daughter to birthday parties because otherwise, my tympanic membranes would be torn by hours of unending high decibel wailing noises.

So, when I had to go to an IMA meeting, I cannot even explain how much I had to coax and cajole myself to leave the warm and calm confines of my home. I had to go because there was a discussion on biomedical waste disposal. These municipality people are as common and as scary as ghosts in a haunted house and I better understand how to deal with the problem properly. And not taking care of this issue can be as dangerous as not taking your kid to the birthday party.

I made a strong sweet coffee to please myself and started. Being a completely direction-challenged person I had asked my husband the route to the IMA office in the morning itself, and he had told me that I had to take the road opposite Kerala Café and keep going. It is not that I have not gone to the IMA office earlier. It is just that my husband drove each time and I was busy correcting his driving style and I forgot to note the route. Anyway I decided not to use GPS because it's not very rare that we are all convinced to take the most difficult route by that sweet sounding cunning lady.

IMA office in Banaras is located in the densest part of the city where shoppers, pilgrims and basically homo sapiens and vehicles of every colour, size and shape are moving about in random directions. Forward movement happens by inches and I thought that they should install one ‘Inchometer’ also in the car. I was feeling very proud of my sense of humour about this inchometer stuff and suddenly a thought came to my mind. ‘What if I am moving totally in a wrong direction? What if I don’t find it at all? How do I go back?’ Women do have these doubts when they drive. But the answer is very simple. You just have to park your car in any available space and dial your husband’s number. Your knight in shining armour HAS TO drop whatever that he is doing and run to rescue the damsel in distress. And you can list this as the best advantage of getting married, the second best being asking for forgotten towel, from the bathroom. My husband never minds these small lapses like towels being forgotten because he has witnessed worse like my face memory. My face memory is outstanding by being completely absent.

I kept driving and I understood how much my car was being loved by everyone. Bicycles were caressing it, bikes were hitting on it and one car directly kissed it. But my car is used to such attention and kept going without a bother. The road was unending and I was swimming in the ocean of people and vehicles while cursing my husband for misguiding me. I thought how much I would harass him for this and was taking pleasure with the thought and Lo and Behold! There it is! I had reached IMA.

Coming back was a cakewalk because now I knew my way. In no time Kerala café was back in view and I fell in love with my car again because it brought me back to a normal world. I mentally made a booking for the 2008 model Alto car as my life partner in my next life. True love is falling in love with the same person again and again. I have always showed my unwavering love towards my alto. For every wedding anniversary and every birthday my husband tortures me saying ‘let me gift you a new car’. Every now and then ‘True value’ people come and evaluate my car and instigate my husband. None of these people know the true value of my Alto. But I have stuck to my Alto like Savitri.

When I reached Kerala café I even toyed with the idea of going in and having a masala dosa alone. I read in facebook a few days ago that a person who can go to the restaurant alone and watch a movie alone in a theatre is capable of doing anything he wants. As everyone knows that facebook and whatsapp are the real sources of true knowledge; I am a strict follower of these. The only obstacle between me and ‘capacity-to-do-anything’ was my full stomach. My coffee was still in mood to keep me happy and I had to drop the idea. As the house was nearing I felt a small voice in my heart saying ‘say bye to the two hours of freedom Medha. Now you have a lot of things to worry about. Your children have exams. You have to check if they have opened any books yet. And they will ask for dinner. Stay in the car for some more time’. I stifled my inner voice and said ‘No, enough of adventure for today. I will go home and relax on my bed. My little angels will not trouble me at all looking at my tired face.’

Thus, very pleased with myself I entered the house and my kids shouted together ‘Hi mom, Can you make chilli paneer today?’

Immediately I mentally booked two more 2008 made Alto cars as my children for my next life.

 

 

Holi wishes again to all of you, from a person who has checked into a hotel during Holi. I wanted to write on easy but useful topic - ‘how to spend one year doing nothing, still not let others know about it’; but changed my mind because something else happened.

First things first. Not liking Holi in North India is almost blasphemous. But, I have no childhood memories associated with Holi, having grown up in a small village in coastal Karnataka, and therefore my dislike can be understood. If you can’t understand it, think that I am retaliating against North Indians for discovering items like paneer dosa. That’s also equally blasphemous.

So when I told my husband that I wanted to take some rest during Holi, he readily agreed. He said ‘let’s check into a hotel’.

I said ‘why don’t we lock the door from outside and stay inside? We have two side doors and one back door and we can get out of the house through any of those’. I am the typical Indian with my ‘cheap and best' ideas and by staying inside house and thinking that I am in a five star hotel I thought I would become the epitome of eternal Indian cliche called ‘simple living , high thinking’.

My husband wouldn’t listen to any of these ideas and booked a room in a hotel. Now you know that my husband and I have some fundamental differences.

Sometimes my life becomes insufferable doing stressful things like getting up, going to clinic, eating healthy, exercising and smiling at people when all I want to do is to use my wand and say spells like ‘expellius’ or ‘disappearento' or something.

The root cause of all this is in my finger prints. I have one chakra in my hands. They say ‘Eka chakri, maha bhogi, and that means you can’t blame me for always wanting to be comfortable.

I belong to the school of thought that new clothes can solve almost all problems except some newly acquired problems like corona virus. So, every three months or so we go to a place called ‘Eastside’ for detox. 'Eastside' has stopped old fashioned way of luring people with 50% discounts or season end sales. They offer cards which give 20% discount on all the goods bought in the cardholder’s birthday month. The card is detected by phone number and a person can make different cards in the name of family members. The boy in the counter was after my husband for making new cards. I said ‘we shop here all the time. We can make cards at an interval of three months and get 20% discount whenever we come here.’

My husband said ‘but we don’t have anyone’s birthday in three months’.

I said ‘but how will they know?’

By then the boy chipped in ‘Ma’am, there are a few people who have twelve cards. There are a few who have 24 cards’. I liked this idea very much and decided to make cards for every month with random names and dates of birth because I believe in idea of ‘ Vasudhaiva kutumbakam’ and there must be some Soumya born on 4th april , Ayush on 5th May and so on. Moreover I thought it would be a charity, though towards a not so poor person called Matan Tata. A charity nevertheless.

By then my husband’s anger shot up and he said ‘that’s called fraud. I will not do any such fraud’. I tried to reason with him that this was not income tax return filing procedure, but just a shopping strategy. My son joined the conversation and said ‘mom, what’s wrong with you? You should be teaching us the right things’. My daughter did not pay attention to what was happening but had a rough idea that she would be benefited if she sided with me. So she kept quiet.

Things were out of hands now and I decided that I would take revenge against these Y chromosomes soon.

Once in the car I said ‘Look, we had a fight once and you had promised me that you would come home by 5.30 in the evening. You never kept that promise. According to me, that’s a fraud too. Now if someone asks me what you do, I will tell them that you do fraud’. My son said ‘mom, you don’t have to say that he does fraud. Just tell them he works in the university. They will understand.’

Now my husband realized that Y chromosome is not supporting him unconditionally, and agreed to come home by promised time. I told him that I would make 10 fake cards in his phone number if he doesn't.

My new target was my son. I am a fan of Kangana Ranaut. I picked up her ‘victim card’ and said ‘see, you took father’s side. I am so hurt. Now on I will not take any interest in cooking for you’. He said ‘mom, your food cannot get worse anymore than what it already tastes’. My card failed. Now I picked up ‘study card’. ‘look, it is also a fraud that you play minetest during the time allotted for studies’. The ‘study card’ always works on kids at all situations.My son understood the consequence of being selectively fraud sensitive.

Now we reached Kerala Café for our usual masala dosa. My daughter demanded for cold coffee with ice cream. ‘Make hay while the sun shines’ is my idea always. I said ‘you bring back your unfinished lunch box everyday. So you won’t get cold coffee today. Now on for every unfinished lunch box I will cancel one treat.’ She agreed.

Our house is like india. Everyone gets to speak, everyone thinks that he is bound by rules but none obeys.

I am considering my next visit to Eastside to make those ten cards.