Monsoon Diary Read online

  The moment he got up, even before brushing his teeth, Dad would light the stove and boil a kettle of water. And there I would find him with his tongue sticking out as he carefully measured two spoonfuls of coffee powder into the brass filter and poured boiling water over it.

  A smell can carry a memory, and certain foods can compress the memory of an entire childhood into them. The tastes and smells of my childhood were the twin bastions of TamBram cooking: idlis and coffee. My mother made the softest idlis I have ever eaten, while my father’s affection for coffee probably accounts for my own devotion to it.

  As the coffee decoction dripped, Dad would busy himself getting the davara tumbler ready. Dad’s davara was like a miniature stainless steel Crock-Pot with a lip that made pouring easy. The tumbler was a stainless steel glass with a lip. Dad would pour the decoction into the davara, then mix in some piping hot milk until it turned caramel in color. He would measure exactly half a spoon of sugar, enough to remove the bitterness without adding any unnecessary sweetness. Then the real drama began.

  Dad would pour the steaming coffee from the tumbler into the davara and gradually increase the distance between the two so that the coffee frothed and spread its pleasant aroma throughout the room. Back and forth he would pour, arching a hand above his head and another by his hip. The coffee would fizz and froth and dance until its surface was covered with moonlike craters and bubbles. Only then would my father take a satisfying sip of his favorite beverage.

  After breakfast and coffee—diluted with plenty of milk for us children—it was time for school. My brother and I went in a cycle rickshaw, somewhat like a carriage but pulled by a man on a cycle instead of a horse. The rickshaw man would pull up to our front door promptly at 8:30 A.M. and honk twice. His carriage was already careening with children, and by the time Shyam and I got on, it felt like a sack of potatoes that threatened to tip over at any time.

  My mom would stand at the gate, wave us off, heave a sigh, and go in for her own breakfast.

  AFTER BREAKFAST, my mother typically went to the bazaar. This was as much a social trip as a household necessity; it gave her a chance to catch up with the other neighborhood maamis (ladies), and Mom, after all, was the quintessential Madras maami.

  Maamis are an institution in Madras. Like the New York Ladies Who Lunch, they are a breed apart, possessing certain characteristics that distinguish them from the rest of the species. The easiest way to identify a Madras maami is by her flashing diamonds and rustling saris. When in Madras, you will spot thousands of maamis ambling around carrying jute shopping bags and giant black umbrellas to ward off the sun. They all wear star-shaped diamond earrings—not circular ones and certainly not modern, dangling affairs but Belgian-cut diamonds, six on the periphery and one in the center. The nose rings follow a similarly rigid code. The one on the left nostril is triangular, while the one on the right is a simple solitaire.

  Diamonds and silk saris are a maami’s uniform, along with a liberal dose of talcum powder, which she loves because it makes her appear fairer than she is. As the day wears on, rivulets of sweat make their way down her face, snaking through the talcum powder and giving her the appearance of a streaked Kabuki dancer. The maami’s simple solution: applying more talcum powder.

  The sari is the only garment a maami will wear, whether it is to the beach, the bazaar, or the Music Academy to catch the latest classical concert. When there are power cuts, as there so frequently are in Madras, the maami is never at a loss. She simply pulls out a powdered handkerchief from within her blouse and waves it back and forth—a fragrant fan that drizzles talcum powder on those sitting nearby.

  She wears her hair in a tightly coiled chignon—or bun as they call it in Madras—with a string of fresh jasmine around it. A bright red bindi on the forehead, clinking bangles on her arms, and heavy gold chains around her neck complete the regulation maami wear. When it comes to footwear, however, the maami has no clue. She will spend tens of thousands of rupees on an expensive silk sari, then wear cheap flip-flops or bulky sneakers because she thinks that spending money on any accouterment worn below the waist is a waste of money. Traditional maamis scorned exercise, so the sneakers were never an option. The newer crop, however, has learned about cholesterol from sons and daughters living abroad. Thanks to prodding from overly concerned offspring, these maamis dutifully walk up and down the beach board-walk in lieu of aerobics.

  Every maami follows a set routine. She is up at dawn and busies herself with Hindu traditions that promote the welfare of her family. She circles the tulsi plant, since this holy basil will ensure the prosperity of her progeny. Her husband may be an avid gardener who grows rare jasmine and heirloom roses in Madras’s hot climate, but the maami is only concerned with the tulsi and the karuveppalai, or curry plant. The curry plant supplies leaves that she uses in her cooking. To paraphrase an old saying, you can take the maami out of Madras, but you cannot take the curry plant away from her. There are transplanted maamis who now live in Washington, D.C., growing giant curry plants inside their homes. Even the most timid maami will become a daring smuggler when it comes to carrying curry plants across borders.

  Like all maamis, my mother was obsessed with her curry plants and grew several varieties all around the kitchen. Right in the middle of her cooking, she would dart outside, grab a few curry leaves, and use them as garnish. At the market she would demand a sprig of curry leaves as a bonus for all the vegetables she was buying.

  Usually, my mother went to the market in our neighborhood, but sometimes she liked to go to the sprawling Pondy Bazaar in the center of Madras, where rows of stalls sold everything from plastic bindis to pomegranates. Pondy Bazaar came to life at noon, when Madras maamis finished their chores and hit the streets. They converged under the translucent awnings that filtered out sunlight, and bargained spiritedly. Pondy Bazaar had everything: tasty tangerines stacked into pyramids, ripe sapotas and redolent pineapples, baby greens wet with dew, juicy red tomatoes, red roses strung together into garlands, tiny white jasmine buds wrapped in banana leaves, colorful glass bangles, peacock fans, and hundreds of other kitschy household items.

  By the time Mom bought her vegetables, the midday sun had climbed high in the sky. Hotel Saravana Bhavan beckoned with its tasty offerings, crisp vadas or dosas, washed down with frothy shots of coffee or fresh lime juice. Mom ended her trip by stopping at Naidu Hall, famous for its bras and “nighties,” airy nightgowns made from the softest cotton. By the time she came home and had a quick nap, we were on our way home from school.

  IF I DIDN’T HAVE homework in the evening, I sometimes accompanied my mother on her shopping trips. My favorite was the Ambika Appalam Depot, a compact shop filled with hundreds of spice powders, ready-made snacks, hot vegetable puffs, and of course, appalams, fried lentil wafers that are perfect accompaniments for rice-based South Indian cuisine. Although Ambika made its name through the quality of its appalams, I liked the shop for its bread, soft warm loaves that were baked on the premises. They were small and brown, and if you asked, the two harried salesmen who took orders would slice it right there in front of your eyes and wrap it in newspaper clippings. I would take the warm bread, tear open the paper, and greedily wolf down several slices while my mother stocked up on spice powders and appalams.

  ON SATURDAY MORNINGS my parents took us to Adyar Woodlands for breakfast. Shyam and I lived for these outings. By the time we ambled over at nine o’clock, the place was already bustling. Since the owner was a friend of my dad’s, we always managed to get a table. Ordering at Woodlands or, for that matter, any family-owned restaurant in Madras was an art form. There was no written menu, and the day’s specials were scribbled on a blackboard above the cashier’s table.

  As soon as we sat down, a harried waiter would appear, bang tumblers of water on the table, and ask, “What will you eat?”

  We would toss the question right back at him. “What do you have?” we would ask, even though we knew what was on the menu and, in fact, e
xactly what we were going to have. Still, it was pleasant to hear what one’s options were.

  The waiter would begin a recitation of the day’s menu in a singsong voice that hypnotized us into a happy haze even before we had taken the first bite. “Idli, vada, dosa, masala dosa, rava dosa, onion rava, onion rava masala, idli-vada combo, dosa-vada combo . . .” The permutations and combinations were endless.

  After mulling over the choices presented to us, we would settle on our old favorites. Shyam always ordered a masala dosa, my mother, a plain dosa, I an onion rava dosa. My dad always had idlis, followed with piping hot coffee.

  The waiter would turn around, yell our orders in the direction of the kitchen, and appear a few minutes later carrying our plates. The golden dosa, shaped like a pyramid, the steaming idlis, and my flaky onion rava dosa, accompanied by little bowls of coconut chutney and sambar. We would devour the food in fifteen minutes flat, enjoy a tuttifrutti ice cream outside, and head home.

  ADYAR DIDN’T LACK good hotels and shops. But it was after Grand Sweets opened that it became a destination instead of a road to nowhere. Located in a rambling suburban-style home, Grand Sweets was an instant success, renowned throughout Madras for its crumbly sohan papdi, saffron-specked wheat halwa, golden jilebis, ghee-dripping badushas, spiral savory murukkus, cheedai, and flat, spicy thattai specked with chili powder and fried lentils.

  The shop hummed with activity from dawn to dusk. Spritely young girls in green uniform saris flitted between counters, filling orders. Each customer was given a free leaf bowl filled with a tasty rice dish. Spicy sambar rice on one day, pungent pepper rice on another, tart tamarind rice, sweet pongal, bland yogurt rice. While my mother tried to get the attention of the cashier, I would quietly take my steaming bowl of rice with its wooden spoon under a tree and gobble up the contents, sans guilt or remorse.

  SOFT IDLIS

  My grandfather fell in love with my grandmother over idlis. As a child bride, Nalla-ma was put to work on the granite grinding stone ( aatu-kal in Tamil). She was twelve and spent her morning turning the stone to make idli batter. Enter my grandfather, a strapping lad of twenty-two. Desperate to ease the burden of his beautiful bride yet fearful of being taunted as a henpecked husband if caught beside her, he came up with an ingenious solution. He donned a sari, covered his head like any dutiful daughter-in-law, sat down beside my grandmother, and turned the heavy granite stone himself. They gazed into each other’s eyes, didn’t say a word, and together made the fluffiest idli batter imaginable.

  Good idlis are soothing and filling. The trick is in the batter’s proportion and consistency. The urad dal makes it soft, while the rice flour gives it heft. The batter has to be thick enough to hold its shape, yet thin enough to ferment. After many questions and experiments, I came upon the perfect idli recipe. Here it is.

  SERVES 4

  1 cup urad dal

  1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds

  2 cups cream of rice (available in Indian stores and also called idli rawa; this is not cream of rice cereal, which is cooked)

  2 teaspoons salt

  1 teaspoon plain yogurt, lowfat or nonfat

  Combine the dal with the fenugreek in a bowl and cover with enough warm water to cover by one inch. Soak for 2 hours. In a separate bowl, mix the cream of rice with just enough water to form a paste.

  Grind the dal and fenugreek seeds, using a grinder, adding a little water if necessary, so that it is the consistency of cake batter. Add the salt and yogurt. Put the cream of rice mixture into a grinder and blend it well with the dal batter until it’s the consistency of honey—viscous, not too thin but not too thick either.

  Since the batter will ferment and rise to about twice its initial volume, pour it into a bowl large enough to accommodate this. Cover tightly and keep it in a warm place. Do not look at it for the next twenty-four hours.

  When you uncover the bowl, the batter should have fermented and risen to about twice its height. There should be bubbles on top and a salty, fermented smell. Beat the dough, using a long spoon. Ladle it out into an idli stand, available in most Indian stores. Put the stand into a steamer, stock pot, or pressure cooker, and steam it (without pressure) for 10 minutes.

  To test if done, stick a knife into the idli. When you lift it out, there should be no batter sticking to its sides. Eat with coconut chutney and onion sambar.

  SIX

  Night Train to Mumbai

  IN OCTOBER the monsoon began, gently at first, an overnight drizzle that left drops of dew wobbling on lotus leaves. By November it had become a full-blown cyclone. Rains, torrential and unremitting, drilled into the earth. The sea was raging gray, the streets streams of water. Clothes hung on lines waiting to dry. We sat on the verandah, hypnotized by the staccato drumbeat of falling water. Every now and then we would run out into the soft, slushy earth—to pick up the mail or drop something off—and get soaked to the skin. Sometimes we danced in the rain, sometimes we sang songs to the rhythm of the raindrops. We made paper boats and watched them capsize. And we ate bajjis—hot vegetable fritters—for tiffin.

  Tiffin is a light daytime meal, an accompaniment to afternoon tea. It can be scaled up or down depending on the time of day and the number of partakers. It needn’t even involve tea; while most of North India drinks tea in the afternoon—be it milky chai with ginger and cardamom or plain Lipton—South India drinks coffee.

  In the last fifty years, as more Indian women work full-time, Western-style cornflakes, toast, scrambled eggs, and pizzas have invaded breakfast, lunch, and dinner in India. But tiffin dishes remain authentically, unapologetically Indian, mouthwateringly tasty, even for an unaccustomed Western palate.

  Four o’clock tiffin remains my favorite meal of the day. Siesta followed by strong chai and tiffin makes sense in tropical India where the heat lulls everyone into a somnolent stupor anyway. When my brother and I came home from school, my mom always had some sort of tiffin ready. Sometimes it was snacks like boiled, salted peanuts. Frequently it was a hearty vermicelli upma spiked with green chiles and ginger. We would eat our tiffin, drink a glass of milk, and run out to play.

  When it rained, Mom made pakoras and bajjis for tiffin. Thinly sliced vegetables—potatoes, onions, eggplant, or plantains—were dipped into a savory batter and fried until golden brown. The crispness of the bajjis were a perfect antidote to the dampness of the rain. We would sit in the warm, cozy kitchen munching our bajjis contentedly.

  OCTOBER WAS the holiday season in India, and we got a couple of weeks off from school. My parents took us to different places, usually by train. Trains were—and still are—the preferred mode of transport, since they were moderately paced, convenient, and above all, reliable. Indian trains move more than five billion people per year. Newer, air-conditioned trains like the Shatabdi and the Rajdhani have all but blocked off the heat and dust of India from the passengers cocooned inside. But when we traveled by train as children, it was almost always by second-class, which meant open windows that blurred the boundaries between the outside and inside.

  The most important thing when traveling by train in India is not the location of your seat (first-class is more comfortable, second-class more congenial), whether you have confirmed tickets, or even your destination. The crucial element is the size of your neighbor’s tiffin carrier. If you’re lucky, you will be seated near a generous Marwari matron whose method of making your acquaintance is to hand you a hot roti stuffed with potato saag.

  I was twelve when this happened to me, and I still remember biting into the soft, ghee-stained roti and feeling the explosion of spices in my mouth as I encountered cumin, cilantro, ginger, green chiles, pungent onions, and finally—like a sigh—a comfortingly soft potato. It was dawn. The train whistled mournfully as it click-clacked its way through the misty countryside. A cool breeze wafted through the open window and teased the curls behind my ear. Fragrant turmeric-yellow saag dribbled down the corner of my mouth. A perfect symphony for the senses.

  We were
on the Bombay Express from Madras to Bombay, now called Mumbai. Across from me my parents, still faint and groggy from the effort of packing and bundling us into the train, were nodding off. Beside me, my pest of a brother was elbowing for the window seat. I licked my lips and turned toward the Marwari matron hopefully. She smiled as she opened another container. In a trance, I went to her feet. I was her slave.

  Marwaris are from the colorful desert state of Rajasthan, and Marwari women are fantastic cooks. They are also known to be generous, which makes them dream companions for a long train journey. Enterprising Gujeratis, on the other hand, were more businesslike, which meant that I had to ingratiate myself by performing small favors in order to gain access to their divine kadi (sweet-and-sour buttermilk soup). A boisterous Punjabi family was always good for card games interspersed with hearty rajma (spiced kidney beans). Intellectual Bengalis from Calcutta were a challenge. I had to match wits with them before they would share their luscious rosgollas and sweet sandesh with me. I didn’t bother with the South Indians, being one myself.

  It was access to this glorious, multicuisine, home-cooked food that made the train journeys of my childhood memorable. My uncle in Ban-galore was a few hours away by the Lal Bagh (Red Garden) Express; Nalla-ma and Nalla-pa were an overnight train journey away by the Blue Mountain Express. We got on the train and went to sleep on the sleeper berths, an ingenious system where the seats folded out into flat beds—far superior to reclining seats. We awakened to the smiling faces of my grandparents, who came to the station carrying flasks of hot coffee and crisp vadas (lentil doughnuts) that were fried right there on the platform.