Four tips from my visit to Tadoba

Four tips from my visit to Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve:

1) Adopt the Coconut-Seller Look early in the game. After repeatedly shampooing red dust from hair, I realised that a turban is the only real solution. Now I am offering this free tip to anyone who is mad enough to do summer safaris in the Deccan Plateau heat: Take a stole, people. And become a coconut seller. The beautiful complexion you are seeing in the photo is actually laal-laal Dakkhani mitti with an under-layer of sunscreen (the bonus is that it hides all skin defects).

2) Oh by the way, take a second stole also, if you value your skin and lungs. Naak-mooh dhak-kar saans lete rahiye, as the famous airline announcements say. It's perfect advice for safaris also.

3) There is a strange phenomenon in Tadoba. Vodafone works there. This has never happened in recorded history. That Vi works where other networks fail 🙂 Now you must be wondering if Jio works. Yes, it does. We expect nothing less from the country's juggernaut. But all networks are spotty, so go to Tadoba safaris only if you enjoy being connectivity-free.

4) They don't allow you to click photos on mobile phones while in the forest. So your fancy i-phones are only ornamental. Big-ass cameras are OK, provided you cough up a 250 rupee fee. So my last tip is to go with a photographer friend, preferably one who enjoys carrying around big lenses. Tiger ko door se dekhna hi sehat ke liye accha hai.

#deepasvoice

#freeadvice

#tadobaandharitigerreserve

Kanatha vadam: My family's guilty indulgence

-by Aishwarya Pramod and Janaki Krishnan

Like all Palakkad Iyers, I love kanatha vadam. But whenever I think of it, it's always with a twinge of guilt. Not because kanatha vadam is unhealthy. Rather, it is because the dish takes a humongous effort to make, but almost no time to finish off. All that work for only a moment of deliciousness? So self-indulgent. :P

Non-Palakkad-Iyers might ask, what are kanatha vadams? At the risk of sounding clinical, they are steamed rice flat-cakes that are sundried to make papads :). During the papad-making process, a few of them are set aside for immediate eating (without drying).

My grandmother has loved kanatha vadam since she was a young girl. She penned down the recipe and her memories associated with it. Here is what she wrote.

Writing down the recipe

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Kanatha Vadam by Janaki Krishnan

I learnt to make kanatha vadam at a schoolgoing age. Kanatha vadam means "thick vadam". It's made on a set of leaf-shaped metal trays. It's also called elai vadam, meaning "leaf vadam".

The "leaves" for making kanatha vadam

Vadam-making was a group affair. Children were given simple jobs to do like peeling off cooked vadams from the leaves. There were 8 of us who helped our mother make large batches of vadam-papads. We would set aside a few vadams for immediate eating, and keep the remaining ones in the sun to dry. While peeling off the cooked vadams, a few small pieces would inevitably remain on the leaves. We loved snacking on those even as we were supposed to be setting the vadams aside.

Ingredients

• 1 glass puzhungal arisi. This is parboiled unpolished rice. It is slightly reddish because a bit of the husk remains on the grain. We use this rice to make idli too
• 1 glass polished rice
• Salt, chilli powder, hing (asafoetida) powder
• Metal leaves to cook the vadams. Right from my mother's time we have been using metal leaves, though traditionally, leaves are used. These leaves are available in the market or with flower sellers.

Soak the parboiled rice overnight. Soak the polished rice the next day for about half an hour. Mix all the rice together, drain the water. Grind into a paste in a mixie/grinder. Add about half a cup of water while grinding, little by little.

Once the paste is ready, add more water to it till it becomes the consistency of dosai batter. This will make it easy to spread on the leaf. Add a spoonful of sesame seeds (optional).

The rice paste with sesame seeds

Ready the metal leaves, by dabbing them with a cloth dipped in a mix of water and a little oil. Spread the batter evenly in circular shapes. Steam-cook it for two minutes.

Spreading the paste on the leaves

Steam for 2 minutes

Remove the leaves from the steam-cooker and let them cool for a couple of minutes. Spread a little oil of your choice on the vadams, and gently peel them off the leaves. Trying to remove the vadams before they cool down will make them stick to the leaves. They are now ready to eat!

Ready to eat

Some of the vadams can also be dried in the sun and later deep-fried.

I still love kanatha vadam. I prefer eating them directly rather than drying and deep-frying. The steamed ones have very little oil and I can easily eat half a dozen.

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Aishwarya back again :)
Like my grandma, my mom has also been a long time fan of kanatha vadam. I myself wasn't a big fan, until I was suddenly converted a few years ago. I'm back home after finishing my MBA. It turns out that Amma has developed a slight addiction and asks Shyamala (her cook) to make these vadams every fortnight or so.

Here she is answering mails, taking phone calls and watching Star Trek all at the same time. I bring a plate of sample vadams to my her, and she tastes one. "Needs more salt in the batter. Also, not sour enough. Maybe add buttermilk." She feeds me a couple and eats the remaining two. "OK so are there more vadams?" she asks furtively. I grin at the guilty look on her face and go to fetch another plate.

First aamras of the season!

So every year summer comes around, and I wait for aamras.

This year, I got lucky. I went to Kalbadevi, so I made sure I went to Surti to taste it!

There were three of us. Between us we had 4 big cups of aamras, and a plate of puris, and some bottled water to drink. The bill came to Rs 300. Perfect joy. They serve it chilled but not cold; and it is just divine. Thick and rich, and I felt that they have absolutely not compromised on quality. I liked it so much that I got a parcel for home. They parcel it beautifully so it is easy to take home without any spillage.

Crawford Market is full of ripe mangoes, by the way. But prices are quite high right now. I thought about buying some mangoes and making my own aamras. Different people make it differently; some add saffron, some add cardamom, but I think this is a beautiful dish just plain. A little sugar is all it needs. Cut up bits of excellent alfonso or kesar mangoes, add a little sugar, blend. Voila.

How to get to Surti:  https://goo.gl/maps/ByBoRNH6N1F2
You can take a taxi right up to the restaurant because it is on the main road.
P. S. Their thali is pretty good too. And their undhiyo in winter is excellent.

Nachni and Food Security - a village meal in the Palghar district

- by Deepa Krishnan

A few days ago, I had lunch in a small village home in the Palghar district of Maharashtra. The people who live in this village are tribal agriculturalists, practising subsistence farming.

One of the families cooked lunch for us. We ate sitting on mats on the floor. I was super-hungry and wolfed down my meal in minutes. Our hostess brought endless servings of everything, until I was fit to burst. Here's a photo of what I ate:

Everything on my plate was grown locally. There was rice, which is grown during the monsoon season on the nearby hill slopes in small terraces. There was bhendi (okra / ladies finger), chowli (black-eyed beans), tuar (pigeon-pea) dal, two types of home-made papad and a home-made mango pickle. All of it came from nearby farms and fields. 

But the thing that delighted me most was the dark brown roti, called nachni bhakri.  

Nachni (finger millet) is one of the healthiest things you can eat. Loads of calcium and iron. Lots of fibre. Slow to release sugar into the system, great if you're fighting a battle against weight gain. It's gluten-free too. I ate it with the spicy black-eyed beans, and it was delicious.

Nachni is a critical nutritional element for this kind of village. That's because nachni is a tough and flexible plant. It can grow in diverse soils, with varying rainfall regimes, and in areas widely differing in heat and length of daylight availability. It is hugely pest resistant. It doesn't even need chemical pesticides. So while a rice crop may fail for many reasons, a nachni crop is far more dependable, and can literally ward off starvation. 

In addition, nachni is easy to store. Once harvested, it is seldom attacked by insects or moulds. The long storage capacity makes it an important crop in risk-avoidance strategies for poorer farming communities.

In fact, not just nachni, all traditional millets are important for rural India. In the nearby Vikramgad weekly rural market, I photographed one of the stalls selling different types of millets and pulses. The dark coloured one on the right is nachni.

This area of Maharashtra has lots of rain in the monsoons, but goes very dry later. There is no irrigation. Here is how the land looks in the monsoons.

And here is how the area looks in summer:

There is no cultivation in summer, probably because the existing water management systems don't husband groundwater resources adequately for irrigation. For drinking and bathing, the government provides well water. Since there is only one main monsoon crop (rice), the dependence on that crop is very high. If that crop fails, the entire economic backbone of area will collapse. It is therefore sensible to divert some land - even 'warkas' land (low productivity land) is ok - to grow nachni and other millets for food security.

When I was researching this article, I read this very interesting and informative article on why millets are so invaluable. I highly recommend you read it too. After I read it, I've decided to start eating more millets. I'm going to reduce my intake of rice and wheat, because really, from all points of view, it looks like the smart thing to do. 

Kadugumanga - a classic pickle from Kerala

- By Janaki Krishnan

Alphonso mangoes
at our doorstep

Just as the cuckoo awaits the arrival of spring, every Palakkad Brahmin lady awaits the arrival of the mango season. By March they begin appearing for sale. 

Matunga market is ideal for mangoes, but sweet ripe mangoes are also delivered at our doorstep in Sion. Sweet mangoes have many uses in my cooking  – mango sambar (for which I use the small ones the sellers call raswala, meaning ’juicy’), aamras to eat with puris, and of course Alphonso mangoes to enjoy on their own for their wonderful taste.

But as soon as I find out that mangoes have arrived in the market, one of the first things I do is to look for small green raw mangoes, to make Kadugumanga (‘Kadugu’ – mustard, ‘mangai’ – mango), a classic pickle from Kerala.

Kadugumanga - the No 1 pickle in our family

To be eligible for Kadugumanga pickle, green mangoes have to pass various tests. They must be small, round (about 2-3 centimeters in diameter) and as beautiful as a bride. The mangoes must have their stalks attached, or else they cannot be preserved for long by pickling. Most importantly, the mangoes must be extremely sour!

The right mangoes for kadumanga pickle

The best time to purchase mangoes is early in the morning, or between 3 to 4 pm when the crowds are not yet there in the market. This year, mangoes were sold at Rs.100 a kilo. They are usually sold by 2 and a half kilo measure. 

It is said that all the mangoes in a bottle of Kadugumanga should be from the same tree. Well! I can’t make sure of that, but I do keep careful watch to make sure the seller does not mix different types of mangoes. No dark, elongated mangoes get into my basket of bright, round ones. Also, since I ask for mangoes along with the stalks, the sellers try to give me large bunches of mangoes, where a larger proportion of the bunch’s weight is not fruit, but stalk! I have become wise to this, however, and prefer to pick and pluck individual mangoes from the seller’s pile and add them to mine.

Side-note: Even if you do end up with a few stalk-less mangoes in your basket, never fear. These can always be used to make arachu kalaki (a side-dish that literally translates to ‘ground and mixed’). Arachu kalaki is made by brining the mangoes for a few months in saltwater, and then grinding them (they are by now almost falling apart) with coconut and chillies. Arachu kalaki is especially popular in poorer households – because even if there is not enough money to buy vegetables, the garden compound of every Kerala house usually has coconut and mango trees. 

Instant pickle from
small cut mango

If not arachu kalaki, the offending mangoes can be cut into small pieces to make ready-to-eat fresh manga-kari – a pickle that is regularly featured in marriage feasts during this season. 

Back to Kadugumanga: the entire pickling process takes about 2 weeks. As soon as the mangoes enter the kitchen, they have to be given a good bath. After washing and drying with a towel, the actual operations begin.

The mangoes are placed in a large vessel, and salt is added (1 measure of salt for every 5 measures of mango). When I was young, we bought large salt crystals which my mother cleaned and removed mud from. Nowadays, of course, we get refined salt. A spoonful of turmeric powder is also added for colour. 

I toss the mangoes around in the vessel every day, so that each mango gets coated evenly with salt. After about two days, the mangoes begin to shrink and start to release liquids.

Tossing the mangoes

The stage when it starts to release water

It is only at this stage that the red chili and mustard paste is added. The paste is made by mixing red chilli powder and mustard powder with a little of the mango brine (not pure water). The amount of chilli powder varies from family to family, depending on how spicy you want it. I use the same amount of chillies as salt i.e. 1 measure of chillies for 5 measures of mangoes. I do not add too much mustard powder; about 2 tea-spoons for maybe 2 1/2 kilos of mangoes. In my childhood, we didn't use these powders – my mother ground the red chilies and mustard herself. She did most of the grinding with the back of a thick ladle, with minimal use of her hands – contact with skin was said to spoil the pickle. I wonder why? I’m not sure.

About a week later, comes the day to store the pickle away in a special barani (ceramic jar). Whenever I empty the pickles into this storage jar, I take care to switch on the fan to prevent mosquitoes (and whatever else is in the air) from falling into the pickle – a precaution that my mother used to take. A piece of cloth is tied around the jar’s mouth to keep it airtight, and the lid is placed over it.

One of my Kadugumanga batches this year. 

In a couple of weeks’ time, we begin using the liquid part of the pickle. Young children prefer this spicy liquid to the actual mango, which may be too spicy for them and burn their lips. Elders go for the pieces. The pickle is especially delicious with curd rice. In fact, once this pickle is declared ready to eat, more rice has to be cooked each time as the the entire household demands more! In our house, we also eat the pickle with kozhakattais (modaks), a savoury rice preparation. Every mango season, I make enough Kadugumanga to last an entire year, and also dispatch two large jars to each of my daughters’ households. Currently, we are in the process of finishing up the last remains of last year’s batch, to make room for the new.

Fresh batch made this year.
As it becomes older, it will darken and thicken.

Last year's batch, photographed now

Credits: Text by Janaki Krishnan, with edits by Aishwarya Pramod

Photos: Deepa Krishnan

Agninakshatram

- by Janaki Krishnan

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Today is Agninakshatram. From now on, for a month, the Sun is at his best, and it is the season for making papads, pickles and masalas for the year.

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The terraces of Bombay's apartments are filled with papads drying in the sun. Housewives gather in the afternoons, and exchange recipes. They proudly declare how they got the best varieties of small green mangoes for pickling, at the cheapest price. I too enjoy the papad and picking season - especially after my retirement, when I feel the day has 48 hours.

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This year after finishing my mango purchase (not proud, as I could get only second-grade ones!), I turned to vegetables for inspiration - beans, okra, lotus stem, and bitter gourd. When salted and dried, these make excellent fried snacks. They don't involve much labour, and they're tastier than the rice vadams and karuvadams. I made a batch of salted fritters, and sent them to my daughters.

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Besides pickles and salted fritters, this is also the month when I buy my year's supply of tamarind. Tamarind is a must for all South Indians who cannot have a proper lunch without rasam or sambar. We buy the entire year's stock during summer when the prices are low and it is available in plenty. The tamarind is then de-seeded, dried, and stored in tight containers, along with salt.

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This year, as I sat deseeding the tamarind, my mind wandered to a scene 60 years ago...and I had a flashback, like we see in the movies. My sister, my brothers and I are sitting around a big pile of tamarind, removing the seeds. My brother sneaks a piece of tamarind into his mouth...and the rest of us are quick to shout...."Amma!!" Of course, my brother too gets his chance to shout when someone else eats a piece. When it turns into a fight, my mother steps in. "Don't eat too much", she says, "Or it will weaken your bones".

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These days, things have changed. With greater awareness about health, the consumption of pickles, fried items and tamarind comes with a warning. Cholestorol, blood pressure and diabetes have become familiar terms, frightening everyone. Besides, working women, whose tribe has increased since my childhood, hardly have time for such tasks. In their homes, readymade bottled pickles - Priya, Bedekar, and others - rule the roost. As bottled tamarind paste is available, nobody wants the headache of soaking, crushing and extracting tamarind essence for sambar. Women who balance career and home, and have to multi-task all the time, do need these conveniences.

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But oh! The joys of retirement! With unlimited time at my disposal, I find a new interesting task every day. Buying the vegetable, cutting it, cooking it, and drying it, takes the better part of the day. Then comes the pleasure of frying and tasting the first batch...and the satisfaction of distributing it to family and friends. Their words of appreciation bring a warm glow to my heart. The next day, its is another vegetable's turn, and the process goes on all through summer! Silly, you may think...but perhaps when you retire, you will understand these slow pleasures. Until then, enjoy the readymade stuff!

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(Posted by Deepa on behalf of Janaki)

Summer games

The summer holidays are here, and my daughter and niece are bored. School is closed but it is too hot and humid to play outside. There's only so much television they can watch. So the girls are holed up inside the room, with nothing to do. The airconditioner is going at full blast.

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"Let's play Monopoly", says my niece suddenly. All at once, the mood in the room changes, and the afternoon seems filled with new promise.

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In a few minutes, the board is set up, and "money" allocated. Within the first thirty minutes, the girls are transformed into real estate barons. Ha! I got Park Street, says one, as she pays for the property. Tchah, says the other, I have Bond Street!

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When the rivalry gets sharp, I announce lunch. They give up the board reluctantly. "We're going to continue after lunch", they tell me.

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After lunch, the game quickens. By now, both sides own sizeable chunks of London. There is gleeful gloating, as rents are levied. The girls keep a sharp eye on each other's wealth. Fortunes are made and lost, and the fate of London's real estate swings wildly in the hands of two girls competing for giddy sums of money.

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As I watch the game, I am transported to a scene from my own childhood - my sis and I playing Monopoly in the summer holidays. We compete fiercely, but I always seem to lose, while she makes infuriating amounts of money. It is the same with any game of chance - Ludo, Snakes and Ladders, cards - I always try hard, but she always wins.
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My daughter interrupts my train of thought.

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"Do you want to play with us?" she asks. I smile and refuse.

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"But why? It's fun!", says my niece.

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I decide to confess. "Because I'll lose", I say to my niece. "I'm no good at this game! Your mom and I used to play this game, and I always lost!"

The girls look at each other and grin. "I'm going to win this one", says my niece. "No way!" says my daughter, and they go back to the game.

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I watch them competing, hunched over the board, and I smile to myself. I remember my sister, and the intense concentration of our summer games. I'm glad some things just don't change.

A Goddess for the Summer

- by Deepa Krishnan

The fierce April heat brings with it rashes, skin diseases and the dreaded pox.

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Before it was eradicated in India, smallpox was one of the most feared diseases of summer. Chicken pox is still a big worry for Indian parents. Many communities believe it is the wrath of the Goddess Mariamman that brings on these diseases, and that she must be propitiated to ward off the pox.

In Mumbai, a small community from Andhra Pradesh worships the Goddess Mariamman every summer, seeking protection from smallpox, chickenpox and all forms of disease. My housemaid is from Andhra Pradesh, so I went with her to see the annual Mariamman ceremony. Mum came along, of course, to find out what it was all about.

The first thing we saw (heard) were the drums. Three men came walking from a little lane, and posed for me.

Then the women emerged from several lanes, carrying offerings for the goddess. Their bowls had a sort of thin gruel, made from ragi and buttermilk, and flavoured with chillies. Ragi, or finger millet came to India 4000 years ago from Ethiopia. It is now a staple part of the local diet.

There were neem leaves in the ragi gruel. Neem has medicinal properties and is used all over the country as a cure for chickenpox.

Several children and young girls wore skirts of neem, as protection from the pox.

A temporary tent had been erected, where everyone gathered with their offerings.

Inside the tent, there was a little shrine. In the villages of South India, there's a distinctly different looking Mariamman. But this is Bombay! There is no consecrated idol of the goddess here, so a popular representation of Durga was housed inside the tent, with the customary trident.

Mariamman is a proto-Dravidian goddess, not a part of mainstream Vaishnavism or Saivisam. But as usual, both Saivaites and Vaishnavites have appropriated her, because she has such a large following.

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To get things going, there was a dance. Two male performers had come from a little village in Andhra Pradesh. They were not just dancers, they were more like shamans, intermediaries between the Goddess and the rest. They said a little prayer and tied anklets on their feet.

The dancing lasted a short while, but it was energetic and graceful.

After the dancing, there was a brief prayer ritual. An elder from the community performed the arati. The prayers to Mariamman are "non-agama" i.e. not from the sacred Vedic texts. Brahmins do not conduct prayers to this Goddess, except in a couple of very large Mariamman temples in Tamil Nadu, where the worship has morphed into a fully agamic tradition.

After the prayer, a desi fowl was offered as sacrifice to please the Goddess and ask her protection.

This pot would be taken around the city after the sacrifice. It was filled with water, turmeric and neem leaves, and decorated with turmeric, red sindoor, neem, lemon and flowers. In Bombay, this vessel goes to various Tamil and Andhra localities in Dharavi.

The ragi gruel was then served to everyone as prasadam. It was delicious and cool, by the way. There were a couple of neem leaves in mine, bitter as expected. I ate them, mindful of all the medicinal properties neem has.

Customary group photo at the end of the day. This is a section of women from my maid's community. They are Yadavas, a Kshatriya caste who are traditionally cowherds and shepherds. My maid Vasantha is on the extreme left, in an orange saree and red blouse.

(Modified version published in the Hindustan Times HT Cafe City Beat page May 10 2008)