When the maid went to jail!

My usual conversations with Ma includes our daily routines of who did what throughout the day, and some interesting things that may have happened on that particular, and most importantly, who’s cooked what. On this particular day, Ma sounded a little distressed because our maid had informed her whereabouts after bunking work for more than three days in a row.

Me: So, what happened to her? Why isn’t she coming?

Ma: She’s in jail!

Me: Whaaaat? What? Why? How? When? Which jail?

Ma: She hasn’t done anything. It’s her brother because of whom she’s in jail.

Me: What did the brother do now? Please explain.

Ma: Her brother had been going out with a girl for quite some time and eloped a few days back and they got married. Both have been missing since then. So, the father of the bride registered a police complaint against the entire family of the boy including his widowed mother, married sisters and brothers-in-law. So, now all of them have been arrested under non-bailable warrant. There’s no clue as to when they will be released from jail. Sigh!

Me: OMG! Really? Now?

Ma: Now what? I will have to find a new maid within a few days because I do not know when’s going to be back.

Me: Yes, better. Or you can look for a temporary maid because she won’t be spending her rest of the life in jail. She will want her work her back.

Ma: Yes, that’s there. Let’s see.

………….

Ma found a replacement maid who agreed to work in our maid’s absence.

………….

After about a month:

Ma: The maid is back to work from today. She came to meet me.

Me: Oh! She got released from jail? What happened to her? How did she get released?

Ma: Her brother came back home with his wife and they met the bride’s father also. After much persuasion apparently, he agreed to accept him as his son-in-law only if he accepts some of his conditions. He also took back the complaint.

Me: That’s good. So, how’s she doing? Is she fit to work? Was she harassed in the jail?

Ma: Harassed? Not at all. She’s glowing and looks as refreshed as she can. I was surprised to see her.

Me: What? How did that happen?

Ma: Apparently, inside the jail, there wasn’t much work to be done by them. They were only made to do some basic works and were given meals three times a day. The breakfast included coffee and snacks, etc. Now, she didn’t have to do strenuous work inside the jail. So, she’s all charged up and refreshed.

Me: Ma, are you sure she was actually arrested and not holidaying in the jail???

 

This is not entirely a piece of fiction for the conversation is based on the facts shared by the maid herself. Can’t guarantee if the entire episode was made up or not! ;)

  

But I didn’t run away!

One of the most basic ideas that every child gets when he or she gets scolded by the parents is to run away and lead an independent life. This thought can come at any stage of the childhood years. I had seen my cousin sister threatening her Mom that she’ll storm out of the house because she was scolded badly due to her mischievous attitude and using bad words that she had picked up from school. This girl was only four years at that time. Realising that she doesn’t have the permission to go down the stairs, she decided that coming to our house was the safest option and packed a few dresses, pants, a bottle of water, two sweets and two lemons that her grandma had got for them. She told her Mom, she doesn’t wish to stay with her anymore and walked out straight and reached our door. She knocked and when I opened the door, I could see her angry face and my aunt’s giggling face from the other side. She came and told my Mom, she’s now her daughter and demanded that she will eat, sleep and bathe in our house. She will only speak to her Dad because he’s the only person who understands her. How thoughtful!

But my case wasn’t the same. Technically, I had no intention of doing any such things but what happened out of a tiny miscommunication gave shape to the following incident.

It was raining and my school, like any other school, didn’t formally declare a holiday. Since I always used to go to school with my Dad and return in the school bus, we had not checked whether the school bus is available on that day. I was dropped at school and my Dad left for his office, which was about 100 mtrs from my school. Upon reaching the class that we, hardly five or six of us, were told that no classes will be held on that day and the teachers gave us free periods to enjoy. Being in my fourth standard that time, my school used to get over at 2:40 pm afternoon. When school got over, I was told that there is no school bus available and I will have to call my parents to take me home. Didi was appearing for her graduation exams at that time and Ma was busy with her. So the option of calling home was stroked out, despite knowing the fact that there are others in the family who can come and pick me up. Well, the next suggestion I gave to the school authorities was that they can drop me at my Dad’s office and I can go back with him. I am the last in my family to have studied in this school after my aunt and my sister. They knew me and Dad quite well. They agreed. I was dropped at Dad’s office, went to his cabin, sat on his chair and happily slept off. My Dad wasn’t in office at that time, obviously. He came back after about a couple of hours and was taken aback to see me sleeping. He asked me about the whole incident and immediately realised what must be going on back home. Ma and Didi would have returned home from the exams and found out that I haven’t reached home yet. My uncles and aunts would’ve panicked by now and started looking out for me. Dad picked up the phone to call and found the line busy. In an era with no mobile phones and only a landline connection, you are limited in your actions. He was finding ways to communicate to them about my whereabouts while they might be trying Dad’s office number to ask or inform about me. Therefore it was a total chaos without me understanding what’s going on!

We finally decided to go home as early as possible and started walking towards the parking area. The second shock and to my amusement, I witnessed my Dad getting scolded for the first time ever! My uncle was trying to find a parking space with my sister. They both got out of the car and greeted us with angry faces. Didi kept asking, rather scolding me about whatever happened while Dad got scolded for not informing back home. Quite a weird and funny situation with both elder siblings scolding their little ones. 

Well, we reached home and Mom was relieved to see me alive and not kidnapped or that I did not run away anywhere. I was then scolded and told for the umpteenth time that a family at home means everyone and not only your parents and sister. I should have called home and informed someone. That was a lesson that I learnt and remember till date. But now, if you think about it, everyone in the family thought I would have run away because someone must have scolded me. But I didn’t.

PS: For quite some time afterwards, I was being watched closely by everybody and my cousins faced the same situation too. However, the regular dose of scolding didn’t go down!

When I woke up choked from my sleep!

The nephew, in his first couple of years, had built the habit of taking his afternoon nap with me. Well, I understand the fun and the need to sleep in the afternoon, which I ignored (unfortunately) in my childhood days. And so does my sister. That's why, she insisted that my nephew should sleep in the afternoon so that he doesn't regret not doing so in his later years.

So, both of us are blissfully sleeping after hours of story book reading and coaxing the little devil to sleep. Now, babies crawl and climb on you unintentionally. No offense there. But, he found a better way. In his sleep, on this day, he didn't climb on me. Instead, he rested his little head with spiked hair on my throat comfortably. Interestingly, the head and my throat fit beautifully.

Photo Credit: www.dreamstime.com

I was having some weird afternoon dream where I was about to enjoy my ice cream but suddenly I find someone strangling me to prevent me from having my ice cream! I panicked and screamed in my dream and wake up scared. Oh! Thank God, it was only a dream and why do I still feel choked and why is that something scruffy? And to top it all, I am not able to move myself. Then it finally dawned upon me, the little sleeping baby had found himself a comfortable fitting pillow! :)

How this simple story of Ogilvy’s new advertisement melted my heart and left me misty eyed

Ghar ka khana, ghar ka khana hota hai (Home cooked food is home cooked food after all)! A scroll down my Facebook news feed one day caught my attention on a post that said, Ogilvy & Mather's new advertisement is bit long but you wouldn't regret watching it. The brand is Fortune Oil, this time.

I love advertisements. Totally. So, out of curiosity about the interesting story line and love for advertisements, I watched the 4 minutes 38 seconds ad. It has a Grandma visiting his grandson in a hospital who is not allowed to have any food that is cooked outside. Daadiji takes effort to walk up to her grandson everyday with the help of a walking stick, asking the attending nurse to let her feed him the home cooked daal (lentils). Priya, the nurse refuses her every time Daadiji requests her to feed only do chammach daal (two spoonfuls of daal) because it is not bahar ka khana (outside food) but cooked at home. Daadiji keeps insisting in various ways, either by saying that her grandson used to drink bowls of daal after he used to come back from his evening games, playfully saying I love you to Priya so that she melts but her efforts continue to go in vain. Priya does not comply and keeps rejecting until one day, she finds herself eating Daadi's cooked food on the occasion of her grandson's birthday. The next day, when Daadi comes with the same tiffin box containing daal, Priya is seen greeting the old lady with warmth, leaving her surprised. Daadi, on seeing Priya about to feed her grandson the same hospital cooked daal, makes another attempt to request her to feed him the two spoonful of daal. Her voice sounding choked now. Priya initially hesitates but goes ahead to close the door and asks Daadi to feed that ghar ka bana daal that her grandson has been longing to have. Daadi is overjoyed on hearing the same and wastes no time in quickly opening the tiffin box and feeds her son the home cooked daal. He also reaches out with shaking hands and drinks straight from the box after the two spoons are fed. The film ends showing Fortune Oil's new brand statement, ghar ka khana, ghar ka khana hota hai.

In the words of Piyush Pandey, Executive Chairman and Creative Director, Ogilvy South Asia, "I believe it is one of the finest pieces of work that I have written. It has to be a very brave client with a very big heart to make a commercial of this kind. I salute the entire marketing team at Fortune for making this happen. I am also hugely grateful to Vivek Kakkad and my own partner Sukesh Nayak, for bringing this story alive. Enjoy, and have some home cooked food!"

Yes, my eyes were moist when the film ended. My voice choked for a few seconds. My heart was filled with the warmth and love that all of us long for from our loved ones, especially when it comes to home cooked food. Daadi's adamant nature of convincing Priya to let her feed her grandson showed how important are these relations in your life. No matter how much you try, the love that you get from your parents and grandparents is irreplaceable. In my case, I still regard my grandmas’ cooked food the best in the world, and claim that not even my mom can beat them. Their food had more love and warmth and they can soothe your depressed and anxious heart and mind in seconds.

O&M’s advertisements always have a charm in them and they are pleasant to watch always. Their storylines, concepts and visualization with the perfect actors make it appear magical on screen. This particular one will always stay amongst the top few advertisements that I like and will enjoy for a long time.

Credits:

Brand: Fortune Edible Oil & foods

Client: Adani Wilmar

Chief Operative Officer: Angshu Maik

Agency: Ogilvy & Mather India

Chairman: Piyush Pandey

Group Creative Director: Sukesh Nayak

Vice President: Saji Mathews

Production House: Curious Films

Director (film): Vivek Kakkad

Producer: Shahzad Bhagwagar

You can watch the advertisement here.

Content Source: Campaign India

Vegetarian?? Yes, that’s what I am!

An obvious question that many people never fail to ask me, how am I a vegetarian despite being a Bengali? Bengalis are known for their huge appetite for non-vegetarian food and fish and rice is like lifesaving food for such people. Well, the reason that I am not a non-vegetarian eating Bengali girl is because of certain family upbringing reasons. My grandparents believed that vegetarianism is a better food habit than its counterpart and one should it embrace it whole heartedly. No one in the family were forced to give up eating fish and meat, rather they were asked to make a choice.

I grew up eating a very typical staple diet that included almost all kinds of leafy and other vegetables. My parents followed the rules of my grandparents and encouraged us to eat vegetarian food but had always conveyed that should there be a craving for other non-vegetarian food, we are free to try them out. We, my sister and I, did that with eggs and we absolutely love them. So, I am basically an eggetarian as the nomenclature now refers to.

Choosing to be a vegetarian is a personal decision. I have no hard feelings for people who gorge on chicken pieces and admire them, neither am I stubborn to say that vegetarian foods taste much better than them. To each his own, completely. The infinite number of studies that reveal facts about which food habit is a better lifestyle choice can only confuse a person. There are both advantages and disadvantages to them. We vegetarians, at least most of us I suppose, have not become one to avoid or protest the killing of animals or support eating plants and vegetables because they are not made with flesh and blood. It’s how the digestive system in our bodies functions and accepts the choice of food. Yes, the argument of we are killing plants and thus, we are also committing sin will continue till eternity until some smarty finds the solution to end the debate.

Yes, our exotic options involve very few choices, but then, they can be cooked in multiple ways. Take for example, paneer. Our very own dairy product that we cook on our special days in different ways. In a hot and spicy gravy, or mixed with some flavoured paste, either works for us.

Many who are staunch vegetarians also avoid onion and garlic in their food, the reasons being something religious and spiritual. They are far more particular and follow the rules to the tee to avoid committing any sin. There are many who avoid eating in the same table if the other person in the close vicinity is eating a fish or a piece of meat. These are completely their own personality traits that they have.

I have been told many a times that I may be losing out tasting a few good dishes. May be, yes. But then, I believe in avoiding points of stress and stressing the stomach with something new and that doesn’t go well with the system is not something I would be proud to do. Let’s say, we stay on equal terms. You enjoy your food, I enjoy mine. In fact, why don’t you taste some of my vegetarian dishes for a change in your appetite?? J

Eating @ Earth Plate

When the Earth’s cuisine came to one single plate!

They don’t say Thank God it’s Friday just like that. There are absolute and nice reasons behind it. This particularly Friday, we the colleagues, ganged up against one nice other colleague who was to treat on occasion of ummm….many many things. She successfully completed her Research course and officially turned into a Dr., followed by successfully completing her driving course and received her driving license and buying a brand new car and oh yes! She also successfully completed a year in the company. So, to celebrate her successful completion of many things, we asked her to treat us out. She just couldn’t say no. After all, it was only to celebrate her successes!

Since it’s a Friday and no one in the team is in no mood to work, we realised may be the food will wonders and bring us back our dedication. So, not deciding to go too far, we thought of exploring a new restaurant in HSR Layout, Bangalore that calls itself, Earth Plate. We’ve noticed this restaurant on our way back and had always wondered, so many cuisines at one place?? We have got to explore this place.

We reach and our super-food enthusiastic boss runs up the stairs to book a table for us. No buffet for us, he declared. We will go al-a-carte. And there we went deciding what each of will be having:

I ordered a Syberian Sunset (a cool and refreshing drink made of orange, pineapple, peach and apricot, topped with soda) for my drink while another colleague ordered Blue Island Ice Tea (a delightful crush of litchi, peach, apricot and mango with a dash of blue curacao topped with cranberry juice), a sweet and juicy rip off of Long Island Ice Tea, I suppose. The others, read the Boss and the treating host, our PhD qualified in this case, settled for sweet and salt Lime Soda.

Syberian Sunset

Blue Island Ice Tea

Vegetable Chimichanga (flour tortillas stuffed with jack, Colby cheese, cottage cheese, shredded carrot and capsicum, rolled and deep fried served with Spanish rice and Latino set) was my main course, two others ordered Stuff Mushroom in Smoked Barbeque Sauce Sizzler (Mushroom stuffed in spinach and cheese, served with smoked barbeque sauce accompanied with potato wedges and herb rice) and Grilled Chicken Sashlik Sizzler (cubes of boneless chicken served with rice, sweet and sour and Garlic Sauce) and lastly the good old, Chicken Biriyani. So this was a mix of food from all geographical zones. Truly, the earth was there on one table!

Vegetable Chimichanga

Stuff Mushroom in Smoked Barbeque Sauce Sizzler 

Grilled Chicken Sashlik Sizzler 

The food was good, and the ambience too. Only that it being a Friday, the place had office teams from all over. Well, guess we were lucky to have found ourselves a table. The foods were served a little late, for understandable reasons. The next time I visit this restaurant, I am going to try out the buffet menu, now that I am convinced about their quality of food.

Address: 1, 14^th Main, 17^th Cross, Sector 7, HSR, Bangalore

Zomato: http://www.zomato.com/bangalore/earth-plate-hsr/info#tabtop

Cost: Rs. 900 for two people (approx.)

Food that looks good, tastes better!

That combination of gold and white. Steaming little yellow cubes or even circles on white rice. That aroma which fills the room and make you asking for more. That taste that cannot be replicated and should be had only on special occasions. Such is the power of one of my grandma’s signature dish. Shorshe or Bhapa Chhana or Paneer in Mustard Sauce is what we call it. Yes, one of her many signature dishes that not even the best cooks and Mom can recreate.

Cooking is an art and you need to develop that skill and talent to cook the best food. It is not easy to get that right amount when someone asks you to add pinch of salt to the food or according to your taste, or even the spoon sizes don’t match when they talk about adding masalas to your food. But for my grandma, these didn’t matter. Practice and long years of cooking with love and care made her perfect. No wonder she was the ultimate decision maker when it came to kitchen and what everyone in the family will eat. Although everything she cooked tasted out of the world, her signature dishes were only meant to be cooked on special occasions such as birthdays of her sons and daughter, grandchildren and Jamai Shashti. Bowls of different vegetarian curries along with rice and dal will be put in front of the special person.

Being a vegetarian family, we have successfully replaced the non-vegetarian versions of dishes with vegetarian ones. Shorshe Paneer or Bhapa Chhana is one such example. For non-vegetarians, it is the shorshe ilish or shorshe chicken. For us, it is this delicious version.

When I received the mail from #IndiBlogger regarding this contest My Beautiful Food! from Borosil, I was thrilled. Although I am not a food blogger yet, I have been toying with the idea from the time I have started cooking and trying out new recipes. Participating in this contest is only my way of embarking on this new journey. Since this is part of Round 1: Alphabet Soup of #BeautifulFood and requires posting of no images, I am only sharing the recipe that we follow.

You can make Shorshe Paneer this way:

• You need to prepare 2 tablespoons of mustard paste by mixing mustard powder in water and keeping it for 10 minutes or by making a paste with soaked mustard seeds for 10-20 minutes and mixing it in a mixer. In the meantime, chop paneer into cubes (about 20-25 pieces).
• To the mustard paste, add salt according to taste, 3 tablespoons of curd and 2-3 green chillies and mix well.
• Keep the paneer for marinating in the mustard paste and leave aside for a while.
• In a non-stick or heavy bottomed wok which has a fitting lid, add 2.5 tablespoons mustard oil and heat it up properly.
• Add the marinated paneer and stir properly. Bring the heat down to low heat level and keep the wok covered with lid for 4-5 minutes.
• Open the lid and check the water that has been released from the curd. Stir the paneer again and add salt, if you feel is required. Cover the wok once again for about 3-4 minutes.
• Open the lid and cook for about 1-2 minutes and stir to mix the paneer properly. Turn off the heat and serve in a beautiful glass serving dish from Borosil. Serve with hot plain white rice.

PS: Serving is as crucial as cooking the food. You can check out different kitchen glassware from Borosil here. 

Pure bliss is Davangere Benne Dosa & Thatte Idli on a Sunday morning!

Wake up on a Sunday morning and the thought that crosses your mind is a good and tasty breakfast. Wish you had the super mom/ super woman who prepares every kind of breakfast that her family wishes on that MTR advertisement? At least I wish sometimes. The feeling of a yummy breakfast going to your stomach is enough to lift your mood and let you plan an entertaining Sunday ahead. In my two and half years in Bangalore, experiments with food in my own kitchen has been many. The same also goes for hearing out suggestions of trying out different kinds of traditional Karnataka cuisine at the most obvious places. So, this time, us friends, decided to wake a little early and have breakfast that our minds could also relish. We zeroed upon having Benne Dosa and Thatte Idli this time!

Originating from the city of Davangere, Karnataka, Benne Dosa is also referred to as Butter Dosa. The uniqueness of Benne Dosa is that it is made up by adding butter while preparing a normal dosa. It is similar to other usual and regular types of dosa, the masala or the sada or the set dosa, but is comparatively smaller in size. These dosas are made of rice batter and heaps (read, lots) of butter. A liberal spoon of butter is sprinkled before serving that adds to flavour and enhances the aroma of the dosa.

Photo credit: scribidomagazine.com

 You can try out varieties such as Benne Khali Dosa, Benne Open Dosa and Benne Masala Dosa. I had a plate of Benne Masala Dosa (the masala was boiled and mashed potato with butter and salt) and to be honest, the butter was too tempting to keep my mind shut for a moment and not think about calories that day!

Photo Credit: The Hindu

When it came to trying out Thatte Idli, the mere view of the soft round giant idli on the plate took my breath away. It was also served with a dollop of butter on its soft surface that melted and made it a buttery idli to be eaten with sambar and coconut chutney. This awesome steam-cooked delicacy is a must have if you are ever willing to try out the cuisine of Karnataka. Thatte means plate in Kannada and the advantage of using plates for preparing this type of idlis is the control over use of batter to make idlis according to an eater’s preference.

Photo Credit: Commons.wikimedia.org

If you want to indulge on Benne Dosa and Thatte idlis without traveling to Davangere, you can find it in many of the well-deserved traditional Karnataka cuisine restaurants in Bangalore itself. And if you’re abroad, especially USA and Singapore, you may be lucky enough to find these listed there as well.

Well, we had our share of pure bliss on a bright Sunday morning here:

Davangere Benne Dosa is located at 118, 13^th Main, 4^th Block, Jayanagar, Bangalore and a meal for two will pinch as much as Rs. 50 in your pocket. You may want to try this on the coming Sunday! :D

PS: It is a pure vegetarian dosa joint.

What makes studying easy and fun? Xerox, of course!

A typical student life, read college student life, is incomplete without Xerox. The wonder invention that allows anything on a paper to get photocopied, Xerox is what saves the life of an Indian college student. An angel saviour who doesn’t allow the guilt of bunking classes and not getting notes sink in, Xerox is an integral of an Indian college student.

When I took admission in college for my Graduation course, everyone around told me, now it’s the time to enjoy life. There’s a hidden pleasure in bunking classes, going for movies and struggling to gather notes at the end of the semesters. However, I didn’t indulge in all these things completely and was one of the most obedient students. J

Xerox or photocopy is probably a technology that has contributed the most to a student than anyone else. Books, notes, letters, documents, all can be kept safe if they are photocopied. In colleges, especially in Kolkata, students are still taught and spoon fed with notes that only needs to be mugged up and written back on the examination paper. It doesn’t matter whether he or she understood what was written there on the notes. And that somehow encourages these students to have a parallel life of fun and frolic along with studies (which we hardly get to enjoy in our school days!).

Photo courtesy: The Hindu

Given my clear handwriting even while taking notes and attending classes religiously, I was the student whose notebooks got photocopied for the entire class. And the rates were as reasonable as 35p to 50p per page. So an entire notebook or a book or a few pages, none seemed difficult to be kept with us. And the best part was the hunt for the best Xerox shop who would offer the best rate, will arrange the sheets without any mixing up and the print quality is good. So, vendor management skills started from there itself.

We owe it to Xerox shops and at one point of time, we had also devised a business plan of opening up a Xerox shop near our college and put a competitive rate. A joint investment and complete profit sharing model.