and do visit my blogger friend and collaborator Suranga Date on her blog Strewn Ashes for an extrapolation!
With the pre-final exams well and truly behind us, we settle
down into study mode. Exams are just round the corner and like every year we
have made confessions about hiding comics and novels behind text books (this
year, for the first time it was Mills and Boon romances slyly scoring on the
classics and hitherto favourite Enid Blyton). We acknowledge this and
remorsefully vow not to do this ever, ever again (but how on earth were we
going to READ!)
Summer school has started, much to my delight! Early start-
it’s funny going to school when the baldiya (municipality) sweepers are still at work, when some late straggler
milk delivery fellas are rushing around their beat before the milk goes bad and
when the familiar rich timbered voice on Vividh Bharati is announcing “Sangeet
(rising tone- pause) Sarita!” (The
program showcased a raag, its aaroh and avaroh, a sample classical rendition
and a Hindi film song based on the same raag). Usually, by now mother and I
would be still be grappling with my long hair, me refusing to let her oil it,
she sternly explaining the benefits of oiling, the firmness of her belief
influencing her progressively tight braiding
of my thick hair into two tight plaits, ribboned till the very end and knotted
up again at the top , halving it into handle loops! In between jabs with the comb to stop
slouching (yes, that year I had started slouching because it was fashionable
for girls of my age to bow to our self-conscious awkwardness about growing up) and my screaming at
her pulling my hair, mother would say, “Tell me what is the difference between
Rageshree and Bageshree!”
As I set out, looking around to see which of the galli kids
I could walk with, I see mother buying some kairis from the bhajiwala, the
veggie vendor. What is she going to make, ohhhh! I can’t wait to come home for
lunch!
In just a few hours, as school gives over, the landscape has
changed considerably. The sun has straddled the already baked earth. The green-red tightly wrapped buds of
gulmohor have warmed up to the sun and unfurled their petals, setting the sky
on fire from beneath with their orange vermillion hues! To this day, I landmark the day I see the
season’s first gulmohor! But stomach realities bring me back to victuals! So
what is mother going to make for lunch?
Kanda Kairi chutney, sadha varan, gawarichi bhaji (cluster
beans or gowar) mattha (lightly spiced and herbed butter milk) and bhakri with
a dollop of white butter. A cold lunch
laid out- no fancy or indulgent warming up of the food... yet...
Our study timetable is consulted and we are reminded of what
we had committed on paper! But the warmth of the delicious (and heavier than the
usual tiffinbox lunch on routine school days) meal has created a warmth within.
Testing the waters, we blame mother for the delicious meal and guilt her into
allowing one short nap. She relents.
The fan whirs on incessantly, the mogra garland perched
around the long necked surahi lets out an occasional whiff of the sweet
fragrance, the lassitude of the afternoon is broken only by the occasional overenthusiastic
crowing of hyperactive crows, but we are too dreamy and doze away tracing rhythm
patterns in the soothing drone of the pigeon
partridge...
Wasn’t this what morning school was meant for?
Life moves across hemispheres , the changing times enabling perennial
and universal availability of fruit and
vegetables don’t allow the same associative
attribution to seasons, times, tastes and smells. And we enjoy kandakairi in
Australia throughout the year, not just in the December to February summer season!
Kanda Kairi Chutney
1 cup chopped raw mango (check for sourness, if required add
more)
1 cup chopped onion
½ cup roasted and skinned peanuts
1 tbsp grated jaggery or brown sugar (again, depending on
the sourness of the mango)
½ tsp cumin seeds
2 -3 tsp (or more) red chilli powder (I used the kashmiri variety)
Salt to taste
1 tbsp oil tadka made with ½ tsp mustard seeds (hot)
Whiz all the ingredients except the tadka in a mixer to get
a grainy textured chutney. Add a little water
only if necessary. Temper with hot tadka
and serve with bhakri, chapati or rice. Good with idlys and dosas, too!
