This one's for mom!

Mom, you've taught me so many things that magically seem to make themselves useful in scenarios I could never had imagined. But more than anything, I love how you would explain the rationale behind something while teaching me about it. FYI, that has set me up for a lifetime of annoyance with people who refuse to use their brain.

Image Source: yachtpals.com

Take for example, using the humble pressure cooker. I still remember how my mom taught me -  our cook-masi was trying to tech me how to cook with a pressure cooker; how to open it, how to close it, the subtle nuances of how many whistles are too many whistles, etc. when she over-rode her and told me "this is pressure vessel, its job is to build up steam and increase the pressure so that the things inside boil faster and cook faster. So once the steam is built up, if you keep the flame on high all the time, you're basically wasting energy. Only chickpeas and kidney beans take more than 10 mins to cook" That was all the wisdom I've ever needed. Years later, in Physics class I learnt that a liquid's boiling temperature is a function of its vapor pressure; but my mom had beat Clausius and Clapeyron here.

So the next time you're cooking with a pressure cooker, try this: keep the flame high till you hear a steady low hum issuing from the safety valve (or what we call the whistle). At this point turn the heat down while ensuring that the "hum" is steady and set a timer to "Hum" time. Promptly turn off the flame when the time is up and allow the steam to escape. If you're too impatient, you can plunge the whole thing under a running tap in the sink. Below are proportions and tips that I've gleaned from my mom and experience, that heartless bit*h:

To Cook	Water Proportion	“Hum” Time	Remarks
Soaked Rice, Daals, Khichdi, Pulao, etc.	2 cups of water for every cup	10 min	The daals will come out very thick and creamy. They can be diluted to one’s taste
Un-soaked Rice, Daals, Khichdi, Pulao, etc.	2+ cups of water for every cup	10 - 12 min	This is not an exact science. Remember you’re still in a kitchen
Broken Wheat / Cracked Wheat / Porridge / Dalia	2.5 cups of water for every cup	10 min	You’ll have to use your discretion here. If the grain size is kinda small, go for 2 cups instead of 2.5.
Soaked whole legumes like green gram (मूंग), Bengal gram (चना), etc.	2.5 cups of water for every “dry” cup	10 min	This is for people who like bite in their food and don’t want to eat boiled mush.
Un-soaked whole legumes like green gram (मूंग), Bengal gram (चना), etc.	3 cups of water for every cup	15 min
Soaked chickpeas, kidney beans, etc.	3 cups of water for every “dry” cup	25 min	These things tend to expand a lot on soaking – don’t mess this up.
Un-soaked chickpeas, kidney beans, etc.	4 cups of water for every cup	45 min

Now that I've told you this, go experiment. Do it. Also go make this bowl full of awesomeness. It was a part of this fantabulus meal I mentioned here.

Nodes in History

Image Source: wikipedia.org

I was reading this article about Berlin's Ostbahnhof Station, its history and how past and present collide there. It is interesting how the development of early railway networks - that was almost entirely market driven - has had such lasting effects on our history. Of course there is also this article which which goes all the way back to the Roman Empire and tells us in the form of a Socratic dialogue (being meta, are we?) what the with of a horse's ass has got to do with US Standard railroad gauge and the size of a space shuttle's solid rocket boosters. But I digress.

The Ostbahnof article talked about how the station, and the area around it, was the gateway to Eastern Europe and how successive regimes have built over it and tried to change its character over time. I like to think of structures like these - public places that have been in use through centuries - become nodes in history. They bear witness to history as it plays out in the public sphere. These nodes, by virtue of the history they embody, become seats of power and successive regimes build / extend / restore to establish their power.

Image Source: buzzintown.com

One such building that immediately comes to my mind is the Writers' Building in Calcutta. The current West Bengal government is in the process of clearing out the "non-heritage" blocks (that were built by the Communist government before them) and restoring complex to it former glory. My friend and collaborator, An Observant Owl did a photo story documenting the demolition process and I wrote a blog post to go with it here.

Another such node, which has been sadly transformed into a glass case enclosed exhibit of history, was the Qutub Complex. It is said that a complex was the site of several Jain and Hindu temples, which provided much of the raw material for building the mosque, the minar, and the surrounding structures. Four different emperors added to/restored it; even the Brits tried to add a storey to it but then decided against it. Our democratic regime has mummified it; now it doesn't throb and pulse with history. Now it's just a background for a selfie.

Bhujwasi Gourmet

What started off as a birthday present for my newest flatmate, Aar became a mini collaborative culinary and ethnographic archiving project on its own. But then again she deserves no less. She is one half of the Halbe & Gaudin Blog where she regularly documents her culinary adventures. Now I contribute elbow grease, frying skills (I'm half maru and that's like having a masters degree in frying) among other things to these adventures. Sampling the result in a reward in itself. I'm not even going to talk about last night's meal because Aar is writing a whole post about it.


So without digressing any further, presenting to you Bhuujwasi Culinary Kahaniya! The cover art is done by Tapas, who puts up his artwork regularly on Man-Mauji F.ART.

The Book has been divided in Drunk Brunch, Drunk Dinners, Drunk All Day and Drunk Desserts sections. Bhujwasis current and gone-by have contributed their favorite things to eat in Bhuj along with memorable stories about each recipe. Happy Reading!

I want to be horrified again

Today morning, while I was still drinking my first coffee, my friend told me about this horrific incident that happened; a four year old child was raped, sodomized, mutilated and then left to bleed by railway tracks in Delhi. A voice inside me said "Please lets not discuss such unpleasant things first thing in the morning". The moment I formed this thought in my head, I realized how complacent and insensitive and selfish I was in that moment. 

kafila.org

It reminded me of this article I had read a few days ago on Kafila. The article talked about the Dadri incident where a person was killed by a mob that falsely accused him of eating beef. The author, Gautam Bhan, talks about how forms of violence against certain sections of society becomes so routine, that it becomes the order of things. Towards the end he said:

We must assert our words so that the violence slowly, painfully becomes less banal, less ordinary and we are horrified again.

These words struck a chord in me - I want to be horrified again by how commonplace violence has become. In this context, reading about Pinjratod felt great. I've lived in PGs and hostels and faced all the things that these brave women are protesting against. I had honestly accepted them as facts of life, so it is very refreshing to see comrades taking on everyday forms of sexism.

I like this platform and websites like News Laundry (full disclosure: while I support NL financially by buying a subscription, they haven't paid me anything to write this) because they question the dominant narrative and because they do not come down to morbid sensationalizing of non-issues. Most of the popular news media is basically reporting on the verbal ping pong matches between politician while Rome burns.