designer emotions@dharavi? Kabhi nahi!

Bahot dino ke baad aaj Dharavi ka rasta liya!!  The 60 meter Dharavi road is a path less trodden in my regular commute to work and back. The simple reason being that just like the nallah running parallel to this road the traffic there is always choked. However today because I chose to travel by a taxi my taxiwallah chose to travel by Dharavi J! Usually in the comforts of my own car I don’t even realize the passage of life I am crossing through. Today was different!!

Going from the same place, I managed to get a closer look at those ugly, tattered, stacked one on top of the other jhuggis!!. There were sights that I observed that were stark contrasts from our being in the usual rosy life. For instance, I noticed a man who was dressed in a clean white shirt and pajamas struggling to comb his just washed hair. The shanty that he was staying in could not be high enough for a man of average height like him. With a broken window glass for a mirror, and jute sacks as curtains, on a closer look I figured he wasn’t really unhappy or ‘struggling’ as I said before. 

Then there was a young girl playing with a little baby who was lying on the wall that separates the nallah from the chawls. I was scared for his life thinking what if he topples? But the girl seemed carefree, happy to play with the little one busy tying his/her scarf. To think that we have always learnt that babies need to have an infection free environment, this was quite a contrast. However again the girl looked happy and the little baby was not crying (so I am assuming he was happy too!)

A board in Marathi stated that dropping scrap in the nallah is a punishable act but just a foot away there was a tailor who was throwing purple colored fabric pieces in the nallah right there. One elderly man was borrowing shaving blades from his upstairs neighbor.

Overall the construct of these chawls screamed convenience. There were bunches and bunches of electric wires put together hugging the tallest chawl and there were big small water pipes coming out of each one of these rooms directed towards the nallah. The site of the nallah itself was so repulsive that I seriously wondered how these people manage to bring themselves to live there.

Then it occurred to me… the biggest and the strongest instinct of mankind- Survival!! Our evolution is based on it (as per Charles Darwin). While we dabble with designer dreams in our designer homes, these people have no time to dream. Everything, everyone is a step, a resource utilized to survive. Emotions, feelings, candy clouds, picture perfect holidays gayee tel lene!!  To think there are many amongst us who cannot manage emotions and need psychological help seems like a completely alien concept to them. For a moment we may feel for them but with them being incredibly busy in putting one breath and the other together I wonder if they have anytime to even feel these ‘designer emotions’. The means to get anywhere are probably not even classified. Like a struggling director crudely put it ‘Jab bhook lagti hai to ghanta sach jhooth mein farak samajh aata hai’ !!  Really! It is then when a rucksack serves well as a curtain and a dirty corner in the wall works well as a baby crib. I don’t know what we do or don’t do to deserve our lives but for sure whichever and whatever life a man gets, somehow he manages ‘live’ it!!

Sunder Munderiye..!!!

 Two days ago was Lohri! Going by the books it is the end of the harvesting season in Punjab and the end of winter in North India. But for me and most of my cousins who grew up together in one big Dilli ka ghar, it was one day when we could wear the best of clothes and eat as many aate ki pinni’s  as possible. All the mummy’s and Badi Mamma (my granny) would be busy figuring out the number of guests who would be coming over for Lohri baalna (bon fire) in the evening. Or on several other occasions it would be them figuring out gifts for those relatives to whose houses we have been invited for Lohri Party.  It used to be a day off from school so in the morning all us kids would be busy ‘helping’ the men of the house in bringing apart old rained down furniture that was comfortably getting accumulated in one corner of the terrace. Although it was for the fire in the evening we would bash up the furniture with an utter sense of urgency (it was somehow a lot of fun) post which we were obviously super tired , hence jumping and prancing about further was not an option!!!    Poori sabzi and half a phooge ka laddoo later, we all would be fast asleep only to wake up to the halwais’ Kadhayi and bartan making a racket in the verandah ahead. All the mummy’s would have by now gotten ready with the best of jewellery and phulkari dupattas. My chachi (aunt) used to go a step ahead and tie a paranda in her plait.     

Pinni- the most popular lohri sweet meat




We kids had no special agenda other than waiting for the bon fire to get started hence we used to pass time with picking up one of the wooden phattas (plank) meant for the fire and start playing cricket with a newspaper rolled up as a ball.

As soon as the bon fire would come to life our much beloved bat and ball would be ‘swahah’ed in it. Also there was a sudden realization. It was indeed very cold during those days. Delhi is still shivering at some 6 degrees but I guess with all the day’s play us kids would never really feel it. Anyhow, so there was a bonfire and all the elder were throwing in til, gud ke laddoo, corn that would eventually pop out of the bon fire and almost hit us back . There was the punju song and dance with the music blaring from our beloved Phillips 240v deck. The butterrrr chicken and lachha paratha would follow with Uncle’s ‘Car-o-bar’!!! (concept of booze in a car’s boot which only Delhiites are aware of I guess J).

 

typical dressing for lohri celebration



As the wood turned to amber coal and the fire gave way, the party also used to come to a close with all relatives chasing bye bye’s for at least half an hour on the gate (another punju tradition that never leaves us!!). And for us chillar party, we were almost sad to let go of either our dumb charades or i-spy dens!

That was Lohri for most of us as kids. Today, life has moved on. All cousins are either studying in some part of the world or are happily married. I have shifted from Delhi to Mumbai as well. By virtue of marrying a Parsi, there is no knowledge amongst most about the Punjabi new year or all that goes on in that day.  Therefore, today it is all about sifting a few of my ‘kind’ who know its relevance and (unlike most others who continuously make fun of this festival’s name) get a few figs of wood and coconut shells in a bowl and do a small fire, throw in some revdi and Act II popcorn, and a few ‘hoye hoye’ and half a ‘sunder munderiye’ song  at a dear friend’s place. Life’s hues have changed. Smaller things were very big when we were small. Every festival was an event, an opportunity to have fun. These days it’s almost inconvenience to most. After all, there are way too many tasks to juggle aur uske ooper rishtedaron se kaun miley? Somehow, very very strangely I am continuously thinking of that one dialogue that Ajay devgan brilliantly delivers in the movie Singham – Mujhmein hai dum kyunki meri Zarooratein hain kum!!  :-)

FOOD SHOW ADDICTION!!

Nigella's home as brilliant as her food!!

Think there is a new category of addiction in the psychiatrist's book - FSA or FOOD SHOW ADDICTION. I for one am a self confessed food show addict (no prizes for guessingJ). I absolutely love watching cooking shows on TV. Travel comes a close second as the moment there is Nigella, David Rocco, Rachel Allen, Rude boy, Donna Hay or Master Chef Australia (and only MC Australia!!)Calling, I forget everything. There can be the most difficult recipe on offer but just for the fact that its sheer art on plate I would be delighted just to see it happen. I think there is a huge something about cooking and food that tingles the reward centre in our brains so brilliantly that we tend to forget most of the idiots we bummed into through the day.

Therefore my attempt at exploring the reason that makes food shows so addictive. I think, food shows are not any more about food alone. They have a promise of sorts. A promise to make you look like someone with great culinary skills (without really having them) by combining some basic yet clean ingredients and cooking up a great HS (high society) dish. Better still these shows have a promise of having a kitchen, read lifestyle that would ensure you cook those many designer dishes in those designer kitchens and homes. 

Donna Hay's fast, fresh, simple!



 Donna Hay’s obsession with ‘white’ from the cutting board she uses to the kitchen oven and the show set that has sand and gushing sea as backdrop transcends you straight to that beautiful home of hers. You want to see her cook not just because of all the simple yummy recipes but more so for the cooking she would do on that beautiful griddle on her balcony with the noise of waves and the breeze in her hair. Her cutlery is so enviable that you would eat plain celery out of it and NOT complain J

Then there is the ever so favorite Nigella Lawson, the queen of excesses. Her beautiful English home just makes me long for a place exactly like hers. With books of all kinds stacked rustically yet all over the place, Nigella’s kitchen can be forgotten for a while (i.e. until I explore her entire house). Another thing that I will give an arm and a leg for is her pantry..! It is so quaint, almost like a hobbit’s den that has almost everything to rescue someone who is pressed under a hard day. Nigella’s trick to cook is simple… EXPRESS WAY. So although the real time cooking isn’t really that fast (have tried) I want to see her cook something that I may have half a chance at when I return to my kitchen from a long stressful drive back home!  The fairy lights in her kitchen take me back to the word ‘celebration’. That cozy corner cooks up lamb shanks and ice-cream cakes with the same zest. Her special edition of Nigella Christmas was exceptional. It really made my desire to see a white Christmas even stronger. The real Christmas tree with Nigella’s cheat’s Christmas pudding threw a cinnamon smoke cloud and I fell in love with food show once again. 

So you see it is not just about the food but also about the lifestyle that promises a lot. After all, who wouldn’t want to have a house with a fantastic back garden that not only houses all the fresh food ingredients but also a real wood oven? To top it all, the dream is complete with the promise of doing nothing but gardening and cooking food that is absolutely beautiful!! What say Jamie Oliver?