Thursday, November 29, 2007

Babban Hajaam


Once upon a time, there was a Raja. The Raja was very nice and people were living happily in his kingdom. Suddenly one fine day, Raja’s barber dies. He was very old and has been with the family for a long long time. So obviously the search began for the next barber who can be the King’s barber. After a lot of search, this post was offered to a young lad called Babban. Babban was conscientious, hardworking and diligent; without coaching or reservations he was selected for the royal snip snip snip. As he did ‘Hajaamat, people used to call him ‘Babban Hajaam’. Babban was very happy. After around a month, came the time when Raja needed a haircut. Till that time, he was busy with cutting hairs of the other members of the royal family.

It was a nice Sunday morning. Babban whistled his way to work and continued humming the newest hit song by the courtesan Billo Chamanbhaar. The Raja too was keeping up the beats by patting with his palm on his thighs. Suddenly Babban paused. The Raja did too. Babban continued but alas, the scissors froze.

Babban baulked again. He rubbed his eyes, pinched himself. But still he couldn’t believe his eyes: Horns on the royal pate? O swami of Hari-ki-Dun! The Raja half-turned and with a straight index finger on a shivering mousatche said – “Sshhhhhhshshsh, if you say another word about this to anybody, that will be the last day of your life.” And thus it wound up, with a scrape scrape and brush brush and talcum powder puff puff, and certainly no mirror.

After this, a peculiar thing started happening. As hours progressed, Babban’s tummy swelled. By late evening, his tummy was of the size of a football. By next day morning, the swelling reached upto his neck and he was looking like a big barrel. By Tuesday, his whole body swelled up and he became like a huge balloon. This was happening because he couldn’t keep the secret for such a long time. At last, the poor lad tried to run but it looked more like he was rolling. He rolled towards the woods. Finally when he was deep inside, he told the secret to a tree. He told the tree – “Raja ke sar pe seeeeeng”. Soon he shrunk back to his normal shape.

But now, the tree started swelling and it swelled well. One fine day, after 6 months or so, a woodcutter was walking though the forest and he saw this tree with a huge trunk. He tapped on the trunk. It gave a nice hollow sound. He thought, “Wow, this makes such a nice sound. This wood will be awesome for musical instruments.” So he cut the tree and gave the trunk to his friend who was a maker of musical instruments. The friend was very happy and gave him a lot of cash in return. The friend made 3 instruments out of it: A violin, a harmonium and a set of Tabla. Soon after he made them, a band of musicians came over and were very impressed by the quality of the instrument and bought them at a very good price.

Soon, one day the singers were called to the durbar of the Raja. It was a great day. It was Raja’s birthday. There were a lot of Durbaris. Nice looking women dressed in the shady kind of clothes that the Apsaras Menka and Rambha generally wear, were serving food and paan to all the durbaris. After a scintillating performance by Raja’s favourite Billo Chamanbahaar, came the turn of these musicians, the rising stars of the kingdom.

People waited with baited breath. The musicians came to the stage and started tuning their instruments. In the middle, while they were checking the sound system, suddenly the violin lifted on its own and started playing by itself:

Raja ke Sar pe Seeeeng.. raja ke sar pe seeeeeeng.

Soon the harmonium also started off:

Kisne Bataya Kisne Bataya

And the tabla started the beats:

Babban Hajaam Ne, Babban Hajaam ne.

All the people in the court fell of the chairs laughing. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, could not put the courtiers back on their chairs again.

Note: I would like to thank Kaushik Ramu for the bare bone structure of the story

Friday, November 23, 2007

Fastest Egg recipe

Let this thanksgiving be about a few recipe posts from me. Like the earlier one, this one is also pretty open ended and may need a few trails before perfecting. Before I go ahead with the recipe, let me thank my friend Nirmal for introducing this recipe to me.
The main advantages of this recipe are:
1) If you want to eat egg, and not the house smell, you eat egg boiled. This takes atleast 20 minutes. So by the time the egg actually is ready, you have lost your appetite. This recipe just takes 3 minutes literally.
2) If you are a stickler like me who believe in not loading the sink with used utensils, this is a boon, u need only 1 vessel to cook and that too easy to wash. Compare this with an omelette vessel where you need two, one to beat and one pan to fry.

OK, now lets go ahead with the recipe:
Ingredients:

1) 2 eggs.
2) one tsp vegetable oil.
3) Mushroom/Peas etc (Optional) if you want to have something inside your omelette.

Procedure:

1) Take a microwavable stone/china bowl. The bigger base, the better.
2) Break the eggs in the bowl, add salt, optional veg and beat it for sometime.
3) Pour oil along the edges. The lesser the better.
4) Microwave for 2 minutes. You can take it out after one minute, scramble it a bit and put it back again.
5) Scrambled egg is ready. No smell, no vessel, you can eat in the same bowl.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Recipe: ShimlaMirch-Aaloo Ambajhari (Indian gravy based Capsicum and Potato)

After a long long time, I did something I really wanted to do. I cooked the way I wanted. It was nothing like slight variation. But definitely a mix and match of many different recipes. Lets call it ShimlaMirch-Aaloo Ambajhari , a Capsicum and Potato Recipe. If there exists Hyderabadi Biryani and Veg Kolhapuri, why not this. BTW Ambajhari is a place near Nagpur where I was born and brought up)

Ingreditents:

For the gravy:

1) Onion

2) Tomato in any form (paste, chopped, chunks)

3) Groundnut powder (1-2tbsp)

4) Grated Coconut (Only if you like it)

5) Yoghurt (Optional)

6) Chilli Powder/ Green Chillies (Depending on ur palate)

7) Garlic and/or ginger

8) Anything you find interesting to put in a paste form (Cashew, Raisins etc)

For the curry:

1) Capsicum (cut into 0.5 square inch pieces approx)

2) Potato (boiled and cut into small pieces, again around 0.5 cubc inches)

3) Salt (to taste)

4) Any Indian masala ( I tried tava fry masala) 1 tsp (Just for flavor)

Procedure:

As you have already noticed, the quantity is not specified in any of the main ingreditents because I feel it strictly depends on your taste. For example, my onion ratio was a bt on the higher side resulting in a ‘Jhanjhalo’ ( a Bengali word, basically the adjective for reason why onion makes u cry).

1) Put all the ingredients in the ‘For the Gravy’ section in a blender and blend it well.

2) Heat oil in a pan. Add the usual cumin and mustard seeds if you want to, else leave)

3) Pour the contents of the blender in the pan and fry till oil separates. This will take a long time. So you can put salt, turmeric (optional) in between.

4) Add the masala of your wish towards the end stages of oil separating.

5) Put the capsicum and some water. Allow it to boil depending on how crunchy you like your capsicum.

6) Towards the end, add the boiled potatoes, mix well and remove from heat.

It tastes the way you want it to taste, because you have decided the quantities and the products too.

You can do this with any vegetables. Some suggestions:

1) Only Cauliflower (Boil the cauliflower first. You don’t want this raw)

2) Peas and Potato

3) Only Potato

4) Paneer

5) Mushrooms

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Dada

Well dada means a lot of things. To me, it means my elder brother Sambaran. To many of the people, in a typical work/society the elder Bengali will be called a Dada. In the roads of Bengal, till sometime back, it was the same as Anna of Chennai or Swami of mangalore. But ofcourse, most likely if you ask anybody, who is Dada, the answer will be: Who else but Sourav Ganguly.

It took some time for me to accept his popularity. I always thought it’s only West Bengal, and seems the truth is not very different. I have even seen many people getting jealous. ( but pretending to be either angry or disgusted or as a big shot of cricket and denounce him). But this is the truth, the way Ganguly is adored in West Bengal, no body will ever be adored in any part of India.

As they say, you have to be there to feel it. I don’t get many chances to go to Kolkata and which coincides with some cricket match, but it is a sight to watch. The whole time Dada is on crease (which thankfully is generally not much), is like some last moments of world cup final. People observe every movement of his, will do ‘ishhh’ on his misses and jump on his fours and sixes. It’s just amazing being with all of these. You can’t dislike him anymore.

Ofcourse then, it’s quite obvious, that Chapell will be considered villain. No way can people forgive him when he did something that bad to their won dada. But it was poor Dravid who also got the wrath of the people for no good reason, simply because he was the one who replaced dada. When I tried to discuss any cricket in these lines with any common person (not some very jaankar kind of), it seemed I am a fool if I think otherwise that Chapell may be right, dravid may be good.

The guy who comes out clean in this case and for that matter any controversy, is Sachin. At a position, when he can command anything he wants, they way he never shows his temper and maintains his image is simply amazing. No wonder people refer him as the God.

Anyway, coming back to Ganguly, I now realize, that the reason for his popularity is that he has been the only achiever for Bengal for a long long time. Amartya Sen, though a Bengali has been too long outside to be considered a son of soil, and so are Arundhati, Jhumpa, Rani, Sushmita or Bipasha. Though you see almost half of the reporters in the news channels as Bengalis (leading the pack ofcourse is Sagarika Ghosh) they are all what we call “Probashi Bangali”s. To add to it, the Bengal politics is in a mess, the govt is in the hands of people whos average age is 70+ and the opposition is a lady who has left her brains somewhere long ago. The recent situations in Nandigram makes matter even worse. In all this, the only good thing that has happened to West Bengal in last 15 years is just Dada. No wonder then why Bengalis react to him this way.

Before I end, just as an unrelated note, have any of you read the recent reports of peaceful demonstrations in Kolkata, which was described as a march by the intelligentsia, the writers, the film personalities and the socialites. I just wonder who constitute the intelligentsia :)