I Left You at Nizamuddin

I think about you - often, and more so these days. I think about that endearing smile of yours, part playful, part mischievous, genuine and free. About your sheer confidence and shrewdness, the latter and how it bothered me for days, but which makes me proud of you - in an odd sense of the term. It was your freedom of spirit - the term, so often misused, but apt in your case - that drew me to you, that disengaged all my apprehensions of who you are, of what you are. I still remember the old women, the one that refused to let me capture her face but whose face remains etched in my mind, and her warnings about you. How I shouldn't let you watch me, or talk to me, or help me, how your family's trade would force you to harm me and that I would regret my decisions. But I didn't listen.

I think about you and your friend - yes the other one. The one that followed you around, that hung on your every word, that didn't even talk back at you when you accused him of lying. He was slower than you, not a natural leader like you. Unbelievably sweet, but without that charisma that you possess in excess.

I think about saying bye to you and wandering into the gullies of Nizamuddin. How I didn't expect to see you again, but how you waited for me and came to me and then spoke to me. How could I have not expected it? She had told me you would. But there was a part of me that didn't believe her. That didn't want to believe her. I still remember your high-pitched voice. I still wonder whether you had been trained, or whether it was natural. I remember you tapping on my arm, being disgusted at first, but then other instincts sinking in and wanting to do anything I could for you. Of fearing for your safety, of not wanting to be accosted like that time, 10 years ago, in a distant parking lot, at another sacred place. Of telling you to be quiet and to follow me and to wait, and promising. Of getting into the rickshaw. Of you not believing me. Of seeing the hurt in your eyes. Of telling you to come to the other side of the auto and giving you the note, telling you to use it well and to be safe. Of seeing you stare at the note - in some sort of amazement - of looking up, smiling, and running away. I hope you shared with your friend. I hope you bought food. I hope they didn't take it from you, or hurt you because of it.

I hope you're ok.

I wonder if I'll ever see you again.

Khuda Hafiz Ali,

Didi.

If Only My Thesis Were on Food

G'evening folks! Or, shall I say good night? Once again, I'm up during the wee hours of the night (well, wee-ish given my tendency to stay awake until 3/4am. It's only 1am right now), but this time without a paper deadline in sight - and no, my thesis proposal does not count. In fact, I've spent the past 2 hours procrastinating about my readings on Indira Gandhi and the Emergency by surfing through the wonderfulness that is Amazon. I'm still in the process of designing and decorating my new room, and have a couple walls and wall features that I'd love to accentuate. I've always had this fantasy of drawing on my walls, and I found a wonderful dry-erase decal that would fit perfectly on one.

Anyway. This post is not about my new-found-love-for-decorating. Rather, it is about food. Now that my kitchen is set-up and I have access to my pots and pans and spices and pantry and multiple beautiful knives and can actually eat (I went through a month-long phase during which I could barely eat anything), I've been trying to cook wholesome meals for myself. What, you may ask? Multiple types of frittatas, pasta with fresh tomato and red wine sauce (so yummy!), vegetarian fried rice, multiple types of salads and sandwiches (I found the most delicious za'atar the other day and can't stop using it) and so on. Today was supposed to be potato-vegetable patties with wilted greens and some yoghurt/dijon sauce, but two of my friends decided they wanted to go for dinner so I joined them.

Dinner was fun. The two are great people. But the food was ok. The tomatoes in my salad were pretty bad and the pasta was mediocre. I ordered the white mushroom pappardelle with truffle oil. I figured it would be good. It's a pasta that's hard to get wrong. The pappardelle has to be cooked until al dente, and the mushrooms need to be cut and sauteed. That part was fine, but the truffle oil. Sigh. When will chefs learn that truffle oil is heavy and a little goes a long way as far as taste is concerned? You only need a couple drops of that stuff - not a long drizzle. Anyway, I was pretty full after the salad and only ate a small part of my pasta. Which means that I can mend it tomorrow. The mushrooms and the pasta will stay. Excess oil will get washed down the drain. I'll throw some olive oil into my pan, add the pasta and mushrooms with some salt, maybe get some parsley, and enjoy mushroom pappardelle my way. The potato-veggie patties will just have to wait for Thursday...

Right - perhaps back to my readings, but probably to bed...

Night for now.

A Truce of Sorts

There are days, nay months and years, during which we keep on fighting. And then the day comes, suddenly, when we resign ourselves to our fates. The tears no longer flow and our insides no longer seem to spasm violently with every phrase.

It is at this time that we are our strongest. It is at this time that we are at our worst.

This isn't my battle. It's time you fought your own.

Delhi in 18 Hours - Part 1

I was in Delhi two days ago. Having missed the entire tourist experience when I was in the city 10 years ago, I figured I'd use my 18 hour long stop-over in the city (en route to Amritsar from Lucknow) to take in the sights. Being the Mirza Ghalib fan that I am, I decided that his mazaar, along with Nizamuddin Auliya's dargah and the tomb of Aamir Khusrao were on the top of my list. After a quick breakfast of wonderful sandwiches and cold coffee in Jangpura Extension, a trip to the ever-wonderful and oh-so-NRI Khan Market (where I saw some gorgeous Jamini Roy paintings), I hailed an auto and went to Nizamuddin with a friend.

We went through the narrow alleyways and happened on the Ghalib Academy. I'd been looking for it, but had decided I'd wander around and hope to find it, rather than actually ask someone for directions. We went in and I was immediately shocked with how nonchalant everyone was. It was as if they didn't care at all about Mirza-sahab (which they probably didn't), and were just there to earn some money.

Hue mar ke hum jo rusvaa hue kyon na garq-e-darya,
Na kabhi janaaza uthtaa, na kahin mazaar hota.

Immediately upon entering the Ghalib Academy, I was greeted by a stack of books - arranged helter-skelter of course - on a wide variety of subjects. A book of ghazals by Qateel Shifai caught my eye, and I started going through the book, in the hope of finding the words to a beautiful ghazal sang by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

Hum apni shaam ko jab nazar-e-jaam karte hain,
Adab se hum ko sitaarein salaam karte hain.

As I was flipping through the book, a random guy came up to me and asked me what I was looking for. I told him that I was looking for a Qateel ghazal. He responded that he had no idea what I was talking about and that I should buy the Kulliat-e-Iqbal. My entire exchange with him weirded me out. He tried forcing me to buy an English translation, to which I responded that I knew Urdu and how to read the language. He either didn't believe me, or really wanted me to buy the English version, and kept on repeating that I should buy it. To which I, in a frustrated manner, responded that I already had the Urdu Kulliat-e-Iqbal and wasn't going to buy the English version. I then demanded to see the other books, and was taken first to the library (which was full of old Muslim men, who stared in shock when a girl walked into the library) and then to the little museum on the top floor.

The museum was interesting enough. There were some curios from Ghalib's lifetime, paintings of famous poets, paintings of Ghalib, some of his letters, stuff like that. It also looked as if it was kept shut most of the time. It was disappointing to say the list. Annoyed, I got out of there as soon as I could, and went looking for his mazaar.

NB: I was in Delhi on the 13/14th of July.

SarZameen-e-Avadh

Lucknow is beautiful - the streets, the people, the air, the light, the food. I think I'm in love with this city already, and it's only been 4 weeks. My housemates and I wandered around and got lost in Chowk this past weekend. It was amazing. Here are some pictures from our wanderings...

The Great Indian Stare

Ever watched Russel Peters? He has this fantastic one about how all Indians, well desis in general, will stop and stare at other desis on the street, as if in amazement that others exist. We, apparently, haven't got it into our heads that there are actually more than a billion of us on this planet. I fall prey to this constantly, and I know for a fact that other desis do this too.

Anyway. I never really understand why we do it. Having only been here for a couple days, I still haven't figured it out. That being said, today I was subjected to the Great Indian Stare multiplied by 300. I was one of the first to get off the last bus heading to our plane. I walked up the stairs, went into the plane and turned right to walk down the aisle, towards my seat. And all I saw were 150 pairs of male eyes staring at me as if I'd just gotten off a UFO. It was unnerving, but all I could think of was Russel and how he would have loved to be in my position. Laughing, well trying to hide my laughter, I headed to my seat and sat down.

In Vino Veritas - Or Something Like That

I'm currently sitting on the seat of the toilet in my bathroom at the Taj Palace Hotel, New Delhi. Random place to sit and blog - I know. Usually, people sit with the lid up, but that's not my style. I'm sitting like this because I called my language program director last night to ask what time we were heading to the airport for our flight to Lucknow and he told me to be in the lobby by 4:45am. So, the insomniac that I am, I went to bed at midnight and was up by 3:15am (although, I had actually wanted to be up at 4:10am). I finished packing, woke up my roommate in the process (who has to leave the hotel at 7am) and opened the door to take my luggage downstairs. For some random reason, which I can no  longer remember (probably to check the time, because I can't read the time on my analog watch), I looked at my phone. There was a text message from Khan-sahab telling me that we were now meeting in the lobby at 6am. I thought about going back to sleep, but given my fear of being late and knowing that all I'd do is toss and turn, I decided to turn on my laptop. I didn't want to wake-up my roommate again, so decided that the quietest place to type from would be the bathroom.

Yesterday was a pretty awesome day. I was up at 5:45am and then HK (my roommate) and I headed down to breakfast at 7am. We had our language orientation right after breakfast and I got to meet a bunch of the people learning Urdu in Lucknow. Afterwards, I came back to the hotel, made a fool of myself in front of the WiFi help desk (I couldn't figure out why my internet wasn't working - turns out I was putting my room number in the last name box and vice-versa), and relaxed until a friend of mine showed up. We went for coffee in the tea place downstairs and I had this absolutely fantastic "Istanbul coffee." I thought it would be thick, like Turkish coffee, but, instead, it had cardamom powder in it. The server was really sweet and, when we were leaving, came up to me to ask how I had liked the coffee. I replied that it was fantastic and that I had loved the cardamom touch. She was ecstatic and was like, 'Ma'am, can I ask you a question? You're Indian right?' I smiled, and said 'yes.' (Sorry Shalimar and Yogi).

Anyway, so after exchanging some money, which was an experience (good) in itself, my friend and I headed to Hauz Khas. It was so cool! I had no idea there was a mini-lake/reservoir in the middle of the city, and was totally amazed by the greenery. We wandered through the ruins and park near Hauz Khas village, saw Tughlaq's tomb (we think...), and then headed back to the village for dinner/drinks. The place we went to was pretty 'funky,' and it totally didn't feel as if I was in Delhi. As I said to my friend, it could have been in the middle of NYC (the Central Park-esque feeling that I got from the reservoir area totally helped). Anyway, so we decided to try out an Indian wine. I had heard pretty good things about Indian wines and neither of us had tried any. I ordered the Zinfandel. I think his was a Cabernet Shiraz. Anyway. Getting to the point. Our wine arrived and I took my first sip, expecting something good. It was disgusting.

The wine was way too warm, was really acidic, and had a horrible taste that was nothing like Zinfandel. I was mad. One thing I hate, apart from bad service (that's what you get when you grow up in a family that's in the hospitality business - high expectations), is bad food/wine (that's what you get when you grow up in a family that is famous in your community for its great cooks). I debated whether or not to call the waiter and snap at him, or to shut up and share my friend's glass of wine, which according to him wasn't that bad (until he got his whiskey - and then he admitted that his wine had been quite crappy as well). I decided to call the waiter...

He arrived. "Yes ma'am?" The poor guy. I told him off in Hindi and told him the wine was horrible and they had no business serving wine if they didn't know how to serve it, and what temperature to serve it at. He responded, "but ma'am, we can't refrigerate the wine." To which I responded that it didn't matter and that they had to store it properly, otherwise it would turn into shit-wine (which it had). Anyway, he talked to his manager, and they agreed to change our drinks. The Kingfisher was much better.

What was great about the entire exchange though was how it all happened in Hindi and how, by the end of it, the guy was convinced that I was a 'native.' Given the ease with which people here can tell that you're not really one of them, I was surprised and delighted.