Passenger Train

A few weeks ago when I was mid-breakdown, stressing about people and work, my host-sister gave me some words of wisdom. She said there's no need to worry about relationships... our lives are like passenger trains; we are going along on our track of life, we make stops, people come on and off, some staying on just for a few stops while others are on for the whole trip.

A nice sentiment, but I might take it a little further. It's more like our lives are crazy trips in India-- passenger trains for sure, but you can't forget the share-jeeps, the rickshaws, sleeper buses, and tiny airplanes. Our lives are more like the trip Sophia and I experienced from Darjeeling, trying to get back to Delhi for our flight home. After our flight from Bagdogra in West Bengal to Delhi was cancelled due to fog, we decided we would have a better chance of flying out of Calcutta with the weather to catch our flight back to America (which was scheduled for the next night). So we hopped on a bus to Calcutta-- don't worry, it should only take about 12 hours to get there... 15 hours max. You will definitely be able to catch your flight at 2 pm tomorrow.

False. 22 hours later, and a terrible bout of food poisoning that had me vomiting on the side of the road all night while the conductor just said "impossible" when I told him we had to make our flight home, we stumbled into the airport in Calcutta. Missed our flight by 5 hours. After hassling every airline agent, we got the last flight available to Delhi that night, still missing our flight to America by about 2 hours.

So basically, after every type of transportation, hours of weeping on the phone, weeping on the bus, weeping at the counter at the airport, flights were rescheduled and I am now sitting at the Cleveland airport, drinking a coffee that is absolutely absurd (in what world is this a medium sized coffee??? Oh right...). And the people who stuck with me on that journey, the people who refilled rupees on my phone, called the travel agents, and gave me moral support when I was ready to die on that God-forsaken bus, those people are on my passenger train for good.

In case you are feeling sorry for me, don't worry-- I thoroughly enjoyed myself stuffing my face with momos and drinking endless tea in Darjeeling.

There is no way this could cause food poisoning... too delicious

Food Etiquette

Once you’ve gotten used to eating Indian food all day every day, the next step is acclimating to the food culture. But wait, you may say, I can pull off a piece of roti using my thumb and fingers and scoop up some of that curry into my mouth without making a fool of myself. I can tell the difference between yellow daal and black daal and I know that naan and parathas are not the same thing.

You fool! There is so much more to learn.

First of all, you better be prepared to wait. Hungry now? Who cares. You will wait for your friends, your host siblings, your coworkers, that guy you just met, the people you don’t know but are sitting in the office so you better be cordial and wait for them too.

We learned how to share back on Chopatty Beach

Next, you better be prepared to share. And don’t just share your food, you need to offer it up to everyone around you. Oh, no, we won’t eat your food, they say. ASK AGAIN. No, I insist, you must have some. If they still won’t take any, don’t be deceived, they might still want some. Just take some and feed it to them yourself. My coworker and dear friend Malvika gives me endless trouble about how Americans don’t know how to share their food, recounting the tale of how, in my first week in the office, I had some biscuits and didn’t offer them to her. She sat there, wanting my biscuits, so she offered me some of her food in the hopes that I would return the kindness. No, thanks Malvika, I don’t want your food, I have my biscuits. I figured if she wanted one of my biscuits, she would ask. Cultural misunderstanding strikes again.

Some homemade pakoras... because this is a food blog and you
should be jealous of what I'm eating

So here I am, it’s about 3:00 pm, at the office, and I still haven’t eaten lunch. My tiffin (lunch box) is waiting for me in the kitchen, but I will certainly not be eating it now. Yes, I am starving. But I will wait for my friends and coworkers to come back so we can enjoy our food together, mixing all of our sabjis and rotis in a delicious mid day feast. 

Internship

Up till now my time in India has been a lot of consuming and taking: a low-key school time with guest speakers and chai breaks, weekend food adventures, and a whirlwind trip to Baroda, Gujarat and Mumbai where we ate, drank, and had a merry time exploring the cities.

Coming back to Jaipur brought a change in weather (it’s finally cooling down at night!) and a change in purpose. We now have a chance to give back what we’ve learned so far by interning at various non-profit organizations around Rajasthan. After a lecture on food security by Kavita Srivastava (human rights activist-extraordinaire,) I chased her down and asked to intern with her organization, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties.

Kavita at the Irom Sharmilla Protest against the AFSPA Act

Other interns at the protest

Having no expectations, I stumbled into the chaotic and passionate human rights body that is the PUCL, interning alongside a group of Indian law students. The little PUCL office is constantly buzzing with interns coming and going (currently surveying schools around Jaipur to check if they’re really following the Right to Education Laws,) activists and friends of Kavita ma’am stopping by to chat, and other visitors ranging from a poor rural family needing help with a land inheritance feud to Rajasthan court judges.

the Khejri Sarvodaya General Health and Eye Care Center

Running around to things like nuclear safety press conferences and protests in the middle of the street, I’ve learned a new meaning for the term “flexible”. This flexibility has already led me to some pretty cool places around Jaipur, and last week I was fortunate enough to hop on a motorbike at 7:30 in the morning and drive off to a charity-based clinic that focuses on poor women and children’s health. We drove to a rural village nearby where the clinic was doing a general health check up of primary school students. After checking their weight, height, eyesight, and treating other minor maladies, the clinic distributed protein syrup to the children. Somehow I ended up handing out this syrup and giving instructions in Hindi: ek chamach subah, ek chamach sham ko, khana khane ke bad (one spoonful in the morning, one spoonful in the evening, after eating food.)

serving up some protein 

While giving out the protein syrup (and amidst the stunned looks and giggles at my Hindi from the children,) I noticed how undernourished they looked. While at home in America we focus on keeping a balanced and healthy diet, in India I’ve run into very little talk about nutrition. Speaking with the head of the clinic I visited, a German woman who has been living in India for 55 years, she said often these children are only given chai or milk and maybe a biscuit before they go off to school. The lack of nutritional knowledge in these rural settings is staggering, but groups like this clinic are working to change that, starting with youth health education.

It’s been a rough couple of weeks adjusting to long working hours, very little break time, and even less time to keep sampling the array of delicious things India has to offer. It’s Diwali time now, so hopefully someone will bring me some Diwali sweets to keep me going.

The Food Weekend

I say this as if every weekend, every day in fact, has not been about food. It has been. But this weekend we made a special effort to sample some of the more delicious treats Jaipur has to offer. Under special recommendation by our Hindi teacher Rishi ji, Sophia and I embarked on a quest for food greatness.

Our first stop was Shreethal, a thali-lover's paradise. Thalis (plate in Hindi) are basically buffets brought to you ... you are sat down in front of a large plate full of smaller empty bowls, which are quickly filled with a wide array of dishes. Ours included a paneer curry, aloo (potato), daal, beans, a sweet soup, puris, rotis, pakora, chutney, and several things I couldn't even identify. The idea is to eat until you are satisfied (I reached that point... and then went for another round), so the bowls are continually replenished.

Next (and the next day mind you) we sought out the highly recommended and coveted pani puri at a sweet shop called Kanji. Before coming to India, everyone told me I either had to eat pani puri (they are the best) or I absolutely must not eat pani puri (you will surely get sick). Pani puri is a popular street dish that consists of a small puri (a crispy, puffy little fried bread) that is punctured and filled with tamarind, chili, chaat, potato, onion, and other ingredients depending on the recipe. The danger for us travelers is the final touch, the pani (or water) that is spiced and poured into the hollow puri. The vendor then thrusts the fresh pani puri at you, and you eat it immediately, sliding the whole thing into your mouth. You crunch down on the puri and the pani bursts in your mouth in an explosion of sweet and savory flavors. Just when you think it can't get any better, the vendor has made another and it's time for round two. and three. and four. and five.

And boy was the absolute indulgence in a food weekend direly needed. One chink in my emotional stability finally opened the floodgates, allowing India to truly assault me with all her traffic, disorganization, frustration, disappointment, smells, and stares. Oh, the stares. It's as if I am a creature from another universe, as if the people here have literally never seen anyone who looks like me in the history of creation. A passage from Shantaram, an action-filled novel set in Mumbai, puts it quite nicely:

"Foreigners were stared at in India. Somewhere in the five or more millennia of its history, the culture had decided to dispense with the casual, nonchalant glance. By the time I came to Bombay, the eye contact ranged from an ogling gaze to a gawping, goggle-eyed glare. There was nothing malicious in it. The staring eyes that found and followed me everywhere I went were innocent, curious, and almost always friendly. And that intense scrutiny had its benefits: for the most part, people stared at what I was, not what I did. Foreigners were stared at into invisibility" (549)

I can't really quite describe what a city street teeming with people all staring conspicuously at you feels like, I guess you'll just have to come to India and find out yourself. Make sure to take a bite of that pani puri if you do. Try not to get sick.

**all photo credits to my dear Sophia Maes

Bikaner

Bikaner, a dusty little cow and camel-filled town in northern Rajasthan, served as our playground this weekend. Reminiscent of the streets in Aladdin, the Old City is a bustling market of food, sweets, spices, camel shoes, and endless textiles. Things to do and people to see, but not as much of a tourist hot spot as some of the larger cities (made apparent to us by the number of near traffic accidents we caused walking through the streets.) Our adventures included a Camel safari in the desert, strolling through the bazaar in search of cheap fabric, and a night on the town with our new-found Dutch friend Fons. Oh and getting run down on the street by a bull, a scooter ride to a rooftop restaurant by some friendly hustlers, and late night deaf karaoke.

 The weekend (and this entire experience for that matter) could have been exhausting and stressful. Coping with the never-ending bus rides, the not-so-friendly hustlers, and the heat can be rough sometimes, but I always draw solace and rejuvenation from the food. Whether it's a quick onion pakora before a long, dusty auto-rickshaw ride or a free chai from the textile market chai wallah, the food never fails to get me going again. A few intricacies in the food in Bikaner really stood out for me...

We grabbed some mid-morning Gulab Jamun (milk-based cake balls soaked in rose syrup) from a sweet shop in the Old City. After sitting on the street near some cows and taking a few bites of heaven, I found these gulab jamun to be filled with some kind of spices in the center. Running back to the shop to badger the guy behind the counter, I discovered it was some kind of confectionery mix. Stand by for my quest in search of this magical mix.

Later, Sophia and I  stopped at a street side restaurant for a late lunch, pulled in by mutter paneer (a peas and cheese curry) on the menu. The butter naan was what really wowed me here, and after the waiter called together a council of men and cooks in the restaurant (why does it always seem to take 5-10 men to do anything here?) he told me the cook puts black cumin in the naan before throwing it into the tandoori oven. Success.

So a couple fun additions to food to think about. Stay tuned for an Idli Sambar recipe. 

Pav Bhaji

Yesterday was Ganesh Chaturthi, or Ganesh’s Birthday, when just about every Hindu in the world gathers at the Ganesh temple a few blocks away from my home in Jaipur (or at least every Hindu in the area… the queue for the temple stretched far and wide on every side of the temple, all day and all night.) Makeshift shops selling Laddoos (sweets made out of flour and sugar, cooked in ghee and rolled into balls) lined the streets near the temple for an offering to Ganesha and to share with friends and family.

Today, a huge procession of elephants, trucks, dancers, horses, and floats displaying the various Hindu gods and goddesses made an annual trek from the Ganesh temple by the Moti Doongri fort in Jaipur to another temple in the surrounding hills 30 miles away. 

I celebrated Ganesha Chathurti by finally diving into some street food. I went with Pav Bhaji, easily my new favorite food.

Pav Bhaji, a Maharashtra dish, originated in Mumbai in the 1850s. Mill workers used to have too short of a lunch break for a full meal, so the vendors concocted a spicy blend of various items on the menu into one potato-based blended vegetable curry, aka the Bhaji. Pav, a fluffy roll that is coated with butter and fried, replaced the customary roti or rice to eat with the curry. This was quicker to eat and lighter than the average meal, necessary considering the workers had to jump back into hard labor. After its initial introduction into the mill scene, Pav Bhaji caught on throughout Mumbai and eventually made its way into the hearts and stomachs of city-dwellers around India, becoming a popular street food meal.

So now that you know this heavenly feast exists, you can be jealous that I will definitely be eating this every day (a perfect mid-afternoon snack… especially since dinner isn’t served until 8:30 or 9.) Stay tuned for the recipe, my host mom makes a mean Pav Bhaji and I am determined to bring this part of India home with me. 

 

Chai

Living in India has me already adjusting to certain daily rituals, such as actively trying not to be struck by vehicles on the street as I walk to school and eating only with my right hand (do not ask me about the left hand, trust me you don’t want to know.) One of the most satisfying staples is chai, which continuously runs through my veins at the rate I consume it. Chai in the morning, a chai break after our first class (our schedule actually says “chai break” from 11:00 am – 11:15 am), chai after lunch, chai in the evening, chai all day long. You can’t walk into someone’s house without them pushing a cup of chai into your hand.

Chai serves an important social role in Indian culture, but pre-British colonialism tea leaves mainly functioned as an herbal medicine. It wasn’t until the East India Company started providing its factory and textile workers with black tea that chai became popular and widespread. Much to the Company’s distress (and much to my enjoyment) chai wallahs and vendors started spicing up the tea and adding more milk and sugar, decreasing the amount of tea leaves they had to buy from the Company. So a double win.

A triple win is the fact that my host mom Rekha ji makes without a doubt the best chai I have ever had. I will fight anyone to the death who says otherwise. And lucky for you I have the recipe.

Start by boiling one and a half tea cups of water, then add three heaping teaspoons of sugar. Next toss in nearly two teaspoons of black tea (any standard kind… Red Label, whatever.) Now comes the key ingredient, a delightful mixture of spices Rekha ji has prepared. It consists of dried ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, and black pepper. Add a large pinch of this to the boiling tea. Finally pour in about one and a half teacups of milk… continue to boil this for a few more minutes, about five to ten mins in all. Strain into an adorable chai cup. Now drink and be amazed.