Off the map Himachal Pradesh

I had trained, packed and prepared for 15,000 Ft ASL. It was the magic of Rupin Pass that beckoned me to cross over its ridges. 

The trip started in Dehra Dun. This was the second time I was coming back to the Doon valley, having come here for the Kedarkanta trek in 2007 in the month of May, a full month before the present trip and it was hot and dirty to say the least. There was a certain charm about the place in 2007 and in 2014 the weather and the place itself resembled some over populated place on the plains, of course back then the ‘city’ was not a capital of a state and now it didn't feel like a valley in the Himalayas. A steep price paid by nature for a measly gain for one species.

The first overnight stop to Rupin pass was at a tiny hamlet Dhaula in Uttrakhand, which was in the middle of everything nice. Mountains on 3 sides, Tons river flowing by on one side with a beautiful bridge over the river visible from the over reach of the village. This also was where the road ended, literally. It’s almost a given, ‘where the road ends, trek begins.’

The drive from Dun to Dhaula itself is a journey worth undertaking almost independent of the trek. Once out of the ‘city’, the roads grow narrower, the hold of nature stronger and air chillier. We passed through Mussoorie, without as much as a pause for a single click, a very famous hill station that people throng to and I didn't even make an effort to pick up the camera, If Mussoorie were a person, she would have been offended for sure.

We passed through many villages on the way, our course running almost parallel to the river Tons or Tamsa.  There is a theory as per which Tons is supposed to be the long lost Saraswati. Millennia ago, she ran parallel to Yamuna and then due to tectonic changes, her course altered and she merged with Yamuna, becoming her tributary. She meets Yamuna near Dehra Dun and drains in more water into Yamuna than Yamuna herself brings. The greenish tinge of the river Tons is very soothing to look at as she meanders her way through the mountains, widening her width at times as she moves along at a saintly gait and then narrowing down at places and rushing along complaining as more water gushes into narrower space.

We ascended and then descended many mountains, always coming back to meet Tons at the valley. We saw picture card perfect terraced farms on the opposite mountain faces with tiny hamlets bordering the farms. It looked as if the crop had been colour coordinated, it looked so pretty, and tiny houses that sat like guardians on the edge of the farms. We passed by Purola where sweet lassi made of fresh curd, ‘imported  from the plains’ coconut burfi and a refined flour ‘matri’ made my lunch.

We entered the precincts of the Govind Pasu Wildlife Sanctuary of Uttrakhand and passed by Naitwar, which is famous for a temple dedicated to Karna, the eldest of Kunti’s sons. A detour from an old friend, lovely town of Sankri,  which had been the base camp for the Kedarkanta trek, lovely Deodar tree lined roads later after a 10 hour see-saw ride we reached the ‘end of road’. A crossing of the bridge and an uphill climb brought us to Dhaula, where humans shared the place with high altitude preferring Eurasian Blackbirds and Crested Kingfishers.

The 2 rooms on the 1^st floor vacated for us had photos of Gods pasted around the circumference of the room, intervened in places by photos of Bollywood demigods.  A short walk from here to fill up our bottles brought us to a bridge where the river Rupin thundered down a few feet through a gashing hole that the pressure of the water had carved out for itself. A little time spent packing, unpacking and wondering where some of the essential rouge items had disappeared to and we were all set for the trek the next day. The bit of spare time in the day light was spent sharing 'chaklis' with our village neighbours and with the horses as they strengthened up for carrying our bags the next day. A few us watched enthralled as a Crested Kingfisher whose mate had flown off a distance sat 10 feet from us on a Deodar branch and sang to his mate, but unable to impress a return, flew off to join her.  The first time ever I saw a Crested Kingfisher and was almost inclined to believe that I was looking at a black and white Hoopoe. The pleasure of going to these places which is nowhere near anywhere is the unexpected that seizes your every moment if only one would keep the senses awake.

The next day we started our trek. The trek that day had a fair share of climbs, a glimpse of things to come, after all we were just at 6,000 Ft ASL and we had to get to 15,000 Ft ASL in 6 days time. The day started hazy and soon enough a light drizzle was about us, but we could still see enough of the villages and the cultivated patches on the opposite side to admire it. I passed by an old lady who wanted medicine for tummy ache but since most of us were just carrying a day pack, we didn't have any tablets on us, when I told her that, she wanted the jade pendent I was wearing. It saddened me, what had ‘civilisation’ done to the people of the mountain, of what use would the jade be to her?

We stopped at a even tinier hamlet where the lady of the house served us hot tea in long brass glasses made on a wood stove. The tea drinkers savoured the hot tea having come out of a damp patch. As the tea warmed the inside, the clouds parted to warm the outside. The rain gears packed, we continued to trek passing through some glorious sights, a near vertical mountain face with sheep grazing on it, a majestic Himalayan Griffin that hovered above and huge trees that made me wonder what they were. Our path also took us close to a thick Deodar forest, which we had been told was to be our refueling point but we bypassed it to quench our hunger some place else.

En route we met a few villagers going about their daily affairs and covering distances that we would have covered in 2 days in just a few hours.  Some were friendly, some a little distant. One of the ladies I met was especially chatty and I had a very pleasant conversation with her. She had gone to visit her mother and was now going back to her husband’s home. Her mother had cooked breakfast and her mother-in-law would cook the dinner, she probably didn't realise she was luckier than many of her city counterparts. We walked a KM together sharing tit-bits from each other’s life. It doesn't take too much for 2 people from 2 different places to strike a conversation if only one has a little inclination and interest to compare notes.

As we neared the village Sewa, the last village in Uttrakhand on the border of Himachal Pradesh, the quintessential single layered white rose bushes greeted us with its lovely hue and fragrance. The children also greeted us with requests for chocolates. We trekkers are ‘outsiders,’ why had we meddled with their life style? The entire path was littered with chewing gum packets. Why had the fig chewing people taken to chewing something which had no benefits at all? Or did they feel the need to look ‘hep’ chewing the gum?

We reached the Sewa village and a short climb brought us to a 2 storied building that was to be our rest point for the night. After lunch, followed immediately by some flavoured drink followed by pakoda and tea, we assembled in the open space for some ‘fun and learn.’ The ‘how to pack your trek bag’ left most of us astounded, the message was clear, take an hour to pack your bag and feel easy on the trek or pack as you will and feel the burden of the back-pack every step of the way. An easy decision but a tuff choice.

The local lads entertained us with cricket played with a ball made of cloth. A hard core of tightly wrapped cloth and a top layer of red cloth neatly stitched with white thread. An environment friendly, cruelty free, economical alternate to the leather and cork balls, which brings us to another pertinent question, why do we feel they are missing out something in life playing with the local hand-made ball? Why do we feel sorry for the villagers for improvising and making-do with local items? And another question to ponder upon, why even the trekkers supposedly inclined towards nature not understand this simple fact? What is called for on treks with regards to the local populace is empathy not sympathy. We go there seeking something that is lost in cities we come from, who should be sympathizing with whom? Let’s not feel patronizing to the extent of having those hand-made balls replaced with rubber and leather balls that will last long after civilization is gone, nor let us be condescending to the extent of thinking they are no better than animals to live in houses like those and to play with balls like those. Harsh words but bitter truth. By the way, those balls were a mix of precise engineering and art, each ball weighed exactly 100 grams.

Another night spent in a room full of posters of Gods and the ‘demis’, the proportion of demigods to the Gods increasing by almost the same proportion as that of the number of houses in Sewa to number of houses in Dhaula. More people, more the need for entertainment or more the need to comply with the crowd?

A highlight of our trip to the village was a visit to the village temple. The temple made of Deodar logs interlaced with slate stones was an impressive structure. It had the trophies won by the village cricket team over the years and was adorned with coins that people had pushed into the crevices. The idol of the goddess is circulated between the various village temples, each village hosting the goddess for a year. An ingenious system of keeping comradeship between the villages alive in the remote mountain region.

The next day we set across for the village of Bauta across the border in Himachal Pradesh. The trek path went through remote forest, so remote that even the chewing gum wrappers became scare and so quiet that it felt like we were in another world. We walked parallel to river Rupin, whose flow defined the boundary between the 2 states.

As we moved closer to our destination for the day, we moved along from mountain to mountain, coming down to the valley, following the course of the river upstream as we walked with a good friend for a while sharing secrets only to part way again, as we ascended.

A wrong path chosen and we took a longer route through villages, getting to see how as villages came closer the presence of polythene increased. The waste lying like a sleeping dragon, strengthening with every addition, bidding it’s time to raise it’s head and strike. There was also a path for the used water to flow down, the underbelly of the village.

We passed by another village temple, women working in their wheat fields, how I wished to break my trek there, lend them a hand, live their life at least for a day, but time, path and my trek lead beckoned me to move on.

We were now a good 200 feet from the river and ascending, all the while walking on a narrow motorable path cut out into the mountain parallel to the river. A snow clad far-off mountain seemed like a bridge between the mountain we were on and the mountain on the other side of the river. We passed by a beautiful water falls, where many of us rested and shared a sweet lime, an abandoned stone structure where we posed for photos and a flock of sheep that grazed on the mountain. Every few steps gave us a different angle of the river, there were certain places from where we could see the length of the river down stream, deep into the far away mountains. Then began our ascent through an almost vertical face of the mountain. It was a lung challenging climb in the afternoon on a narrow winding path. At 3/4th of the way, a calf began to follow us, we stood aside to let him pass and comically when we stopped to let him pass, he would put his head down to eat. There were 4-5 kids sitting at the top of the mountain and shouting. We assumed it was their calf, as we got closer to them, they even came down and chased the calf up the mountain only for us to eventually realise that the calf wasn't theirs.

At the top of the mountain was the village Bauta. We passed by a beautiful 2 storied house, where cows housed on the ground floor peeped out of their huge windows. Our house for the day had a field adjacent to it with a local food grain of reddish leaves interlaced with green potato leaves which looked like a carpet that beckoned us to sit down on it.

We spent the evening going around the village, meeting the villagers, passing by granaries the size of a garage with lovely locks on them, the local shop where the shopkeeper showed us the ubiquitous 'ball-in-progress', the villagers involved in their everyday activities - women going about their work, a couple of them carrying heavy stones on their back while kitting a sweater for the winter as they walked on, an old lady grinding the feared 'bichoo booti', the stinging 'scorpion herb' to feed the cows and many were about with their little one's in the evening, chatting and catching up with other ladies of the village, of course our presence there was also a source of excitement for them. Men were conspicuous by their absence, many we were told were on the mountains collecting medicinal herbs that sold for handsome amount of money, well supplementing their income.

We spent time with a person who patiently answered our questions about the ways of the villagers, how they stocked up for winter when they would be snowed out for a good 3 months at the very least, how they helped one another with the house construction and repairs, how lack of medical facilities was a challenge. So many things that we just take for granted in the cities came by the hard way. Every piece of stone and wood that went into the house was collected from the forest, transported over their own backs, every blade of grass for the cows, collected from the mountains in huge baskets.

We made our way back to our house munching fresh peas that a villager gave us by handfuls from her farm.
That was my last day en route Rupin. The next day I had to retrace my steps back to the motorable road down the steep decline, past the calf still guarding the approach to the village.

We took a Himachal transport bus, passing small villages, carrying twice the number of people it should have been carrying especially given the narrow roads but the jourrney was beautiful, lovely snow clad mountains all along, Deodar forests with rhododendrons, through to the top at 12,300 Ft ASL passing Chanshal pass (Chanshal peak is the highest peak in Shimla district) with lovely mountains visible all around and with beautiful white snow lying intermittently that the fellow passengers on the bus gorged on. Then down the mountain to the valley passing by various rivers. Our 7 hour journey ended in the town of Rohru at 5,100 Ft ASL on the river Pabbar, a tributary of Tons. Rohru is known for its quality apples. A walk in the evening to the river where a lovely swinging wooden bridge made up the passage for the villagers connecting the 2 sides of the river. The town was a small place in the lap of Himalayas but the activity all around was a mimic of the city. The waste being burnt by the municipality right on the river bed, sewage being drained into the river, garbage dumped into the river over the bridge on the road. How long before nature gave up her fight?

The next day another journey on a state road transport bus brought us to Rampur Bushar, at above 3,300 Ft ASL in Shimla district on the banks of river Sutlej. Bushar was a principality under the British rule and in 1948 joined the Indian union. A town with lovely buildings, a legacy of the English occupation, couple of old temples, legacy of Mahabharata times, built by the Pandawas on their exile. The temple of Narasimha, the Lion headed man, an incarnation of Vishnu, was being renovated and not being under the Archaeological society of India (ASI)  the villagers took up the renovation to redo the entire wooden structure of pillars and ceiling all around the sanctum sanctorum.  This would have never happened under ASI with their policy of preserving monuments as they find it. A bit of street food, a bit of shopping for the local wool coats and we left the place the next day for a place recommended by a restaurant owner. Rampur and the surrounding area, as does the entire region has a lot of hydro electric projects, probably as ill-planned and stressing the environment as the ones in Uttrakhand which caused such damage just a year ago in 2013.

Another lovely journey in a state transport bus of about 3 hours for just 30 Kms brought us to a tiny town of Bagipul in the Kullu district. A local SUV hired from here for the 11 km journey up the mountain to Sarahan - Baga Sarahan at Rs 700 made its lonesome journey which would have impressed any trekker returning from a trek to a beautiful un-touched place, so beautiful was this journey. If you are a traveler, I highly recommend this place at 7,500 Ft ASL for a beautiful holiday in the midst of unspoilt greenery. A huge, beautiful  meadow on one side surrounded by rising mountains and the town of Sarahan on the other side. The journey was worth it just to sit down in the meadow watching the cows grazing blissfully. There are just a couple of buses plying to the village other than a van carrying milk from the place to the villages below. There is a lovely school at the edge of the meadow, all the children of nearby villages trek up the mountain to reach the school. And surprisingly there is a basic but nice guest house as well, reason enough to spend a couple of days at the very least. There is also a beautiful PWD guest house, but if you don't have the permission letter to stay there, don't bother with it.

The details of the private guest house:
Mr Narotlam Singh Dogra

VOP Baga Sarahan, Bagipul, Tehsil Nirmand,District Kullu, Himachal Pradesh 172002.

You can contact Mr Dogra on 9459748873, 9816048741 or 9418478104.

This place is also very close to the Great Himalayan National Park, which in June 2014 was listed as a UNESCO world heritage site. A trek up the mountain on the meadow would bring one to Gushaini which is one of the entrances to the park. A road connecting Gushaini to Sarahan is on the cards. 

From the Jharani matha temple in the meadow, past huge trees that dwarfed everything except the mountain around, through fields of wheat, garlic and onions and the houses huddled together at the other end brought us to another lovely temple in the village.

We left the place with a heavy heart to spend a day in Shimla, a long journey via Rampur. The road from Rampur to Shimla is much wider being the national highway No. 22, which connects all the way to Tibet, beyond Rampur. Still a distance of just 125 Kms took over 5 hours. Every turn, brought us upon a different view, of valleys with rivers, farms on the slopes, towering mountains blanketed by deciduous trees, each demanding a photo to be taken. Having spent so many days on the mountains in no way curtailed the temptation of clicking another photo and then yet another. Mid way, we passed Narkhonda pass at 8,885 Ft ASL which reminded me of my missed tryst with another pass. Surrounded by the Shivalik range and in the middle of Apple territory, which reaps in a total income of Rs 30,000 Million today all thanks to an American, Mr Satyananda Stokes who in 1916 brought in a variety of apple suitable for the climate of the region from US and thereby brought economic independence to a whole region long before the country gained independence, the cause for which he threw his weight behind. Do google up Mr. Stokes' life story. There are many a cherry tree visible from the road as many Apple farmers are shifting to Cherry farming which brings in quick money.

To cut a long story short, We left the 7,200 Ft ASL situated Shimla the very next day, the excess crowd over the weekend was definitely a factor in the decision. Next day, we journeyed to Solan, a district headquarters at a height of 5,200 Ft ASL, a quaint town very close to the Punjab, Haryana border. The couple of standouts of this place for me were the Soolani matha temple and the market place which came alive in the evening. It was almost like the whole town was gathered there for the evening, buying and bargaining everything from pickles, sweaters to cloths. Being one among the local crowd felt nice unlike the tourist bustle of Shimla that I hated. Solan is the 'mushroom city' of India having a lot of mushroom farms around as well as the Directorate of Mushroom Research. This place is also associated with Pandawas who stayed here on their exile.  

The next day we boarded the Shimla-Kalka hill train and made our way out of the lovely Himachal Pradesh. There is even as of today only one thought in my mind as I recollect the beautiful place - this 'off the map' Himachal is far from over.

A Request: If you are the mineral water drinking, coke needing, comfort seeking holidaymaker, please strictly stay on the map.  

The entire holiday I drank the water from the rivers, filled my water bottle from taps in public places, drank the water being served at restaurants and did not fall sick. The places off the map are still unpolluted despite everything.  Let us not contribute to making it otherwise. 

The beauty of small scale

The concepts of economies of large scale, fast food are not exactly fading away but slowly there seems to be a growing realisation at least amongst the saner lot, that those might after all not be the ideal and definitely not the only way of doing things.

Upping the scale of operation does pull down the overall costs, making it affordably available to more people but it also gives rise to evils that in the juncture we are at today, environmentally, we need to sit back and think.

Larger farms lead to ever increasing use of chemicals, pesticides, genetically modified seeds, and various other technologies that wrangles out all the good from the land,eventually making the land unfit for cultivation. Pick up an atlas today and it will have a map on 'desertification.' Argument supporting cultivation on large scale to support a growing population is incorrect as even with the larger farms there are still ever growing number of hungry tummies.  

The answer to this evil is going back to how it used to be done - small scale, owner-operated, organic farms. Grow what you need and just about as much as you need. Russia passed an act in 2003, The Bovine, Russia’s Private Garden Plot Act, which entitles individuals to a small piece of land free of cost to cultivate it for their own food needs, free of tax. This is working so effectively there that more than half the food need of the country is being met by this and this in a country where only 1/3rd of a year is available for agriculture. 

The economies of scale have made a horror story of the dairy, wool, meat, poultry, leather industries. PETA's July 2014 video shot in an Australian sheep farm will leave one nauseated and terror struck. Animals have been used by us through our evolution but never before have the animals become a piece of machinery. 

When good presentation skills, communication skills can be a necessity for getting into client & management facing jobs, why can't compassion be a requirement for another species handling job? In a large scale operation, amidst all the operational costs, marginal costs and profits how will one plot in compassion into the equation? Anyway common sense is not a requirement for any job and that explains why the rest does not fall in place.

It is imperative now with all the havoc our ruthlessness has caused all around to the environment that we reassess our priorities keeping in mind the long term continuity of our planet and of our species. So till someone comes up with a solution to favourably treating the excess greenhouse gases, till someone finds a genie who can give us another sustainable source of energy, can we not do the other small doable things that will buy us some time?

Small is beautiful, slow is lovely and I hope commonsense prevails on the law makers of the world, and on us the common people. 

Horseshoe crab and the curse of the blue blood

Being blue blooded in the human world ensures a safe passage through life. But it is this blue blood which has put a creature more ancient than the crocodile at risk of being exterminated today.

Horseshoe crabs are not crabs but belong to the spider and scorpion family. They have been around since before the dinosaurs came on stage and would have outlived the Homo sapiens if not for their blue blood.

Horseshoes have this blue coloured copper based blood which has amazing properties of fighting off bacteria. Millions of years of evolution ensured that in the absence of an immune system (meaning, its body was not designed to be able to generate anti-bodies to fight off infections), any bacteria that came in contact with the horseshoe was dealt with by generating coagulating fluids around the bacteria, thereby inactivating it. This simple system of gelling around the bacteria, viruses and fungi formed a physical barrier against further entry and spread of infection, while the damage from initial infection recovers, thus ensuring the survival of the horseshoe in the bacterium rich waters that it resides in. This works even on endotoxin bacterium, the kind which survive even steralisation.

And this is the magical property that humans discovered in the 1960's and started using it to meet their own end. Today, the pharma and medical devices industry claim that using the horseshoe's blood for testing for contamination is the most reliable and easy way, meaning it is the cheapest way of ensuring contamination free products.

Horseshoes are caught from their habitats in millions and brought to labs, where a needle to the heart forces a donation of 30% of its blood. The horseshoes collected from all over the place is then released in one go at a place. As if the abduction and heart piercing were not traumatic enough, horseshoes released at a place other than where they were picked up plays havoc with their breeding pattern, as like turtles the horseshoes go back to the beaches where they were born to deposit their eggs. The mortality rate of this entire exercise is around 15%. Add to this, the further damage due to breeding disturbance and habitat loss and the risk is truly 'species threatening'. The survival rate of horseshoes in a 'non human interfering scenario' is just 30 hatchlings out of a million eggs making it into adulthood. How will the horseshoe recompense  this loss? How will they make up for the sudden fall in numbers when it took iterations over millions of years to get the survival rate to as high as 30 in a million? A species that lived since before the dinosaurs came along are at the brink of extinction today.

The Horseshoes are just one example of our selfish drive. Why does everything that we humans touch turn to dust?  When are we going to realise what irreversible, irreparable damage we are doing to nature all around us? There are indications everywhere of the imbalance that we have caused and yet we continue to look confounded with the cause and effect staring in our eyes. We are the only species that destroys the very surrounding on which our life depends. Everything in nature is linked to one another, what goes around comes around and our turn is coming.

We continue to bicker about and procrastinate decisions to address climate change. We are finding newer ways of laying the forests and mountains around us waste. We cannot seem to give up our 'comforts', no matter what the cost, (am thinking of the trend of picking up one polythene per vegetable at the departmental store). Just imagine, something so limited like petroleum being turned into polythene with no sight of an alternate energy source.

You just wait it out Horseshoes, the writing on the wall is pretty clear, we are going to self destruct very soon, it might take about a couple of centuries for earth to recover and then you can carry on with your lives with the homo sapiens gone the way of the dinosaurs. 

Cricket is dead, long live Cricket.

A disclaimer to start with. I am not and never have been a student of Cricket, so I claim no technical expertise of the game, but one does not need to know the nuisances of a language's grammar to speak it right, over a period of time one just knows if something is wrong without necessarily being able to explain the 'why' and 'what'.

There is definitely something amiss about this game of late. The benchmark of this game for centuries had been a 2 innings a side match. Where every ball was played to its merit. To me the sweetest tune was not a beautifully executed boundary but a straight bat defence of a ball aimed at the middle stump. Anyone can swing the bat and with a little luck pack the ball off the park, but it takes years of practice that comes of being dedicated to be able to defend a good ball. This attitude and skill has fallen prey to the 20:20 mindset.

The minimum score these days in a ODI seems to be in the vicinity of 350. That is at the rate of one more than the number of balls in an over. With this trend, the first casualty is the game and the second is the already brittle confidence of the bowlers. Is boundary the destination of every ball? Should our every action be directed at making more money? When should one enjoy life, if not as we live it? When should the player stop and smell the roses (or the ball) if not as he plays the game?

The mantra now is to by hook and crook get the most out of every ball and in pursuit of this goal, there are shots being played that are probably making the likes of Bradman turn in his grave. The bat swung above the head like a mace  - Helicoptor shot - more like a blind man shooting in the dark. The sweep shot*, where a right handed player reverses the grip on the bat to play it like a left handed player and probably vice versa. The scoop shot, where the batsman, all else having failed, tries to scoop the ball like lifting a fly out of his drink and chucking it behind him, except imagine a gigantic cup, a monstrous fly and a desperate cricketer. There are other shots so ridiculous that they haven't been christened yet.

If a batsman with a good footwork and a sensible repertoire of shots plays these 'unorthodox' shots it is hilarious but for a mediocre cricketer who is bent on getting the runs no matter how, all he will be left with is the theatrics of those shots which will soon cease to be funny. The end result of the game cannot justify the sacrifice made to cornerstone aspects of the game like footwork and defence.

A 20:20 match is not cricket but an entertaining show. With the 20:20 mindset being carried over to ODI's as well, they too are turning into meaningless extravagant Bollywood productions. Where will the debacle cease? What of the sanctity of the game?

*Apparently, this is not a sweep shot but its called 'switch it'.

The Hammerhead worm and comprehension of my madness

For me the very best part of childhood was being surrounded by mysteries. The ability to be surprised and the inability to comprehend many things around me just added to the magic of childhood. As a child, from hearing the crocking of the frogs to discovering a new flower held as much joy as unwrapping a gift. I still remember my reaction to hearing of the solar system for the first time. I just didn't believe my father, I didn't say it to him, but for a very long time I thought he had been joking.

As we grow, we lose the ability to be amazed and with the keeping up of the pretension of knowing everything, we stop questioning and there stops the 'discovering'. It is like a child looking at a cuckoo clock and wondering where the cuckoo goes when he is not out signing, how does the cuckoo know the time and is never ever late to sing in the new hour. But the same cuckoo clock does not challenge our imagination anymore as we grow up.

In defense of the grown ups it wouldn't be wrong to say that because we don't discover new things everyday, our ability to imagine and our fancies soon settle down. But the things that interested one as a child continue to interest later in life, I still enjoy seeing a beautiful butterfly, love the song of the cuckoo. But now it doesn't quite hold the punch as seeing a butterfly for the very first time and wondering what it is, or hearing the cuckoo for the very first time, those first time experiences were soul felt and the later one's just heart felt.

So it was with very great pleasure that I saw a worm the other day for the first time in my life. Not in some remote place (like the huge palm sized moths I saw in Aizwal) or in some other country, (like the cross shaped centipede in the forest on Tioman islands, Malaysia- I couldn't find this fellow on Google, but am sure it was a centipede) I found this worm right at my door step.

I have lived within almost the same latitude all my life, geographically speaking. And yet there is this tiny species whose existence was a total surprise to me. The 2 inch worm was like an earthworm albeit of a much darker shade but as slimy looking. What was remarkable about him though was his head. It was shaped like a fan.

Google was gracious enough to process my search for a 'fan headed worm' and give me the entire bio-data of the fellow. He was a Land Planarian or a Flatworm or a Hammerhead worm. He feeds on earthworms and the way he goes about doing it is a ready-to-use-script for a horror film. There are videos and tried & tested sure-shot methods on how to kill these worms. Even if I had googled the worm before I gave him a lift to my garden, I still couldn't have brought myself to kill him. But I did say a silent prayer for the earthworms in my garden.

Discussing the worm (in all its gory detail) is not the intention of this post. But this tête-à-tête with the worm helped me understand myself. I finally understand why I am drawn to the heights of the mountains and the oceans. (I would like to say depths of the ocean, but I have never done anything other than snorkeling and sea-walking) I understand why I have to have to have an atlas in my bedroom and I understand why I picked up birding and why I love nature so much.

I long to rediscover the thrill of being able to be confounded, astounded and astonished by new places, new colours (am thinking of a maple forest in winter and underwater corals) new lives and different ways of living.

I now know why I can't make the short journey to the book closet to pick up the atlas. I need to have it within 'tolerable distance' for me to find the joy of seeing a place on the map as I read about it or see it on TV.

I now understand why I make long journeys to watch birds in their habitat and why I get so exited as I pass by ponds. I want to see the baby Purple Moorhens waltzing between mama's legs, I want to see once more the crested kingfisher dive bomb into the water to catch its meal. I want them to be a part of my life even if it is only for a few moments, the memories linger on for ever.

Some things in my life are an addiction not because I cannot do without them but my happiness depends on them and my existence defined by them.  

Holige, Obattu, Puran Poli

I definitely don't want this blog to be turning into a food blog, but after having relished this wonderful delicacy all my life, when I finally learnt to make it, I couldn't help putting it down as a post.

It is cooked primarily in the Indian states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Maharashtra and Gujarat. Its pretty much like a sweet cousin of stuffed paratha. It is called by different names in different places, made with different fillings and of different ingredients for the outer layer, served with varied accompaniments. And the taste does not just vary with the region or ingredients, it varies from preparer to preparer with the same ingredients.

At least in Karnataka, it isn't served as a typical dessert, after a meal, rather a meal begins with this. Logically makes sense as a dessert filled with calories is something you need to hold back on, but this is such a delight and made on occasions that it makes sense to have it first, satiate your taste buds, senses and tummy and then figure out what you would like to top it up with, in the tummy ofcourse.

Holige made of lentil, also has a by-product. Holige saaru or rasa, that literally matures like wine, the older the better.

Here's for the recipe.

For the filling:

Togari bele / Toor dal - 1 cup

Jaggery (work on jaggery with a knife, till you have shavings of it) - 1 cup

Kadle bele/chana dal - less than a quarter cup

Cardamom for taste

For the outer layer:

Maida/ Refined flour - Half cup

Chiroti rave / Fine Samolina - Half cup

Oil - Less than quarter cup

A pinch of salt

Filling:

 - Wash Toor and chana dal and cook it with sufficient water so that its entirely soaked. Boil this until the dal is soft. This should take about 10 minutes.

 

 - Strain the excess water into a bowl, also squeeze off the excess water as too much moisture will make the filling soggy. Keep this precious water and a little cooked dal aside to make rasa later.

 

 - To the cooked dal, add jaggery and a bit of cardamom powder and cook it for a while longer so that the jaggery and the daal come together.

 

 - Cool this mixture and grind it into a paste. It doesn't take too long to grind, as the mixture is already soft. The filling is now ready. At this point, it can be eaten as such.

Outer layer:

If the filling is made of all things nice, the outer layer is the evil. Wheat flour can be used instead of refined flour but am not sure of how the soft filling can be worked into a covering of wheat flour dough. But for the record, it can be done.

 - Mix the refined flour and 'fine semolina' together with a pinch of salt into a dough with water. Then add in generous amount of oil, so the oil floats a little at the edges.

 - Leave it to rest for a good 1 hour.

The coming together:

It is not so much 'coming together' as it is 'coaxing together'.

 

 - Take a couple of square plantain leaf cut-outs, wash it and slightly warm the inner side (the side on which food is served, or the smoother side) on a tava/flat pan, so it doesn't burn later when its put on the tava with the holige. 

 - Before you start this process, chuck your calorie-consciousness out of the window as you would be continuously using oil - dipping your fingers into it (so the dough doesn't stick to your hand), smearing oil onto the leaf before working on every holige, pouring a little on the tava before you put in every holige on the tava.

 

 - Take a little of the dough with your oiled fingers, it can be worked on either the palm or directly on the leaf so as to spread it into a thin layer. No rolling pin will work, instead you can place another oil smeared leaf on top of it and press on the dough over the leaf so the dough spreads out.

 

 - Take a little of the filling, work it into a round shape, place it on the spread and pull up the edges of the spread to cover the filling entirely. Turn it over (if possible, without damaging the shape too much), pat it with a little oil, put the other leaf on top, work with your fingers over the leaf to spread it. With so much oil, the leaf, the holige, fingers all work together without sticking. The holige should be around 5 mm thick, not thicker, but if you can work it thinner, then go ahead and pat your self with those oily fingers that worked the magic.

 

 - Remove the top leaf and pick up the leaf with the spread out holige on it and place the leaf holige side facing down on an oil treated pan.

 

 - Use a dosa stick to separate the holige from the leaf.  Drip a little oil over the holige and carefully turn it over once the side on the pan has cooked. Once the other side turns brown too, take the holige off the pan. The holige is ready to be eaten.

Serve it with just ghee/clarified butter. It is also eaten with milk poured on top of it, it makes it all mushy so I don't like it with milk. A mixture of gasgase/khus-khus/ground poppy seeds, grated coconut and jaggery ground together is also eaten with holige. But to me, holige by itself is such a complete food, I think the accompaniments are really redundant.

 

Now for the rasa or holige sambar.

 

You will need:

Cooked toor dal

Water from the cooked toor dal,

Couple of big spoons of freshly grated coconut

Shallow fried and ground onion, garlic, turmeric powder, whole coriander & cumin seeds. Add in tamarind to this while grinding it.

A little Jaggery

Sambar powder

Salt

 

Put all the above ingredients together and let it boil for a good while. Hold back on the salt you add to this, as every time its boiled it turns saltier. This is quite a mystery to me.

 

Easy cooking for first time chefs

I haven't been cooking for too long, although as far as I can remember I have been venturing into the kitchen once in a while to cook up something when the fancy would catch me. But way back then, it didn't really matter how it turned out as a couple of enthusiastic souls viz my father and Sunny, my dog would eat it up, not sure if they said a prayer before eating it. And of course the cleaning up was never my concern.

 

Since then I have come a long way and now cooking is a very serious affair as two souls depend on it. But luckily, Master Chef Australia to start with and a couple of other food related programmes on Fox traveller have taken the whole food related experience to a different level for me, so much so that now cooking is a matter of great pleasure.

 

Here are a few of my favourites and they are all easy to cook. I haven't listed out the ingredients and its quantity but spices is generally about 1 table spoon. Add half a table spoon of Chilli powder and supplement this after tasting, the same goes for salt. Onions and tomatoes lend not just taste to the dish but also volume and so any No. is OK really. Oil is almost always just 2 Tsps, add some more if you wish.

 

Rasam:

Drink it by itself on a cold day or mix it with boiled rice. This, when drunk hot, is excellent for any throat ailment. 

 

Wash firm red tomatoes and put it in boiling water for 5 minutes. Once it cools down the skin can be easily removed. Grind the de-skinned tomatoes once cool. If its still difficult to peel then the tomatoes need to go back into the boiling water for a while longer.

 

Heat pan, add couple of spoons of oil, then add mustard to the hot oil, followed by asofiotida. The mustards should splutter, only then will it float on the rasam and it will splutter if the oil is hot enough. Add green chilli, ginger and garlic - all crushed together. Add the tomato paste and dilute it to preferred consistency. Add salt, rasam powder, turmeric powder, coriander powder and pepper powder. Let it boil for 5 minutes. While turning off the heat, add chopped coriander leaves.

 

Rasam powder is in itself a mixture of lot of spices, shallow fried and ground. So if you are working without the rasam powder,  no worries, just add a bit more of the coriander powder, cumin powder, pepper powder and the rasam should be OK.

 

Pasta:

This is the Indianised version of Pasta, the Italian version really does not use these many different spices and thus the taste of the principal spice used comes through. This is a meal in itself, or eat it between meals.

 

Buy a packet of any pasta, there is quite a variety to choose from. Buying in an Indian market, the variety is limited though and mainly restricted to 'screw-shaped' Fusilli, 'bent tube-shaped' macaroni, 'straight-tubes-cut-diagonally-at-ends-shaped' penne, 'sea-shell-shaped' conchiglie.

Heat water in a pan/bowl and put the pasta in a colander (if  have one) (a vessel with holes) and dip it into the water as it boils and leave it for about 8-10 minutes. The pasta has to be a tad undercooked as it also cooks a little with the onion and tomato base. We Indians prefer to cook our food all the way, but the traditional pasta eaters like to cook so its shape remains intact when mixed into the base and the individual pasta remain that way. Once its cooked, the pasta needs to put into cold water to stop the further cooking, you can happily forget to do this.

Simultaneously, heat a pan, put in oil, mustard, cumin, chili-ginger-garlic crushed together. Breath in the heavenly aroma as they cook, then zap yourself out of your reverie before they burn in the pan and add in chopped onions and saute for a couple of minutes. Add tomatoes / tomato puree (prepared the same way as for rasam) and while it starts to simmer add the spices of cumin powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder, salt and a bit of sugar. Add in the cooked pasta, let it cook for a couple of minutes and its ready to eat. Add a little ketchup to balance the flavour.

Lime rice:
This is an all time favourite addition to a meal. Quick and easy to make. Eat this mixed with boiled rice.

Chop a few onions, the entire volume of this dish comes from onions, so more the rice you want to mix it into, more the onions required. Heat a pan, add oil, splutter mustard, add vertically split green chillies, for about 1 glass of rice a couple of chillies. The heat differs between chillies, regions and sizes, so err on the side of caution. After a couple of minutes, add onions and a little salt so the onions cook faster. Close the pan but keep checking and stirring it once every couple of minutes. Add in turmeric powder and salt, cook for another minute while the onion takes in the taste of salt. Turn off heat and add lime juice. Ideally add lime to rice directly and then add this paste and mix it. Taste it and add salt/lime to get the taste just right as it suits your taste buds.

Lime rice paste can be made a little differently by adding capsicum after onions. Or raw mango can be added instead of lime.

Veggies:
The perfect accompaniment with chapati/phulka/bread.

This is the same recipe for any of these vegetables - capsicum, carrot, ridge gourd, carrot, snake gourd, bottle gourd, beet root and a host of others. The cooking time for each is different so keep checking while it cooks.

Heat pan, add oil, splutter mustard and/or cumin, urad dal for crunch, ginger-garlic crushed together. After a minute, add onions and a little salt. Close the pan but keep checking and stirring it once every couple of minutes. Add the vegetable and mix well so the vegetable gets coated with oil. Let it cook till almost tender. Vegetables like gourds release water as they cook so usually there is no need to add in water to help it cook. But if required, add in water else the vegetable wouldn't cook, but burn. When almost tender, add turmeric powder, coriander powder, chili powder and salt, cook for another minute while the vegetable takes in the taste of all the spices. Peanut powder added with the spices enhances the taste of the vegetable.

Dal/Lentils:
This is a comfort food. Like the veggie eat with chapati/phulka/bread or mix it with rice.

First chose your lentil -
Toor dal/togari bele/toram parappu/pigeon peas - south Indian sambar is made of this.
Yellow split Mung dal/hesaru bele - used in the spicy pongal.
Masur dal/Pink lentils - used in North Indian dal's - a favourite of mine.
Urad dal/Split Black lentil/uddin bele - this is what goes into dosa and vada. Used in the almost all of my recipes right after mustard to give that crunch. This is a black lentil and when de-husked is white in colour.
Mung bean/herasa kalu/non-dehusked mung dal - green in colour - soak overnight, sprout it by keeping it in a wet cloth for a few hours and use it like a vegetable.

You could make dal with just split Mung dal or mix the first 3 dals together. In the pressure cooker, a couple of spoons of oil, splutter mustard/cumin. Then the ginger-garlic paste, finely chopped green chilly and then chopped tomatoes/puree, after this comes to a boil, add in the spices - turmeric powder, coriander powder, salt and tiny bit of chilly powder, remember there is already chillies in this. Then add in the washed dal, close the lid and cook it till a couple of whistles. Remember de-husked lentils cooks faster than whole lentils.  If you don't have a pressure cooker, just cook it over low flame as long as it takes to become tender. This is the traditional way of cooking and in most of cuisines food is still cooked like this which brings out the best taste.

Soup:
Pan-heat oil-mustard-onions-carrots-potatoes-tomato puree-once it comes to a boil-add in spices of turmeric powder, coriander-cumin powder and salt. Once tender, grind the whole thing and drink it up garnished with coriander leaves and a sprinkle of pepper powder if desired.

Bisibelebath:
This is a traditional Karnataka dish which translates to 'Hot lentil rice'. This is made of rice and Toor dal. In a cooker, add oil, splutter mustard, Cinnamon stick, caraway seeds (shahi jeera-for taste), a few pods of cloves. Add in onions and saute. After a couple of minutes, add in carrots, beans, tomatoes, capsicum and peas. Now add the spices of coriander powder, cumin powder, turmeric powder, salt and Bisibelebath powder which again is essentially all spices ground together, so in case you don't have this increase the proportion of the other spices. Put in some cashew nuts. Add in rice and dal. almost in the proportion of 5:1. In fact too many ingredients in this, if you are missing out on any, don't stress yourself too much. My mother also adds in tamarind extract (boil tamarind in water and squeeze out of its pulp) I don't. Give it 4 whistles at the least, taste it and add in any spice that's lacking. Eat this hot with finely cut tomatoes added to curd with salt.

A few tips in general:
 - Slow cooking is the best.
 - Forget the non-stick pans, they are full of chemicals, stick to the good old kadai.
 - Add lime juice only after the heat is turned off, else it turns bitter.
 - When spices, especially turmeric powder is added, ensure there is sufficient moisture in the dish, else it will burn
 - Do not use Extra virgin olive oil (EVOL) for any of the above cooking as these cooking require the oil to be heated to high levels and the EVOL smoke point (temperature at which there is chemical change and oxygen radicals are generated which can cause cancer) is very low. So where EVOL is very healthy to be eaten raw, cooking with it is not a good option. Use EVOL for adding to any cooked item to increase the taste, sheen and health quotient.