In My Hands Today…

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Samskara: A Rite for a Dead Man – U.R. Ananthamurthy Translated by A.K. Ramanujan 

1057231Made into a powerful, award-winning film in 1970, this important Kannada novel of the sixties has received widespread acclaim from both critics and general readers since its first publication in 1965. As a religious novel about a decaying brahmin colony in the south Indian village of Karnataka, “Samskara” serves as an allegory rich in realistic detail, a contemporary reworking of ancient Hindu themes and myths, and a serious, poetic study of a religious man living in a community of priests gone to seed. A death, which stands as the central event in the plot, brings in its wake a plague, many more deaths, live questions with only dead answers, moral chaos, and the rebirth of one man. The volume provides a useful glossary of Hindu myths, customs, Indian names, flora, and other terms. Notes and an afterword enhance the self-contained, faithful, and yet readable translation.

Recipe: Snake Gourd Dal

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IMG_5918Indian vegetables are a staple in my house, especially when we have done shopping in the Little India district. And Snake Gourd somehow makes it home every time this happens. Normally I make a stir-fry with this vegetable and honestly, even I was bored with that every single time. I decided to search and see if anything else can be made and found people had experimented with dal with this vegetable. So I also decided to make a dal and did a very simple dal with hardly any seasoning. The result was a delicious dal which would go  very well with both rice as well as rotis and flatbreads.

trichosanthes_cucumerina_aka_snake_gourdThis is a common vegetable in India and because it’s long and slim (like a snake, it is called Snake Gourd). The vegetable has many health benefits too, including  its ability to improve the strength of the immune system, reduce fevers, detoxify the body, improve the digestive processes of the body, increase hydration in the body, treat diabetes, boost the strength and quality of the hair, and aid in weight loss. More information on this vegetable on Wikipedia and this site.

Snake Gourd Dal

IMG_5919Ingredients:

  • 2 snake gourds, peeled and chopped into pieces
  • 1 cup chana dal (yellow split chick peas)
  • 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
  • 1/4 tsp asafoetida powder
  • 1 tsp jaggery (or sugar, brown sugar)

For the seasoning:

  • 1 tsp ghee or oil
  • 1.5 tsps cumin seed powder
  • 2 whole red chillies,
  • 3-4 cloves
  • 1 inch stick cinnamon
  • salt to taste
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • coriander leaves to garnish

Method:

  • Wash the dal and let it soak in warm water for 15-20 minutes. Wash the snake
  • In a pressure cooker, add the dal, snake gourd, turmeric powder, a safoetida powder and 2 cups of water and cooker for 3 whistles.
  • If you do not have a pressure cooker, cook this in a large bottom pan on the stove and keep an eye on the water. Keep adding water when it evaporates. The end result should be a mushy dal with the snake gourd completely cooked.
  • Let the pressure subside and when the pressure is fully released, open the cooker and mash the mixture well.
  • In a separate, smaller pan, heat the ghee or oil and add the cumin seeds.
  • When the cumin seeds pop, add in the cloves, cinnamon and red chillies and let it pop. When the red chillies start to brown, remove from the flame and pour over the dal.
  • Close the lid of the dal tightly for 10 minutes to let the dal get infused with the seasoning.
  • Open the lid and check for salt. Add lemon juice, jaggary and garnish with coriander leaves.

IMG_5920

 

In My Hands Today…

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Salt and Saffron – Kamila Shamsie

290382Aliya may not have inherited her family’s patrician looks, but she is as much a prey to the legends of her family that stretch back to the days of Timur Lang. Aristocratic and eccentric-the clan has plenty of stories to tell, and secrets to hide.

Like salt and saffron, which both flavor food but in slightly different ways, it is the small, subtle differences that cause the most trouble in Aliya’s family. The family problems and scandals caused by these minute differences echo the history of the sub-continent and the story of Partition.

Yogyakarta Day 2: Borobudur

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Yogyakrta, pronounced as Jogjakarta and called Jogya by the locals is located in in the centre of Java island of Indonesia. It is renowned as a centre of education, classical Javanese fine art and culture such as batik, ballet, drama, music, poetry, and puppet shows. Yogyakarta was the Indonesian capital during the Indonesian National Revolution from 1945 to 1949. Kotagede, which is in present day Jogya was the capital of the Mataram Sultanate between 1575 and 1640. The city is named after the Indian city of Ayodhya from the Ramayana epic. Yogya means “suitable, fit, proper”, and karta, “prosperous, flourishing” (i.e., “a city that is fit to prosper”).

Borobudur against the lights from the Manohara hotel

Day 2 in Yogya started with a very early morning start. Yus, our driver, was waiting for us at the hotel reception at 3:30 am to take us to Borobudur, a UNESCO world heritage site. Borobudur, or Barabudur, is a 9th-century Mahayana Buddhist Temple consisting of nine stacked platforms, six square and three circular, topped by a central dome. The temple is decorated with 2,672 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues. The central dome is surrounded by 72 Buddha statues, each seated inside a perforated stupa and is the world’s largest Buddhist temple, as well as one of the greatest Buddhist monuments in the world.

A section of the monument

The temple was built in the 9th century during the reign of the Sailendra Dynasty and designed in Javanese Buddhist architecture, which blends the Indonesian indigenous cult of ancestor worship and the Buddhist concept of attaining Nirvana. The temple also demonstrates the influences of Gupta art that reflects India’s influence on the region, yet there are enough indigenous scenes and elements incorporated to make Borobudur uniquely Indonesian. The monument is both a shrine to the Lord Buddha and a place for Buddhist pilgrimage. The journey for pilgrims begins at the base of the monument and follows a path around the monument and ascends to the top through three levels symbolic of Buddhist cosmology: Kāmadhātu (the world of desire), Rupadhatu (the world of forms) and Arupadhatu (the world of formlessness). The monument guides pilgrims through an extensive system of stairways and corridors with 1,460 narrative relief panels on the walls and the balustrades. Borobudur has the largest and most complete ensemble of Buddhist reliefs in the world. A couple of weeks before we were there, Buddhists in Indonesia celebrated Vesak Day which is the day Buddha attained Nirvana and the temple, according to our driver Yus was crowded with pilgrims who spent the night at the complex.

Tourists waiting in vain for sunrise

We reached the complex after an hour of driving and reached the Manohara hotel complex from where we needed to buy the tickets for the sunrise. There were around 50 odd people there buying tickets when we arrived. The tickets cost for an adult is IDR 400,000 (approximately USD 30). Children between 1-5 years old get in free and those between 6-11 pay half the adult rate. For sunrise, you can be in the complex between 4:30 am to around 6:30 am. The ticket price also entitles you to a small snack and coffee/tea at the Manohara hotel. For those staying in the hotel, the tickets are cheaper and I guess this is something to plan for.

A terrace of the monument  from the topmost tower

We reached the monument around 5ish and went up the steps. The steps are quite steep, but you get a torch along with your ticket. We waited for the sun to rise, but the day started out cloudy and didn’t see the sunrise because of the clouds. We seem to be singularly ill fated to see sunrises at historical monuments – around 2 years back, the same thing happened at Angkor Wat and we couldn’t see the sun rise due to clouds!

The steep steps waiting to be tackled

We spent a couple of hours walking around the complex taking photos and then decided to walk back to the hotel and the car when we realised it was already daytime and there was going to be no sun that day. We had our hotel pack some breakfast for us and so decided to have that along with the snacks and tea/coffee at the Manohara before heading out to our next destination, the Dieng Plateau.

Another section at the top

The misty and cloudy complex when we were leaving

In My Hands Today…

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Last Rights – Barbara Nadel

32121October 1940. The London borough of West Ham is in the grip of yet another night of bombing, and undertaker Francis Hancock is in the grip of yet another night of temporary insanity.

A veteran of World War One, Francis is forced by the nightly air raids to relive the trauma of the trenches, and all he can do is try to outrun the horrific flashbacks. So when he sees a man lurching through the rubble, screaming about being stabbed but with no visible wound, Francis dismisses it at the ravings of another lost soul… until the man’s body turns up at his funeral parlour, two days later. Suspecting foul play, Francis feels compelled to discover what really happened that night – but he finds himself pitted against violent thugs, an impenetrable network of lies and his own fragile sanity.