The Girl in the Garden – Kamala Nair
The redemptive journey of a young woman unsure of her engagement, who revisits in memory the events of one scorching childhood summer when her beautiful yet troubled mother spirits her away from her home to an Indian village untouched by time, where she discovers in the jungle behind her ancestral house a spellbinding garden that harbors a terrifying secret.
Matunga – for any Tambrahm in Mumbai, especially those of a certain age, the very word evokes the feel of home. Sometimes called ‘Mini Madras’, Matunga in what would be some where in the centre of what is the original city (as opposed to the suburbs) was probably the first place the initial immigrants, young, eager, bright and wide-eyed, came to from Dadar station when their trains from the south arrived in Mumbai all ready to conquer the world, with an introduction to perhaps, if they are lucky, to a relative (distant or otherwise), or maybe someone from the same village they belonged to, or even a relative’s relative!
While I am not sure if this is 100% accurate, from what I’ve heard from my parents and grandparents, most young Tamil Brahmin boys and men started arriving in Mumbai (or Bombay as it was called then) somewhere in the early forties, some years before India would finally throw off the yoke of British dominance and become independent.
Both sets of my grandparents arrived in Bombay somewhere in the early to mid-forties, luckier than most as both my grandfathers had an older brother already settled in the city, in Matunga as it were! If I were to probably measure the distance my paternal and maternal grandparents live away from each other, when they first arrived in the city, it should probably be a maximum of 1 km.
Matunga is the heart of the Tamil Brahmin community in Bombay and as such the roads are filled with the sights and sounds of temple bells and the smells of filter coffee and delicious food!
Temples like Bhajana Samaj, Astika Samaj and Sankara Math, shops like Mysore Concerns, Giri Stores and the row of flower sellers in the road outside the post office along with the vegetable sellers who have carts close-by are all hallmarks of the Tamil Brahmin community in Matunga! Who can forget the Ram Navami and Navaratri celebrations in Bhajana Samaj, the Diwali sweets that always were sold in the hall in Sankara Matt, the banana leaf sold by the vegetable vendors during any major festival, the gaggle of priests, outside the temples, the sound of the temple bells and sugarcane stalks just before Pongal?
When their families grew, both sets of my grandparents moved from their family homes and out of Matunga. But they both didn’t’ pull the umbilical cord too much and move far away. Both of them moved another kilometer away from Matunga in opposite directions actually, and that was where my parents were brought up.
So growing up, we lived in another area which was a fifteen minute walk from Matunga, which was in the periphery of our lives, without actually living there. We used to go to Matunga for literally everything and my mum still goes there atleast two to three times a week for her weekly ‘fix’. This area in Bombay is the lifeline for the community and even today when other mini Matungas have sprung up across the city and suburbs – like Chembur, Chedda Nagar, Bangur Nagar, Mulund, Dombivili, Vashi, etc you can still people who have moved away from Matunga come here on weekends to catch-up with family and friends, eat at childhood haunts and buy essentials which you don’t get anywhere else in the city.
Growing up, there was always this disconnect – we were Tamilians, but without the accent which is usually caricatured in movies and television and always had questions on why we needed to wear a bindi on our forehead or flowers in our hair. In my and my sister’s case, it was compounded by the fact we didn’t go to the school that most of our Brahmin friends and relatives went to (which was a school run by a Tamil trust where the language was taught as a second language)!
Growing up also we were quite insular. I would say this with the benefit of hindsight. Every Tamilan I knew at that point in time was a Brahmin – either from one of the districts of Tamil Nadu or from Palakkad (from Kerala who are called Kerala Iyers or Palakkad Brahmins). Where we stayed, while not in Matunga, was in fact another Tamil conclave, with almost all the 30-40 buildings in the area having a sizeable Tambrahm population each. My building had 19 flats and with the exception of 2-3, every flat was a Tambrahm flat! This was pretty much the case (the percentages being slightly more or less, with some exceptions) for the other buildings in the street I lived in. Even in school, my friends who were Tamil were Brahmins. In fact, coming to Singapore with its vast Tamil population was actually a culture shock to me as I had never seen so many people from so many Tamil communities and the temples were the biggest shock – I had not heard of all the different Gods that were worshipped there (all the temples I visited prior to this were my community temples or the other temples in Mumbai)
Since most of the community emigrated to Bombay around 60-80 years back, the dialect of Tamil, we speak is completely different from what is spoken by the community in places like Chennai and Singapore. Bombay Tambrahms have retained the words and cadence of their speech from all those years while communities in Singapore and Chennai have adopted more of the local language. So the Tamil we speak may actually seem strange to those who don’t speak like this! S used to tell me that they used to be made fun of in school when they spoke Brahmin Tamil, which is why his Tamil sounds more like how it is in movies while mine is the one they make fun of in movies!
Writing this post has made me so nostalgic. I think the next time I go to Mumbai, I will try and capture all the sights and sounds of the city so that every time I miss Mumbai, I have these to see and hear! Also this post has made me realise I need to pen down more about my life, so that GG and BB know what that was like….
Someone Else’s Garden – Dipika Rai
The eldest of seven children,born low-caste and female in rural India,Mamta is abused and rejected by a father whocan see no reason to “water someone else’s garden” until ahusband is found for her. Seeking escape in matrimony, Mamta beginsher wedded life with hope—but is soon forced to flee her village and thehorrors of her arranged marriage to the bustle of a small city. Saved from becomingone of the nameless and faceless millions of rejected humanity by thesalvation of sublime love, Mamta struggles to find a precarious state ofacceptance and make peace with her past.
I am surprised that I have not yet blogged and posted this dish. This dish is a staple breakfast item in my home state of Maharashtra and is so embedded into the Maharashtrian psyche that days without Kanda Poha may actually give some people withdrawal symptoms.
In our home, we don’t like to eat heavy meals for dinner, except maybe occasionally when we are dining out. So most dinners are simple, what, in other traditional homes, may be eaten for breakfast.
Last week when I prepared this for dinner, I took pictures and checked whether I had posted it or not, and it was a no, so here it goes….
Like most Indian food, every family prepares this in a different way and if you’ve come across a different recipe for this, it’s quite possible that both variants exist and thrive. Also Poha or beaten rice flakes recipes are common across India, especially in the west and south and each state, nay region or province may have their own specialty. Now add family taste differences into the mix and what you get is a recipe which will be different each time you eat it!
This particular recipe which I make has evolved over the years. I first learned it from a friend who is Maharashtrian and then played with it till it became something that my family likes. S loves this recipe as do the kids and it pops on the dinner table every few weeks. It’s not very difficult to make, most of the items will be available in your pantry. The only pre prep work you need to do is with the peanuts.
Kanda Poha
Ingredients:
Method:
The Blue Bedspread – Raj Kamal Jha
In the middle of a steamy Calcutta night the phone rings. An unnamed man in a city of millions answers to a voice telling him that his long-lost sister is dead. He must go to the hospital to identify the body and claim his sister’s orphaned newborn daughter until she can be adopted the next day.
During the long hot night, the baby sleeps on a bedspread that used to be indigo blue, but has faded to almost white. As the child lies where the man and his sister used to sleep as children, he quietly writes stories for her, telling of his own childhood full of intensity, anguish, and poetry. He doesn’t know his place in the world, but with the help of these stories, the baby someday might.
