Cycling towards the Sunset

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I live on the West Cambridge Site, a new part of town which was built by the Cambridge University to provide housing for graduate and post graduate students. It is considered very bleak and desolate due to its industrial style architecture and large parking lots. In character, it is a complete opposite to the vibrant historic city core and some people jokingly refer to it as the “East Berlin” of Cambridge.

However, being situated at the edge of town with vast open fields to the West has one redeeming feature – gorgeous sunsets! Each evening when I cycle back home along the Coton Footpath, I see before me a most stunning display of natural beauty. The setting Sun slowly heading for the horizon and then bursting into myriad shades of orange, blue and purple. I find myself looking forward to this as it provides a perfect end to a long tiring day - relaxing and re-energizing me at the same time.



Rickshaw recollections

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I was in Paris recently and spent an immensely enjoyable afternoon walking along the Champs Elysees, ogling the impossibly elegant window displays and enjoying scrumptious Ladurée macarons (more about that in a separate post). It was all fun and good but by the time I reached Place de la Concorde my sore feet reminded me how far I had walked from my hotel. Imagine my surprise then on coming upon a rickshaw, right under La Grande Roue! Talk about finding something just when you need it.

Parisian Rickshaw and my friendly driver

Tempted by the drivers friendly summons I went for a short ride on the Parisian rickshaw. It made me smile as I compared this comfortable rickshaw, smoothly gliding along the grand boulevards with the tangle, screech and jolts of a rickshaw ride in “purani Dilli” or old Delhi. My mind drifted to a hot summer afternoon – three girls crammed into a tiny rickshaw, hanging on for dear life as it maneuvers speedily through the narrow alleys. We wedge our toes tightly into the foot-rest, for we know that when the driver brakes sharply at the next obstruction, it is the only thing which will save us from toppling over.

A rickshaw ride is the best way to explore the sights, sounds and smells of any new place. You are on the street, moving along at a leisurely pace but at the same time you don’t need to worry about getting lost. Moreover, it is a green mode of transportation, reduces congestion and creates jobs. For this reason, the rickshaw is increasingly becoming visible in tourist hot spots of London and Paris.

An artist who like me seems to be completely enamored by rickshaws is Rajkumar Sthabathy, he has done a whole series of watercolors depicting this ubiquitous mode of transport on the streets of South India. I love the way he captures the colorful patterns painted on the rickshaws along with the burnt sienna of their rusting iron bodies. What makes his work take on a deeper meaning is the fact that he captures these strong hard workers in a moment of quite reflection, lined sun burnt faces telling a story of lives filled with endless toil. He depicts the rickshaw as a precious source of livelihood; the driver waiting alertly for the next passenger adds to the sense of anticipation in his work. I find myself waiting along with them, wondering when the next passenger will come along. Here is a selection from the beautiful paintings for you to enjoy. The rest of the collection can be viewed here.

    

Mrs. Beeton vs. Mrs. Balbir

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English women going out to colonial India packed a number of cookbooks and household guides in their trunks. Chief among the choices available was the classic Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management. It not only had over 900 pages packed with recipes, but also contained chapters on hospitality and conversation, fashion, medical advice, preparing banquets, managing servants and animal husbandry among others. It was an all round guide for the nineteenth century housewives. More so, for the newly-married women, setting up homes in a new country, it must have been an indispensible companion.

I carried a cookbook with me too. Mrs. Balbir Singh’s Indian Cookery. Not in my suitcase though because I was terrified that my luggage will get lost in transit and I will, horror of horror reach England without it. So I kept it in my handbag, where it’s reassuring weight comforted me through my journey.  


I am sure you will not find me paranoid when I tell you that it is an heirloom cookbook, belonging to my mother. A book that she used as a young bride too, it had been her guide through the tremulous time when as a nineteen year old girl, she found herself in charge of her own kitchen, cooking for a large extended family. This book must have seemed like a lifeline to her. And when it came to guiding me through my trial, she knew that she could not be there physically for me, so she gave me this book instead. Hence the paranoia!

During the early years of her marriage, Mrs. Balbir Singh travelled to England with her husband too and the family spent several years in London while Mr. Singh attended Medical School.

In London, she began to teach Indian cooking and to help her students she decided to break down the recipes in clear steps and quantities. A difficult task as Indian cookery is all about approximations and finding your own style. It’s practically a verbal legacy, passed on from one generation to the next, as daughters spend many hours at their mothers side, helping, observing and learning their mothers secrets. With time, they adapt and add their special touches, so that every woman boasts of her own personal recipe for each basic dish.

Mrs. Singh’s book like Mrs. Beeton’s was one of the first cookbooks written by an Indian woman for Indian women in a practical manner about good home cooked food.  First published in 1961 the book quickly became a bible for newly-wed women in the country and abroad. It was awarded a silver medal by the Gastronomische Akademie Deutschlands in 1964 

The book and I are sharing a kitchen together since I arrived and slowly we are becoming good friends. It gives me great ideas for dinner and reveals delicious secrets to me while I cook. Small keepsakes kept and forgotten in its pages - two recipes written on yellowing bits of paper in my mother’s hand, one for mango pickle and the other for pineapple squash. One evening, I find a photograph of my brother dressed as a maharaja! So the recipe on that page becomes our dinner that night.

It is a fabulous recipe for “Tandoori Machchi”, or fish baked in a clay oven. A delicacy made popular by the cooks who migrated from Peshawar in Pakistan to Delhi. It is one of my favorite street foods and walking down the streets in Delhi, it is very easy to locate your nearest fish shop. You just have to follow your nose! These shops are tiny one-man establishments with their fronts carefully arranged to entice the passerby. Adorned with rows of skewers threaded with marinated fish.

You choose a skewer and it is baked there and then, while you wait, mouth watering in anticipation. The baked fish comes on a palm leaf, served on a bed of mint leaves and green chilies with lemon wedges if you prefer your fish extra tangy. I certainly do!

Mrs. Singh’s Tandoori Machchi

(Adapted from her book Indian Cookery)

The fish can be cooked equally well on a bar-be-que as well as under the grill.  Use three whole medium size haddock (approx. 350 g each)

For rubbing over the fish:

1 Tbsp fresh lime juice

1 Tsp salt

For the marinade:

1 Tsp coriander powder

1 Tbsp vinegar

1 Tsp red pepper

6 cloves of garlic

1 Tsp ginger

½ Tsp Cumin powder

3 Tbsp lime juice

1 Tsp butter per fish

Make deep cuts on one side of each fish, rub in the lime juice and salt and set aside till you prepare the marinade.

For the marinade: grind garlic and ginger finely, mix with coriander powder, cumin powder, red pepper, lime juice, vinegar and butter. Rub well over the surface and cavities. Leave in the marinade for one hour.

For grilling: Pass a pointed skewer lengthwise through the fish and grill for five minutes per 1 - 1.5 cm thickness, turning once. Most fish will take 5 – 7 minutes. Haddock turns white when cooked and will flake when tested with a fork.

Serve hot, with a salad of mint leaves, parsley and red onions tossed in lime juice and honey.

Brown mem·sa·hib

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The inspiration for this blog comes from the book “Women Writing Home, 1700-1920: Female Correspondence across the British Empire”.  

“Women Writing Home assembles a wide range of women’s letters from the former British Empire and two major sections in this book are devoted to ‘colonial women’ in India.   

Transferred to India along with their husbands, these women were instrumental in constituting what could be called a ‘home away from home’, exporting as much as they could of their accustomed way of life in Britain and reinstituting it as far as possible in India, adapting to and accommodating the new and often ‘alien’ cultural contexts as they went along.

The letters reveal the many different ways in which these women perceived colonial society. Sometimes the new context offered opportunities unavailable at home but often these letter-writing women pined for what they had left behind.”

The book struck a deep chord and soon I was spending hours researching letters written by colonial women living in India. Reading their letters was like a soothing balm for my homesickness. I could relate to these women, for although our situation was the complete opposite the same mix of emotions twisted my heart into knots too. I could feel their heartache at parting with their family and leaving home to recreate life in a strange and alien land.

Some of these women were newly married like me and setting up home on their own, they felt deeply devoid of a supportive female network - mothers, sisters, cousins and girlfriends. Like them, I realised that a mother’s advice never feels as precious as when a woman is trying to set up home without it.

The only way they could fill that void was to write home extensively with detailed descriptions of all that they saw around them. These women were prolific; they maintained journals and diaries, wrote letters home, authored novels, cookbooks and penned their memoirs. These letters were to them the equivalent of a chat over a cup of coffee with their sister or best friend. It was the one vent for their loneliness and sadness at being far from home and their circle of friends.   

So, I decided to write home too, with details from my life in England as a reverse memsahib – an Indian woman living in England, wearing English clothes, eating English food and speaking English - I'm afraid I am living the life of a brown memsahib!