Update on vat 69

So during my India visit, there was an invitation for a marriage. Me not having participated in a marriage for long long time, in India, that is, was eager to go in and check out the state of the affairs. I had heard several stories over the years about how the arrangements and cuisine have changed. Also kids had never seen a marriage before, so I decided to take Krishi with me. On the way we stopped at a local bar. While checking out the menu, I looked at several scotch options and noticed vat69 mentioned in there, and that too at a relatively low cost. So the old world charm is back on the shelves.

The marriage turned out to be ok.. There was obviously plenty of food. I sampled everything. My most favorite was hyderbadi daal. Rest all food was bland and quite possibly not so fresh. The next day I was wriggling with cramps all day. Krishi sat all the way in the front and enjoyed the rasams. They were done in a very mechanical fashion one after the other as to get them over with. There was some jubilation during warmala with usual lifting of bride and groom, otherwise it was a small & quiet gathering.

Pickles of Kandhala

Kandhala is small town near Shamli, not so far from Delhi. This is where my maternal grandparents lived. With the passing away of my nani last year, a big chapter of my life has come to a close. Of course my uncles are still there and the story continues, but it's not the same for me. To some extent, my Kandhala memories are sort of like Malgudi days stories - simple childhood in a simple town where small things mattered. Now I live in a country that has over abundance of everything. Things that were bought after saving money for weeks and were given the utmost attention and care are now tossed around by relentless customers in the buy-one-get-one-free heap. So writing about Kandhala is an attempt to bring back the same simplicity in my life.

With Spring round the corner and summer not too far, the smell of mangoes has started rising in the air again. Kandhala was the mango heaven for us. Since, most of our visits to Kandhala happened during the summer months, it was almost certain that we would get to eat lots of mangoes. We had our own baags, so supplies were unlimited. Often times we would sit on the buggi (bullock cart) and take a ride to the baag, and the sheer joy of plucking the mangoes yourself and eat them right there is wordless. Almost every day we used to get fresh supplies of all kinds (dasheri, langra, chaunsa, etc). And we would start in the morning and continued eating mangoes throughout the day either during meals or otherwise. I still remember at one time, often times we used to gulp doen 9-10 mangoes in one sitting itself, without bothering about the funsis that we would get later on our face. Of course often times you have to dip the mangoes in cold water overnight to cool that down but often times we were too greedy and didn't wait for that. In the afternoons, then, we would feed the mango skins to the cows, buffaloes in the gher (dairy). Towards the end of the stay, almost every year, then naniji, and other aunts and mom would then sit down to make mango pickles. Raw mangoes were cut and dried for several hours. As they were dried out in the big aangan on white sheets, they started losing bit of their sourness, and we would then feast on them, much to the anger of all the ladies. Once dried, the mangoes were then put in the oil with special masala, in a jar and a piece of thin cloth was then wrapped around its lid. After a few days the mango would become seasoned, and that would be the best tasting pickle ever.

Here is a link to the recipe -

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Pickled-Mango


Even now, whenever I went to Kandhala, I always brought mango petis from there that would last many many days. No mango can be sweeter than the Kandhala mango.

The song of simplicity

Superb song! One of my favorites. One of the reasons I like is there is so much stillness in the song and everything seems so down to earth. The song is picturized at Bandra Band stand that was still clean. Sky is bright blue and the palm trees stand tall in the light breeze. No one is in hurry including the ocean. The waves gently go back and forth as the freshman Navin Nishcol softly romances around the leading lady, Archana, with a copy in his hand. Archana is simply beautiful. Wearing orange lipstick to match the orange border on her saree, her dark complexion simply is so comforting to the eye, and then on top of the assuring voice of Kishore da. The movie came in the same year when I was born.

When the fuse blew at our house

Courtsey: www.overunityresearch.com

During high school, my passion for science was unbound. I was more inclined towards the practical side of it. I used to love the science lab times, and I ran several experiments running at my house too. I made a very powerful binoculars (that I used to spot chicks sometimes), and one time made one for Ajay also when we were trying to get a closer look at Mussorie snow topped hills. I was already playing around with electronic components and soldering iron and the circuits. I even had a small chemistry lab. However not all experiments ran succesfully. Some were mere blunders, and one of them was on my quest for electromagnetism. The book said that if you wrapped wire around a bolt and connect the ends to positive and negative terminals, the nail would become magnetic. Excitedly, I put the model together and plugged the ends into the wall socket. As soon as I turned the switch on , the whole house went dark!!! I didn't realize that the intensity of the current had to be controlled. Well, I guess I was still maturing; Edison didn't invent light bulb in one take, did he?

I continued to ponder over this experiment for 30 years until today. When kids decided to participate in the Science fair, old memories nudged me and I immediately decided to give my experiment a second take. These days are different though. There it too much information available online already, and for something simple like this a you tube video sufficed. We took a nail, wrapped some copper wire around it and connected the ends to a battery (ah!). Eureka, it worked, and it was pretty strong, too.

Cutting Chai

Purani jeans aur guitar
Mahulle ki wo chat aur mere yaar
wo canteen mein ja ke, guppe ladate,
wo cutting pina yaaron ke saath

Courtsey: http://www.doornumber3.in/images/gd_en_eymum_chai.jpg

Well may be not in the college canteen, when I was in Bombay, I used to drink cutting every day. One of the cutting places I remember is on the side of Bombay hospital in Marine lines. After days worth of hard work, it was quite relaxing to just sit in this small restaurant, over crowded with other workers, and sip on the kadak and masaledaar cutting. Whether that was more relaxing or a patiala peg of RC at this bar down the road remains a puzzle to me.


Also, here is a link that explains how to make cutting chai, in case you want to try it out at your home in Indian, Dubai, US, or on a ship -

http://www.mumbaigluttons.com/2012/03/how-to-get-create-that-roadside-cutting.html

However, for complete flavor, you got to try it out somewhere in Mumbai. I amsure they have a stall near Marine club, as well. They have great beer, though, live music and ladies to dance with. Although, that can be covered in another story, hopefully, through Mayank's lens on the past.

Phir wohi raat hai - Ghar 1978

This song has been on my mind for several weeks now. Wonderful wonderful memories from the 70s, 80s.

White kurta pyzama clad Vinod mehra with his sleeves typically tucked up above the elbow..so typical of that era with wide bottomed pyjamas. Long hair with long sideburns and ears half covered and most of the neck covered with them.
Graceful Rekha with her face blossoming like the most beautiful Rose..large bindi on her forehead and red think sindoor in her neatly parted hair and her curly hair falling over her shoulders.

While the nice summer breeze is waving the white curtains through the iron grills of their bedroom, Rekha is restless on the bed with stark clean white sheets, Kishore kumar is at his best singing Gulzar lyrics on the tunes of R. D. Burman. It couldn't get any better. I am sure life wasn't as simple in those days either but for me those were the good days.

Vinod and KK passed away long time ago. Gulzar is harldly active these days and Rekha is only seen on award shows, but their legacy lives on.

Vat69 and other miniatures

Mmmmm.... Courtsey: oldblendedwhisky.com

I think my first encounter with vat69 was in the movie Naseeb. There was a song with Amit, Reena, and Shatru where Shatru is drinking. He comes to the bar and drinks from vat69 bottle. Of course we didn't drink in those days, but it did seem enchanting at that time. vat69 was one of the most popular whiskeys in those days, and of course later on, Johnnie walker took over, and now it's all about 'labels'. Apparently, the drink is still in production. You can read more on it here -


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vat_69
 
Back in 80s, when we were experimenting with liquor, it was more about bagpipers, mcdowells, and RCs. I picked up big on whiskey. I know Dinesh, Ajay, Mayank, Ashish, etc. didn't. Of course, Ashish got his style from his dad who had his own taste in style - while we thought 10Re was too much, he donned a 200Re goggles, and he was always uptodate on electronics, steroes, etc. In their drawing room showcase (you know how those 80s showcases were), Gulati uncle had these miniature whiskey bottles displayed. I don't know where he got them from, but they looked enticing. During the summers of the 80s & 90s, I often used to hang around at Ashish's house. We were either playing teen patti, or were trying to take a peek inside the maid's blouse. If that was not available, we would try and get some amroods from his backyard, and sometimes, anil and sonu would jump over the boundary and join in.  

Courtsey: A collector on internet

During one such summer afternoon, when uncle and aunty were gone, we laid our hands on the miniature whiskey bottles. We drank a little and evened it our with water. In dark bottles, it would be difficult to make out whether it's liquor or water. When uncle didn't notice anything, we continued on our adventure, and every now and then drank from the bottles. Now I don't what the state of the bottles is now or whether one day uncle tried them and wondered why they tasted like water or not (onyl Ashish can tell us), but it was a lot of fun.

Aquarium

Kids have been asking for a pet for many many years now. Their first choice was obviously dog, then it came down to hamster, turtle etc. We even went to the pet store and looked at the hamster. It didn't seem like I could handle it, and then there was the task of training it. Initially it bites because it thinks that your hand is the food. So after much ado and emotion from kids, I finally settled on fish.

Many books were gotten from libraries. Kabir & I being the literati in the house spent hours and hours analyzing their physiology and diet and setting up the tanketc. Finally, one fine morning, we stepped into the store. Setting up tank wasn't an easy task either. Size, decorations, water purification, filter process, etc - tons of stuff. Wondering how they do it in India. Anyways brought the tank, set it up and then left the filter on for several weeks. It needs to be done to accumulatte enough checmical on the bio wheel, whatever that is. Also, I wasn't ready for a pet still. In the end, after much pushing from kids, one fine Sunday morning, we went to the store, and selected 2 guppies. Put them in the tank and they started floating. Right from the beginning they went along well. They were the best friends.

2 weeks later, we got 4 more varieties, and the tank looked great. The new guppy joined the 2 old ones. The silver platy became loner but was the fiercest eater. Another guppy shied away and explored hiding places, while the most beautiful one, the blue one, also tried to mix in. Yesterday, the whole day, the blue one didn't come out and this morning I saw it's dead body floating in the water. Yes, we lost out first pet!

Now, I know Dinu's mouth is watering as he thinks of fish pakoras. I think tonight there will be fish frying in the pan at Rawat house!