We lived far away from our native state, West
Bengal, all through our growing years. Andhra Pradesh was our home state
because my father got a job there as a coal mining engineer. While it was a
wonderful place to grow up in because the coal mines were situated in jungle area
where we were surrounded by trees and wilderness, which we kids revelled in, still, our annual visits to Calcutta – where the rest of the clan lived –
during our school holidays were also something we looked forward to eagerly.
Because of all the excitement involved in the
whole experience, travelling from Kothagudem/Bellampalli/Ramagundam (the small
coal towns we lived in) to Calcutta was a thrilling event all by itself. Those were
the days of steam engines and our coal town railway stations were insignificant
blips on the map of the great Indian railways. Hence, this huge great black steam
engine would come chuff-chuffing into our tiny station billowing huge black
plumes of smoke from its chimney, in which sweating train drivers frenziedly
shovelled coal into the huge orange belly of the furnace that powered those
what seemed like great monsters to our childish eyes. These trains would
usually have their halt at our station at some wee hour of the night.
The journey to Calcutta took three whole days and
involved changes of trains en route – usually in the middle of the night. All
of which involved meticulous planning and packing by my parents. My mother
filled tiffin-carriers full of food and snacks, since she didn’t trust the food
the railways provided, or that available at stations where the train halted.
She also was in charge of packing our suitcases, the clothes we would need for
a month’s (usually) stay there. My father was in charge of the bedding which was
carried in a huge, unwieldy, brown hold-all – pillows, bed sheets, blankets and
so on.
How my brother and I would fight for the window
seat! What excitement there was in watching the huge landscape, right from down
south to an eastern state – which involved a travelling distance of almost half
the sub-continent – rolling by outside the train window. The train halting at
stations with fascinating names. The vendors selling sweetmeats and toys and
knick-knacks. My father getting off the train and frenziedly filling our water bottles
at stations while I’d feel my heart thud anxiously until he’d come back into
the compartment – I always felt he would be left behind. And then the thrill of
the arrival at the crowded Howrah station itself – people milling about
hurriedly, either rushing to catch a train, or disembarking and rushing out to
grab taxies. People haggling with coolies, who would carry loads of luggage on
their head, shoulders, hands.
And then driving through the great, hazy, grey
streets of Calcutta in a rattly old taxi. The rows and rows of what looked to
our young eyes as huge crumbling buildings lining the streets, the innumerable
shops, the crowded roads and footpaths, until we reached the five storeyed
house of my maternal grand-father’s, on a broad street called Vivekananda Road,
where the rest of my mother’s family lived in a joint family.
I remember how the taxi would come to a halt by
the house, and everyone on every floor upstairs would be looking down from the
balconies, watching for us to arrive, smiling. And how my Badamama (my mother’s
eldest brother), who sat with my grandfather in the Ayurvedic clinic which they
ran on the ground floor of the house, would hurry out, his crisp white dhoti
flowing, his eyes crinkled in a big twinkling smile, and swing me and my
brother out of the taxi and carry us inside. My grandfather chuffing me on my
chin, ruffling my hair, playfully. And then climbing up the stairs – stopping
at each floor to greet the relatives – aunts, uncles, cousins – to the third floor
which was my grandmother’s domain.
The instant I’d step on to the third floor I would
smell it. The heavenly smell of chholar dal cooking in the kitchen. For, my
grandmother knew that chholar dal and Ilish maach (Hilsa fish) were our
absolute favourites, and she always made those for us whenever we went to
Calcutta.
My
grandmother, who stood at five foot nothing and had a head full of flowing
thick salt and pepper waist length hair, and wore the crisp, red bordered, white
Bengal handloom saris (tangail and thaath) Bengali women wear at home, was the
greatest cook in the world, as far as I was concerned. She didn’t use much
masalas and she didn’t have any kitchen gadgets, except for the traditional
ones, such as the huge slab of stone on which fresh masalas were ground each
day and the earthen chulas which were filled with coal and lit each morning for
the day’s cooking. It was with these simple contraptions that she created magic
in the kitchen, her realm where she was the queen.
She cooked for the whole family – it was a huge
family of seven sisters and three brothers, their husbands and wives and
children – (though the married sisters moved out they usually converged in with
kids and husbands in tow during school holidays) – of course with the help of
the other women of the house, and servants. I would often sit by my grandmother
watching as she sat on her pidi (a flat wooden short stool) with her boti (a sharp
sickle shaped knife held down by the foot which was used for cutting and
chopping vegetables and fish) as she would begin her cooking chores.
When chholar dal was on the menu, she would
measure out the dal in a big brass utensil from one of the huge storage bins in
the store room (which I found a fascinating dark place where all kinds of food
stuffs were stored away) and take it into the kitchen and wash it thoroughly,
and put it aside for the water residue to soak into the dal. In the meantime one
of the servants would grind ginger into a smooth paste, and separately, jeera
and red chillies with water into a reddish brown paste.
My
grandmother meanwhile would crack open a fresh coconut, expertly pouring out
the sweet water into a glass which I drank in a gulp, into two even halves. She
would then proceed to scrape on the round serrated end of her boti, fixed there
just for this purpose, into little mounds of fresh, white scraped coconut –
which she let me nibble at – milky sweet to taste. She would save some of
the coconut as hard white wedges which she sliced into thin slivers.
Then would
begin the actual cooking process. A big kadai would be placed on the chula, now
burning with a hot orange glow, into which she would pour in some mustard oil.
When the oil let off a bluish plume of smoke, she would toss in half a handful
of whole jeera and a few bay leaves, once those roasted a little, she
would toss in the thin slivers of coconut and brown them lightly. And then
would go in the jeera/red chilli paste, which she would stir about a little
with her heavy long brass spatula, and then add the ginger paste, which would
get another stir or two. Then in would go the soaked chholar dal, and some
water – enough to cover the dal, but not too much – and salt and turmeric powder.
She would cover this and allow it to simmer and cook, lifting the lid
occasionally to check the grains of dal, and give it a stir or two.
While cooking it, my grandmother would tell the
women who happened to be in the kitchen, my mother and aunts, the servants,
that the thing about chholar dal is that it should not be overcooked or
undercooked. Overcooking makes it an unpalatable mash, undercooking leaves the
water of the dal too watery and the dal grains distastefully hard. The grains
should remain chewy, yet the dal should be a thickish consistency, not watery.
Deciding just at what point the dal is done is the secret of making great
chholar dal – which my grandmother intuitively knew. (Though I’ve sat beside
her and watched her make it innumerable times, I’ve never ever been able to
make chholar dal like my grandmother’s.)
Then the cooked dal would be taken off the chula
and garnished with homemade ghee, a little sugar stirred in, sliced green
chillies, and the scraped coconut. We kids would quickly sit in rows on pidis
with big brass thalis in front and have the dal ladled, thick, rich, golden
coloured and aromatic, over steaming hot rice. Slurrrrp!
-by Rita Putatunda
