15 Things You Didn't Know About Me

The other day a reader wrote me saying there is very little information on my blog about the person I am. I thought long and hard about that, but a smart answer eluded me. So instead I took the easy way out, and drew up a list – 15 things you didn't know about me.

Will this do?

1. First and the most obvious. I'm a list maniac. Packing list, To-do list, Grocery list, Birthday list… I make lists. I simply can’t function without them. Could also be that I have the memory of a gold fish. This naturally brings me to the second item on the list.

My phone cam pic

2. Its not personal, but I’m bad with names – horrible, terrible with names. But good with faces and places.

3. I met His Holiness the Dalai Lama's in Jaipur during JLF'13. Covered his press conference and sat a mere 5 ft away. Yes, he was inspirational. And patient enough to indulge all of us. Someone even asked him about his Masterchef Australia appearance. If I manage to find the audio recording from that interview, I promise to make a post of it. (Meanwhile, you can read about my tete-a-tete with the Australian Masterchefs here). 

4. Starting over in a new place is a real challenge. It tells you what your chances really are. I've done that. TWICE! 

5. I didn't have a passport for the first 24 years of my life.

6. When people presume I don’t have the stamina to do certain things, it pisses me off. Yes I’m a woman and I’m not skinny, but hey I’m not dead either.

7. I got inked in Malaysia this year, but I took five years to conquer my fear of the needle. No, it doesn't hurt bad. The noise of the machine is scarier. That’s why Apple invented the iPod.

Yup, its a selfie no doubt

8. I got lost in Turkey, while traveling there on work (full story here). Was rescued and dropped off safe by a policeman in his official car, rotating lights and all.  

9. I’m perfecting the art of taking artful selfies.

10. I still get goosebumps thinking about my first camping experience. The raging storm nearly blew the tent away but I woke up to a magnificent sunrise at the foothills of the Himalayas. That blog post found here.  

11. I was in the school band, played the trumpet. We didn't win the inter-school competition that year. 

12. Jughead is my comic book hero. And like him, I was christened ‘the bottomless pit’ in school. I grew up to become a food critique and connoisseur and have two successful food shows to my credit. It’s all there on my personal YouTube page.

13. I did theatre in college, studied English Literature and Communication, started my career in a Public Relations firm, crossed over to the other side and took up journalism.

No.. I can't.. no..nooo...

14. During takeoff, I close my eyes, hold my breath and my seat. Remember Meg Ryan in French Kiss?

15.  When I’m not traveling solo, my partner (busy corporate television person) Sajeev travels with me. At other times my bestie and genius photographer Gowri gives me company.

So this here is a list of things that might interest you about me. Or maybe not. Phew! I just found out how hard it is to make a selfie list. Have you made one already? Leave it in the comment section cos by now you know I love listings. 

Traveling Food Metaphors

My husband’s parents left for Dubai last night, a destination that has been pending on my Mom-in-law’s list of must-visit places. She once told me, immediate family and close friends living in the UAE totalled to 75 families! But this is not just her story. If you are a Malayalee, then you’d probably consider Dubai your second home. In colloquial Malayalam, ‘Dubai’, does not mean that one particular emirate in the UAE, instead it represents all the six Arab states bordering the Persian Gulf. Like the word ‘Madarasi’ means South Indian to most people from the Northern part of India. Politically incorrect yes, but such incorrectness seep deep into common lingua, and soon start to sound right. 

One night in Dubai

Kerala has only three international airports – one in Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode. The next time you are at the Dubai airport; do keep a lookout for flights leaving to or coming from these places, and I can assure you that the frequency and the rush in those terminals will surprise you no end. Kerala’s mass migration to the gulf region happened from 1972-83, a phenomenon which is now called the ‘Gulf boom’. Today, the Malayalee diaspora in this regions totals to over 2.5 million.

But Kerala’s ties with the Arab land date back to the 3^rd Century, after the Arab’s took over the trade route from the Romans. It was the Arab trader, who closely guarded the secret of Kerala’s black gold, thereby creating scarcity and an international demand for this product. It was he who brought Islam to Kerala as early as the 7^th century, a century after it developed in Arabia. This I thought was interesting; especially because Northern India was introduced to Islam only in the 11^th century, post the first invasion. 

As a young girl studying in a school run by Christian missionaries, I had friends who were Muslim, Christian and Hindu. Lunch, was my favourite hour, and I waited patiently for the girls to open their tiffin boxes and reveal the wonderfully delicious dishes within. My Christian friends brought fried shrimps with rice, sometimes it was fried beef with rice and my Muslim friends brought Neychoru or ghee rice with chicken or mutton curry. On special days there was chatti pathiri, adukku pathiri and even athishaya pathiri. I traded my boring dosas’ and idlys’ and puttu for half their lunch box. 

Beef ularthiyathu, prawns fry, chatti pathiri and puttu with curry

If you are a meat eater, and if you have had the privilege (I use the word privilege on purpose here), of savouring home-made Malabari Muslim delicacies also known as Moplah Cuisine, you’d know why I prayed every evening to be born a Muslim in my next birth. Today, among other things, I am also a food show host. Thinking back, I consider the taste I developed for Malabari cuisine, as my first real lesson in understanding food cultures across the world. For, through the ancient sea route, food cultures of faraway nations had found their way to this region – Roman, Arab, Portuguese, Dutch and British, the influences are many. 



Parangi Andi or the cashew nuts

In a previous blog post, I have written about how the Turkish delight and the Midye Dolma, reminded me of food back home. Recently, I was at the Instituto Cervantes in Delhi, attending a class on Peruvian cooking. This food show can be watched here at 19:00 mins. Peru was once a colony of Spain, and their food cultures borrow heavily from each other. 

Though the Spaniards have had no direct contact with Kerala, traders from neighbouring Portugal have left their influences. And with both Spain and Portugal having their colonies in South America, the exchanges have been plenty. In Malayalam, a Portuguese person is called a ‘Parangi’ and the ‘parangi andi’ or the Portuguese nut is what cashew nuts are called to this date. Peanut is called ‘kappal-andi’ or ship nuts. This along with tapioca, green-red chili peppers, tobacco, rubber, potatoes, pine apples, coffee, vanilla and cocoa came from South America, along with slaves and communicable diseases, during The Age of Exploration. 

Malabari Biriyani and the Arroz tapado

At the cooking class conducted by the Instituto Cervantes, I learnt that rice was Peru’s staple food and they use pretty much all that we do while cooking every day food. Sweet potatoes were pealed, thinly sliced and fried, and used as a base for their finger food. Arroz tapado – rice based dish had a layer of cooked meat and was topped with boiled eggs. They use sunflower, soya bean and olive oil in their cooking, and this particular dish used pickled olives for garnishing. If I were to image the taste of the olives away, I’d have before me, a serving of Malabari biriyani. Mildly spiced, glazed with clarified butter or ghee, and with a layer of finely cooked meat. 

Comparison: Arroz Zambito & Ari or ricePayasam

Imagine my surprise when for dessert chef Nuria Rodríguez Parra taught us how to prepare Arroz zambito – Ari or rice Payasam, to most Malayalees. The only visible difference was when she added a few drops of alcohol along with lemon rind. The alcohol of course evaporated, and after the lemon rind was removed, it left but a faint after taste. The style of preparation was similar; and it was garnished with grated coconut before serving. How much more ‘Mallu’ could a Peruvian dish get? 



Turkish women, Gözleme & Adhishya Pathiri (bottom right)

I felt a similar sense of familiarity when I tried the Goulash in Hungary. Though the spices used were milder, and there definitely was no black pepper, this dish reminded me of the beef curry I had had in a small wayside shop in Kerala. While the Hungarian one was served with dumplings, I had eaten the Kerala version with hot porottas. And in Turkey, a group of women squatting down inside a makeshift tent, fed me the yummiest stuffed bread ever, I believe its called Gözleme. They fill it up with cheese, greens and meat keema and then cook it in butter... Çok lezzetliydi (delicious)! Yes, it does look a lot like the Mallu Adhishya Pathiri. 

What wonderful stories these make – the migration of ingredients, cooking styles and the metaphors of ‘traveling food’. And I hope my parents-in-law, will bring back edible delights which are authentically Arabic, and yet faintly Malabari.

Muslims in Indian Cities

Meanwhile, if the subject of Islam in India interests you, get hold of Muslims in Indian Cities: Trajectories of Marginalisation - a HarperCollins India publication. It is edited by French Indophiles Christophe Jaffrelot and Laurent Gayer, and the collection of essays in this book deeply explores Muslim history in India, finding contrasting images in the lives of India’s largest minority. At the book launch, they spoke about the 10 historical cities they had documented, and one of them was Kozhikode. 

After that of course, I was all ears. While the Muslims minority in modern India follows the self-segregation trend; Malabar’s Muslims are an affluent lot, who enjoy the same social status as the local Hindus. In case you are planning to bring up the Marad example, do note that the book is comparing Malabar with cities like Bhopal, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad etc. The book goes on to say that as Islam came into this region through peaceful, commercial means of trade, the Islamic society here considers themselves Dravaidan just like the local Hindus. They also have power in numbers, because the population of Muslims in Malabar is behind the Hindus by just a few thousands!!

Awara (wanderer) in Turkey

I stood there wondering what it was that this lady was trying to say. She was waving the leaf in front my eyes, talking to me in rapid Turkish, sometimes pausing and then spacing out her words in a failed effort to make me understand. She once touched her head scarf, and then the leaf again before shooting off in Turkish. Finally she walked up to the tree, extended her hands, and carefully plucked two fruits. She offered me one, and when I hesitated, put it carefully into her mouth, chewing it slowly, before offering me again. Now this gesture, I understood. 

I put the tiny fruit into my mouth, and as I bit into it, the sweetest of juices oozed out and filling my mouth. My face must have registered a look of pleasure, for she quickly moved to pluck me another. And then another. I soon joined in. She showed me how to pick the ripest fruit; the idea was to look for those ones which looked like they’d bust open if left any longer. These ones were also whiter than the others, almost translucent. Wordlessly, we plucked more fruits, ate them one after the other, smiled gleefully at each other like children until the bus honked at a distance, and it was time for me to leave. I thanked her in English, and on an impulse hugged her. I was in Turkey on an assignment, and this was my second hug in one day. 

The carvings on one of the four gateways

After landing in Istanbul, my job had taken me to Sivas, a region in central Turkey. From Sivas city I had further travelled to a small eastern Anatolian mountain town of Divriği. The bus journey took close to three hours, and we drove through winding roads cut along a curving river, with mountains that changed from lush green to pale brown. Sitting where I was in the bus, it looked like the river was following me, and not the other way around. Or maybe the setting had woken up the inner romantic. Divrigi’s hidden tourist attraction is the Great Mosque and Hospital complex. Even though it is a UNESCO protected heritage site, it does not figure in most people’s Turkey travel map, because though well connected, it is a long drive to this place and there aren't many other places along the way that you can stop and visit.  The travel video here at 19:00 mins. 

When the road curved for one last time, before coming to a stop, at the foot of a hill, I caught my first glimpse of this mud brown monument. The Great Mosque and Hospital of Divrigi is a longish and magnificent structure, and was built in the beginning of the 11^th Century by the then ruler, Emir Ahmet Shah. The mosque and its adjoining hospital, was once the principal building of his empire. A closer look revealed the many wonders of this building. It has four glorious entrances and each gateway has elaborate and exclusive stone carvings, all made from a single block of stone. I remember thinking that it could be poetry written in stone, so many hundred years ago. The hospital apparently specialised in the treatment of the mentally ill. They had small canals all around the insides of the building and in the silence of the inner complex, the tickling of water through those channels must have reverberated - ancient form of therapy using the sounds of flowing water. It had also functioned as a medrese or a school for religious and primary education.

The seat of the Imam, the carpets, the chandeliers and your truly inside the mosque

The adjacent mosque was carpeted in red and blue, and for travellers on a budget who will only look at Turkish carpets from a distance and from across store windows, the first touch of that soft woollen fabric against bare feet, will remain as the most memorable experience. The insides of the mosque were bare but for this carpet, a few chandeliers and a mimbar - the seat of the Imam. If the carvings on the doorway had astounded me, the tall teak wood mimbar with its intricate designs fascinated me. Respectfully, I ran my hands over it. Mixed emotions – It could be here that the history of a secular and profound religion was shaped. I sat there for a while, taking in the silence and the deep sense of the past. When I stepped out much later, I met the lady who gave me my first hug. 

The friendliest souls ever

She was sitting at the foot of the mountain, with her daughter, watching two young boys at play. When I walked out, our eyes met and she smiled. I smiled back. She spoke to me in Turkish, and I indicated apologetically that I did not understand. She decided to continue the conversation anyway. She pointed to my ring indicating if I was married, and I nodded my yes. She wanted to know if I had come with my husband. I shook my head again. No, I was alone. If she thought it was inappropriate, her face did not show it. I surprised myself when I reached for my purse to show her my wedding photograph. They ‘ohh’ed and ‘aah’ed at the wedding picture, and I felt happy that we had shared a private moment. They pointed to a small house across the street, indicating that it was theirs, and asked me to come in for Çay (Turkish tea). I was taken aback. Yes, we had spoken, and I had shown them my wedding picture, but I was still a stranger – one who did not speak their language! Of course, the boys understood a little English, and would translate certain words to their grandmother. Even then, I wasn’t sure if there was enough time, so I refused. We continued this non-verbal communication until it was time for me to leave, and then she hugged me saying, ‘Allah korusun’ or God Bless and I hugged her back. 

They taught me to pick the ripest - my first taste of mulberry.

yes i'd love another glass of tea

A short walking distance from the Great mosque is a well preserved Divrigi home built in the traditional manner using wood. Outside this house were two big trees, laden with tiny white fruits. Young children from the neighbouring houses along with their purdah clad mothers had come to harvest them and though the fruits looked vaguely familiar, I was positive that I hadn’t seen them before. Later, when I boarded my bus, leaf and fruit in hand; my fellow Turkish travellers explained that it was the white Mulberry. So I’m guessing, by toughing her scarf, she was trying to tell me about the silkworms. 

During my travels through interior Turkey I felt welcome at every street corner. Random people will stop for a chat with you – sometimes in whatever broken English they can manage, at other times using hand gestures. It always begins with a simple question, ‘Where from?’ To which I soon learnt to reply, ‘Hindi-sthan’, the Turkish name for India. They would smile in recognition and one bold guy broke into a song, ‘awara hoon…’ from the Raj Kapoor’s 1951 classic movie ‘Awara’. Others asked more questions, invited me home; treated me to many cups of Turkish tea. Hospitality comes easily to them, and their culture, like ours, believes in the ‘Atithi devo bhava’ concept, though I am sure they have something appropriate in Turkish for that. 

Turkish dishes and their Malabari counterparts

A walk through Grand Bazaar in Sultanhmet and the Egyptian Spice Bazaar near Bosphorus reiterated these connections. Turks fancy the yellow metal, and the many gold shops that lined the market, reminded me of Kerala’s city specific gold markets. As I bit into a pista filled Turkish Delight, I remembered its country cousin, the Kozhikodan Halwa. The Turkish Pilav and the Indian pulao share the same parent. Their one bite wonder, midye dolma or mussels stuffed with rice, was just another version of the Malabari kadukka nirachathu.

Even though I have travelled alone before, never have I felt comfortable enough to share personal details with strangers. Never have I seen similarities that stretched beyond borders and dated back centuries. And never again will I be able to sing that song without fondly remembering Turkey. 

“āwārāhoon, yā gardish mein hoon, āsmān ka tārā hoon”


PS: On the last day of the Sivas conference I was given a chance to speak about my experience in Turkey. This is a video recording of the same.