Posts Tagged ‘India’
This year’s Durga Puja
For last decade, I have made it my practice to listen to Chandi Path (“Mahisasur Mardini“), on Mahalaya, the first day of Durga Puja, early at 4 am. This is the day, the Goddess takes form to slay the half man half buffalo demon Mahisasur. This year, on Mahalaya, we were at Paicines, it was a new moon night and we were busy shooting Andromeda galaxy. By the time, we were tired of star gazing and shivering, it was well past 3 am. Could I have listened to Chandi Path with coyotes howling at stars? I was too exhausted to appreciate the beautiful chants of Birendra Krishna Bhadra. I eventually listened to Chandi path 7 days later while making breakfast and thought about my fellow Bengalis who congregate by the oldest radio shop in Kolkata to listen to Mahalaya (link).
Read the rest of this entry »What the queen saw if she woke up early…
Tijara fort never quite had a queen. The son of the king started to build the fort and died before the fort was completed. His mother, the King’s partner/concubine, only got the status of queen after committing sati – she sat on her dead husband’s pyre and burnt herself alive.
My knees creaked going up the steep stairs of Tijara fort. But lets pretend that this hypothetical queen of Tijara fort had nimbler knees – from all the functional effort of going up and down these steep stairs everyday. The 650 million old Aravali range might have had a few more stubby hills around the fort, mined to nothingness since then. I imagine the sunrise would have looked different, the air quality index would have been 100 points lower. There would have been no haze blanketing the surrounding land. I am also going to imagine that the straw colored wheat fields would be interspersed with palm groves and orange blossomed palash trees. Even today, from the fort, you can see some small ancient temples on the surrounding land, they are black now and they would have shared the pinkish hue of the Aravali. We saw hundreds of birds flying around. Perhaps the queen would have fed them in the morning and they would have gathered around her. We saw a blaze of bougainvillea on the fort grounds, along with palash, madhumalati and parijat in bloom. Perhaps they were even more plentiful back then.
Read the rest of this entry »Flowers of Tijara Fort
The Aravali range is India’s oldest mountain range, ten times older than the youthful Himalayas that are still growing. This 400 mile “line of peaks” has been eroding for over 500 million years. The range cradles the Thar desert and stops the desert from taking over more of Rajasthan. In places, all that is left of the range are stubs. Mining of the Aravali is an ancient activity in itself. Copper mining dates back to 5th century BCE. I grew up in what was then a small town, Alwar. Most people know Alwar for its famous sweet, Kalakand. I, however, remember my time in Alwar for the Aravali range. I was fortunate to have an Aravali stub right opposite my primary school. For a child, a stub is as tall as a mountain and its base camp was only a hop skip and jump away from the school gate. My father was stationed in Alwar and occasionally, the family would tour the Alwar district with him. On these tours, we would naturally weave in and out of the Aravali range, sometimes with the sun high up in the sky. And on such occasions, the Aravali would glitter, the mica of the mountain range would reflect the sun. I continue to like my mountains, skies and oceans to glitter!
Read the rest of this entry »Bhut Jolokia @ Dzükou tribal kitchen
Dzükou tribal kitchen in Hauz Khas market.
Bhut Jolokia or Naga Mircha (Bengali/Naga name) or Ghost chili pepper – call it what you want but it is the second hottest chili pepper in the world. And Dzükou tribal kitchen in Hauz Khas market serves chutneys from the chili. Yum!
I tat I taw a puddy tat, I did taw a puddy tat … in Paris
Zlebia from Tunisia
One watches travel channels and food TV and begins to think that one knows it all. Nothing should come as a surprise and often, nothing does. And then one finds Zlebia from Tunisia in the Latin Quarter of Paris!
What is this strange looking shiny pretzel like thing?
Locomotoring 