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| The Finely Chopped Kitchen kosha mangsho |
I moved to Mumbai from Kolkata thanks to my first job. Work was tough and my schedule was crazy, even though I tried to practice what kids today call ‘quiet quitting’. I had a rather roaring social life despite this. ‘Work hard and play hard’ was my maxim.
Coming to Mumbai meant that I was living alone (away from family) for the first time. I was 23. Unlike back home in Kolkata, there were no night curfews to adhere to. Phone calls across cities were not an easy so my mother not could keep a daily tab on me as she can now! Mumbai was a brave new world which offered exciting experiences. I had a new set of friends. First jobbers like me who hailed from different parts of the country. They lived either as PGs (as I did) or in shared apartments.
We would head out after work to catch the night show at Sterling, Regal, New Empire or Excelsior. After grabbing a bite and a drink at Leopold, or a bite at Crystal, or a drink at the Fashion Lounge. Or go to Gokul for sasta daroo, followed by Bade Miya (it was just a stall on the street then), to have chewy kebabs at exorbitant prices as penance. Or score passes for media parties through friends who worked in media agencies for this meant free, not just sasta, daroo (alcohol).
The Cinderella hour for us was the last local from Churchgate. Unlike today when even college kids, forget early jobbers, travel by radio cabs, we could not even dream of sharing a Padmini kali peeli with our meagre agency starting salaries.
My PG was at a walking distance from Bandra station. One would have to skirt a pack of menacing looking stray dogs on entering the Nutan Nagar compound and then rats scurrying up and down the staircase. When I reached the fourth floor and rang the bell, Sapan, who was my PG aunty’s rather skinny and quirky man Friday, would open the door with a razai wrapped around him and a disgusted expression on his face. A fair price to pay for the freedom that my new life offered I guess.
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| Rashmi speaks: Be a giver not a receiver/ Follow Saraswati and Laxmi will follow/ Enjoy what you do and you will be happy and you will make others happy. Don’t compare yourself with others |
That was 25 years back. Thing are different now. I went for dinner next door to Foo, Bandra, last Thursday and returned feeling as if I had run the New York, Boston and London marathons back to back. I blamed it on our straining across the table to listen to each other over the loud music but our host, the lovely and evergreen Rashmi Uday Singh, told me, “you are growing old champ.Young folks do not feel that a restaurant is up to mark unless it is very loud and very dark.” Foo definitely was that and the food was what I would describe as ‘military medium’ which is what Indian non-spin bowlers were referred to in the 80s.
I met K a couple of years after moving to Mumbai when I shifted to an ad agency. We began dating a few months after that. We ate out every evening before heading home. I lost track of most of my old new friends. Many had shifted out of Mumbai by then. I hardly made any friend of note in the new office. Apart from the one I married!
We got married a year later. We were broke after all the dinners we had for a year, spent looking into each others eyes and then the waiter’s when he came with the bill. We rented a tiny apartment at Khar and our fiscal deficit was comparable to that of a small Latin American nation. We had all our meals at home for a while as we could not afford eating out. Then we hedged our bets (I am just fooling you by throwing jargon from pink papers, my knowledge of finance is zilch) and bought a tiny apartment in Bandra.
I left advertising after a year there and returned to market research. This time as a manager. A role suited for us drones. My outlook towards life is similar to that of Bertie Wooster’s after all. Without his uncle’s purse! We were in a better position in life with both of us doing fairly well in our respective careers. We could go out to eat again! We still could not invite anyone home apart from immediate family as the house was rather small.
I occasionally called my team members home. A bunch of bhalo chheles (good boys). I was in my early 30s and them in their early 20a. No-one in the team drank. Barring me (and I don’t anymore). Half were vegetarian. ‘Parties’ at home meant 4 or 5 of us boys watching soccer World Cup football games on TV over pizza, Gatorade (them) and Budweiser (me). Our 1RK converted into 1BHK was not large enough to hold the 5 of us. K would hang with her friends or visit her folks, and come back after the boys left.
‘This must be the first party in the history of parties where a house has been cleaner after the guests than before they arrived,’ exclaimed K after the first such house party. The boys had dutifully put all the trash in a garbage bag and put it out before they left!
There was this one time when K came back from work early on a match. She said that she would rest in the bedroom and head to a cafe before the boys came. Ever the workaholic, K was fast asleep as exhaustion has taken over. I didn’t have the heart, or courage, to wake her. I told the boys that K was in the next room. They nodded gravely and watched the match with volume turned off. Expressing their agony and ecstasy, as the fortune of their teams fluctuated, through hand movements and sighs. They left once the match was over. After cleaning up of course.
K finally woke up and said, ‘oh no. I fell asleep. I will leave before your kids drop in.’
Picture the surprise on her face when I said that they had come, had their pizzas and gatorades, watched the match, cleaned up, and left!
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| What Daddy Loaf? You were allergic to cats? Baby Loaf & Little Nimki. |
We put our apartment on rent after 5 years of living there and rented a 2BHK near Pali Market. We bought a two seater bistro table from FabIndia. For the first time in our marriage, we had a ‘dining table.’ And space to invite people home!
K had a few friends who were her peers in the agency she worked at when we got married. Most had moved on to other agencies, as had K. They became my friends too and would invite us to their houses. The one who hosted us the most had two cats. I hated cats then (Baby Loaf, little Nimki and the Kitty Blinder please shut your ears). I thought I was allergic to them. I’d go home sniffling thinking that it was because of the cats. Lest I sound ungrateful, I must stress that they were quite a nice bunch of people and we are all in touch.
And, as a certain Maharani made me realise, I am not allergic to cats!
Well, we finally had an apartment spacious enough to invite them.
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| But we love you Mr K. How can you be allergic to us, said the Kitty Blinders. |
My own friend circle had drastically shrivelled by then as everyone from the earlier gang had moved out. I then made a whole set of new friends outside of work thanks to my blog. Folks from UK, Australia, Bengalis from Calcutta who had moved to Mumbai for work and locals. We invite them to our house for dinner. You could call those the first of the Finely Chopped house parties.
I cooked of course. The recipe for the initial parties were constant. Kosha mangsho and chingri malai curry. The most bombastic of Bengali party dishes. These were not cooked at home when I was growing up. I can’t claim to have learnt them from my mother or grandmother. Internet sites hosted by Bengali expats based in the US were my faceless mentors. Along with that there would be alu posto, and bhaat. I don’t know how ‘authentic’ the food was but our guests seemed to be happy. Or perhaps it was the bottles of Teacher’s, Jack Daniels, Smirnoff and Bud at work.
I eventually moved out of the taste of Bengal menus and made noodles and chilli chicken, oops still Bengal, and then bacon pesto spaghetti (more Bandra than Bengal).
K played the hard working hostess while I cooked. Taking out starters, fixing drinks, clearing plates. Cleaning up at the end. I am sure she missed my Team Moto boys who would clean up after they left. And I just realised that I could be cancelled for writing this paragraph. Let me quickly say that I fully believe in the equality of genders.
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| Where’s the party tonight pishi? |
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| When Shaswati dropped this weekend |
I directed #kayteecooks to make ilish tel jhol with begun and alu and #noorbanucooks to make kosha mangsho. In both cases I measured out the spices, gave measurements of ingredients, specific recipe instructions and checked the dishes before the end. The ilish tel jhol is based on memories of what mum likes to do with this prized fish. A recipe I have come to now appreciate after my earlier experiments with the more glamorous sounding ilish bhaapa, paturi, doi ilish, doi posto ilish.
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| Ilish tel jhol |
My kosha mangsho recipe has changed over the years. Earlier I used to make in pressure cooker as the directed by recipes on the internet. Pucca Bengalis were outraged. Koshano means slow cook. Making it in a pressure cooker was akin to hatching a CIA conspiracy in erstwhile red Bengal. On top of that, I did not use mustard oil as I found it too pungent.
Ten years later, we now make kosha mangsho in an open pan and I do use mustard oil (but without the excess of oil and spices that home chefs and restaurant chefs use). And have it with Gobindobhog and not basmati, like a khaati Bengali should. Ironical, given that I left home 25 years back in search of freedom.
In case you feel that this doesn’t really qualify as ‘cooking,’ let me stress that I did make the honey kasundi wings myself. I marinated them and bunged them in the oven. Took them out too. So there!
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| Honey kasundi chicken |
I admit that I do not have the zest or energy that I had ten years back and get fagged out when we call people over, but I do feel great when we do so. As a child I’d seen my father organise my birthday parties from scratch, whether we were in the UK, Iran or Kolkata. He loved cooking and feeding people and was very big hearted. I do not have his larger than life personality, but I feel as if I am carrying his legacy ahead in a small way when I invite people and cook for them. When I sit back and watch our guests eat and have a good time, then I can almost sense him smiling at me.
And I must add before closing, that my younger brother is a great host. The seed does not fall far as they say!
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| In the tee Manzie gifted me. With my kosha mangsho and ghee bhaat Sunday lunch. |
PS: It’s a coincidence that I happened to be wearing the tee shirt that our friend Manzilat gave me, when we met for my mother’s birthday in Kolkata, while editing the post yesterday. The design is that of a series of faces. ‘Represents how you connect people in the real and virtual world through your work,’ said Manzilat. It was very kind of her to say so and I felt great because that’s what I have tried to do and the house parties I spoke of wore all a result of that. Here’s to more!
PPS: I unpublished this post after I published it yesterday. I was in a writing frenzy over the last few days and this was a continuation of that. I did not realise it but I was very tired and the copy was very sloppy. So I stopped and spent a lot of time taking rest before I hit the keyboard again this evening. Hopefully this reads better.
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| Baby Loaf and little Nimki joined me for yoga nidra this afternoon. As they did last evening when I decided to stop. |
