THE CHUTNEY GURU

It’s a lovely Monday morning, and I languidly got up from the sofa and stretched my limbs idly. Its breakfast time and I felt like having hot idlis and spicy hot green chutney to go with it. I busied myself scraping coconut and diligently, without even giving it much thought, added eleven green chillies , a slice of onion half a teaspoon of salt and blended it well in the mixer grinder. I am sure people reading this would be appalled at the number of green chillies I have added to the chutney mix without even a thought. Well, for me, it’s a magical number. I scooped a spoon of the ground chutney and tasted it and my thoughts were instantly transported back to my childhood days in Ernakulam

Summer vacations were always spent at our ancestral home at Ernakulam. It was a childhood ritual that all of us cousins would conglomerate at our ancestral home and spend all our summer vacations idling away our days there, with games, constant bickering and what not. On a typical day at Thottekat house, on waking up, none of us would be in any kind of hurry to adhere to a routine or go down for breakfast at any fixed time. While we dilly dallied and dawdled around chatting, our maternal Uncle Ammaama as we all called him, would ascend the wooden steps to the grand hall where we would all be lying around, and announce in soft tones, ‘ Kaapi kudikyan varu’, which means that all of us should go down for breakfast. Tall, wiry, with an aquiline nose and sharp eyes, a gentle smile lingering on his lips for us as he looked around us, that’s my Ammaama. 

Obediently we trundled down the stairs, deliberately treading heavily on the wooden stairs to create the maximum ruckus while descending. Needless to say, the entire household used to be aware of us all coming in for breakfast. 

Seated in the large dining hall, we were served piping hot idlis and red coconut chutney on porcelain plates specially imported in those days from China. I used to love having my idlis on these pale blue plates with the picture of a huge differently hued bird etched on it. 

The chutney used to be hot and spicy.

My granny once tasted the chutney and said, ‘bhayankara erivu’.( it’s too hot and spicy)

The family chef Parameswaran Nair who was standing obediently beside granny quipped, ‘Amma, I want some dried red chillies for making erisseri this afternoon”

He was a tall, upright, well built man, sporting just a dhothi and a long white cloth slung carelessly over his shoulder, which he used to wipe his face and hands with. His most interesting feature was his lips, especially the lower lip, which was broad, adding a touch of insolence or arrogance to his features.

Granny looked at him in wide eyed wonder- ‘What! Just this morning I gave you eleven red chillies!”

Parameswaran Nair replied-‘then what else did I use to make this chutney?’

Granny- ‘you used all eleven?!!!

He cackled loudly in reply, and I found this interaction between the two highly interesting and enlightening. I used to love his chutneys and even though I was a school going kid at that time, the magical number 11 stuck in the recesses of my mind.

Years later, when I started cooking for my family, inevitably and even without thinking, I used the magical number 11 to make chutneys, whether it be red or green chutneys. Without fail, it always came right. Maybe I was blessed by my first guru in culinary skills, Parameswaran Nair. 

My husband and daughter go gaga over my chutneys and each time I mentally pay homage to my culinary guru Parameswaran Nair. 

Decades have passed, and I am sure my favourite chef must have passed on to a better world. But as Dronacharya was to Ekalavya, I still owe him Gurudakshina. 

Years later, my granny was giving away all her belongings to her kith and kin, and she asked me too , to choose from all her possessions. The most prized possession I ever wanted was the blue porcelain china plate with the picture of the bird. To this day, I have that plate and it occupies pride of place among my other plates.  It has a story to tell of how a little girl used to relish having hot idlis and chutneys on that plate. Niranjana, my daughter, knowing how attached I am to that plate, lovingly gifted me  blue jug with the picture of a bird on it, and later on she made a blue porcelain cup for me from Budapest, a personalised one to go with my plate and jug. 

The trio- the plate, jug and mug are so close to my heart and treasured and so are memories of my dear chef cum chutney guru, Parameswaran Nair 

A STREET SPARKED FOODIE ANECDOTE

It’s been days since I penned down a post in my own blog… some other things took precedence over my writing. Excuses galore, and laziness added to it, and I refrained from doing what I love to do best.

Even though my days were spent in writing to various magazines and random scribbles in my journal, I somehow neglected my own kind of writing for quite a while. What sparked the story teller in me was a random visit on my way back from Malayali club to a way side street food stall. Hari and I had walked in to get some spicy potato chips to munch while watching a movie, when my eyes fell on spicy red coloured mouth-watering cauliflower Manchurians in bowls over the counter. 

It was not just the cauliflower Manchurians ,in fact it brought back a whole lot of memories of another time, another era perhaps, of several summers ago, when Ninjoo was still at school.

Time stood for me while my thoughts raced back to the days at Sangam apartments in Kilpauk. Hot summers were most welcome then, and we used to look forward to ice cream smoothies, mangoes galore, and of course, these cauliflower Manchurians. Back in those days, we used to have a little girl living in our apartment complex by the name Nagarathinam. I used to call her fondly Naga, and on most days, she was always with us, and she used to reluctantly go back home to sleep. She was as fond of us as we were of her, and she was like a little kid sister for Ninjoo. 

Since I was helping her with her studies, she used to be at my place from morning to evening on weekends and on holidays.  She was family for me and Ninjoo and every time we thought of ice creams, Ninjoo and Naga used to make a beeline for the nearest ice cream shop.  On the pretext of studying, hot summers were whiled away licking yummy ice cream smoothies and biting into luscious ripe mangoes. She used to love my potato stew and I used to call her to have lunch with us whenever I made potato stew. 

One of those days, we discovered these cauliflower Manchurians and a street vendor used to come near our apartment every evening by 8. Naga and Ninjoo used to have their eyes glued to the clock and as soon as it struck 8, they made a run for the door and were back in minutes with packets of these yummy cauliflower delicacies.

 Years whizzed past, we moved away from Sangam, Naga had to return to her home town Rajahmundry because of her mother’s sudden and unfortunate demise. But we still managed to keep in touch, although randomly.

 The little girl who was in the fifth when we were in Sangam is now a software engineer. She used to call me occasionally and just a few days ago, she called to say that her marriage had been solemnised. I was so very happy for her and even though we couldn’t attend her wedding, we decided to meet up in Chennai.

Hello, mam’- the shopkeeper’s voice brought me back to the present. As a tribute to my little Naga, and for Ninjoo and for a glorious summer at Sangam and for all our fond memories , I decided to buy these cauliflower delicacies. 

While penning this down, as though there is a telepathic connect, my phone pinged. It was a message from Naga.

‘Hi Auntie, I am at your home town with my husband Yashwant. We are proceeding to Munnar from Kochi. We decided to honeymoon at Kerala as a tribute to you, Auntie.’

My eyes welled up at these words… Naga, you alre always fondly remembered and cherished,, may you stay blessed….