Andy---The Chef
Its very rightly said that you realize the worth of something only when you don’t have it with you and I am finding myself as an living example to prove this. I am craving for those tanduri roti’s which I was fed up eating in pune and used to curse.
I miss that paneer butter masala which I used to overlook in menu cards. The only part of daily food which I used to avoid, namely rice, is my loyal companion here; it being the easiest of all other stuffs to prepare. Now, its not that we can not go and have food outside but there are two reasons which thwart us from doing so. First, and the foremost, is that every novice, including myself, coming onsite has the desire of saving as much as he can so as to be able to go home and enjoy after converting the hard earned (?) pounds into rupees and frequent eat-out’s is by no means a cheap affair. The second is that if you are a vegetarian, you are left with little choice in hotels and you never know when you end up eating something that sounds veg but actually is not. So, most of us follow the traditional way of helping ourselves by cooking at home and that’s where was the beginning of deep trouble for me, who neither could cook anything apart from omelette nor was enthusiastic enough to try out the kitchen.
I was made aware of this bitter reality soon after enjoying first few days of hospitality by my roomies. I had great difficulty during the first two weeks forcing the different varieties of rice like sambar-rice, curry-rice, curd-rice etc down my throat. We were six of us initially and two people were enough for making the breakfast or dinner. This shielded me from the kitchen works for first two weeks to the extent that my colleague-cum-roomie even used to pack my tiffin for me. So all I had to do was to taste the stuffs and offer my valuable comments on the quality. But soon we were reduced to five and I started getting the feel of kitchen. I was able to estimate the exact amount of water needed to make given amount of rice and was pretty pleased at my achievement. But this joy was short-lived as I found that preparing the rice was the smallest contribution and there had to be something,a curry or dal accompanying the rice to make it eatable which was more challenging. I took the challenge head on and assured my roommates that they would soon taste curry prepared by me. With utmost concentration I observed them making the curries and got hold of the procedure, thanks to my good grasping power.
As I was preparing myself for the D-day when I would make a curry myself , I was getting into the thick of things in the kitchen, which had been a uncharted territory for me hitherto despite mum’s numerous efforts to make me realize the significance of cooking knowledge. Of all things, cutting the onions was one task which tested my patience to the fullest. I even got up to cleaning the kitchen after daily cooking, something which surprised me the most as I dint at all think that I would ever be doing this. We had got a dish washer though which made it easier, still considerable manual intervention was needed as the machine seemed helpless cleaning vessels in which all Indian style stuffs were prepared. There is high dependency on machine here in day-to-day life and people try and make tasks automated as far as possible. Mostly this automation is appreciable and convenient however there are certain things which one feels can be left to humans. The one good thing about food is that all Indian items right from vegetables to spices are easily available in food stores. So, we have everything from garam masala to besan and from haldi to dhaniya which would make our kitchen as well equipped as any Indian one. The stores are actually full of a variety of items, due to presence of large communities with different ethnicities. People here eat literally anything by making any unusual permutations and combinations. As it is, doing unusual things is pretty usual here. You find people with unimaginable parts of their body pierced and tattooed, wearing weird outfits and making funny hairstyles. This experimenting behaviour of theirs continues with food as well which you can make out seeing at different dishes. The eating habits are also a lot different than ours. I used to wonder how a diet coke and a burger make up for a lunch. The cola’s inevitable part of their food. Coming back to my story, I was making giant strides to becoming a great chef, at least that’s what I perceived.
On a fine Friday evening my companions decided to go for chicken and suggested me to have omelette, as usual. It was then that the dormant wannabe chef in me woke up and enthused me into venturing for a curry for myself. I thought it logical as it would be a rehearsal before I serve curry to others. So I zeroed on potatoes and decided to have them with slight gravy. I chopped the jumbo potato into pieces which I thought should have been cut smaller after putting them for frying. The onions were already there for me thankfully as a result of earlier chicken preparation. I put the chillies in and went on with frying. Then was the turn of spices and I carefully started adding them. I thought of having a spicy curry so let my hand a bit loose with chilli powder and then added pinch of salt. I then added water for the gravy part of it and after stirring and ensuring that everything is perfectly mixed, kept it for simmering.
Ten minutes later I switched the gas off and was ready to taste first ever curry made on my own. The colour wasn’t that great but I overlooked it thinking that external appearances are often deceptive. I baked the chapati’s for me. These frozen chapati/paratha is all you have to do with if you are a chapati fan. I had the first bite with all the excitement and that was all. The wannabe chef, who just an hour before invoked me to cooking , suddenly vanished. The curry was just tolerable as the potatoes were undercooked with extra chilli and less salt. I somehow swallowed it and told myself that there was still some time before I could make a tasty curry all by myself. Currently, I am playing the role of assistant in the kitchen and trying hard to carve a good chef out of me. Hope to have him soon….
Andy
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Luna to London
Luna to London
Here I am. Sitting on my cosy bed in Ipswich. The town is situated in Suffolk county at 2 hrs drive from London. Its 8 pm local time and I have already had two pegs of teachers brand , a Scotland made whisky. The sun has not yet set here and light is gradually falling down. So, all in all it’s a perfect time to sit back and reflect as it would be exactly one week after a few hours since my arrival in UK and this is the first time I have got time to do so.
It all started last Friday when I was completely at sixes and sevens packing my stuff for what was my first visit to UK or should I say my first international flight. Somehow with assistance of 4 others dada,vaini, sagar and shripad I finally limited my luggage to specified 20 kgs. It was raining in Mumbai and with experience of 26/7
I decided to reach early in the morning for my jet airways flight at 12.45 pm IST from chatrapati international airport which, as it went, turned out to be a completely wrong decision which I won’t say is rare in my case. I would not have mind it had shri not been with me. Poor fellow, we slept at 00.30 hrs on Saturday morning and got up at 2 when the cab driver gave us a call. We collected ourselves along with the luggage and got down. It was continuously raining that day. I, irresistably, took an hour’s sleep on our express highway drive. We reached Mumbai at 6 am sharp and that was when the cab-driver asked me when was my flight. I, reluctantly, told him that its at 12.45 pm and as expected, he lectured me on how we could have left at 4 am and still could have comfortably made it well before the prescribed check-in time. The policemen at entrance did not let us in seeing our flight time. We were left with having a breakfast at the untidy airport restaurant and cursing the AAI. Somehow we managed to enter in at 7.30 am after exploring all details of airport exterior. We waited in for about two and half hours before my check-in time.
Finally, I checked in at 9.30 am and went through all the checks and all. I was seeing the planes with such proximity for the first time in my life. The announcements started sounding about boarding the plane. Mine was a jet airways flight, no. 9w 118.
With all the enthusiasm and excitement, I boarded the plane.
It took the plane about 20 mins to take-off. We were receiving the instructions from the captain from time to time. I was waiting for it to take off as I could see it move with its spreaded wings. It started running on highway and took off after attaining the required velocity. The feeling in your stomach as soon as the wheels leave the ground is like the one when you sit in a roller-coaster or something. I was making all the efforts that I could to get the aerial glimpse of Arabian sea as mine was not the window seat. Still, I managed to get the same and was having the feeling of eternal bliss. The plane was taking on higher heights with the outside temperatures rapidly falling, as I could see on the screens in front of us.
It attained the height of 36000 fts and was then completely straightened. The handsome stewards and tantalisingly beautiful air-hostesses started their duty of serving the commuters with a pleasant smile on their face.
Man, I just could not believe it and found myself in the seventh heaven, which, I then came to know was at 36000 ft from ground. It was exactly the way I had dreamt it to be when I used to see the planes flying and taking on the heights in the sky from my terrace in Nagpur. A guy who used to go to college on his 49.75 cc LUNA TFR, which used to complain climbing even the slope on his way to college,was climbing far greater heights in the sky. The ambience was perfect. 36000 ft, for 9 hrs non-stop, covering 7500 kms spanning 3 continents, with outside temperature dipping to as low as -57 deg celcius and exquisite quisine being served by charming air-hostesses. What better could the heaven offer ? I thanked Wilber and Oliver wright for their invention from the bottom of my heart and was reminiscing my past. At 5.55 pm BST we got the instructions to tighten our seat belts as we were ready to land. A nice and sunny weather in London welcomed us.
The journey from Luna to London had been a memorable one ! Nevertheless, I made it a point to remind myself that there is a new journey which begins from London. Let us see where it leads.….
Andy
Here I am. Sitting on my cosy bed in Ipswich. The town is situated in Suffolk county at 2 hrs drive from London. Its 8 pm local time and I have already had two pegs of teachers brand , a Scotland made whisky. The sun has not yet set here and light is gradually falling down. So, all in all it’s a perfect time to sit back and reflect as it would be exactly one week after a few hours since my arrival in UK and this is the first time I have got time to do so.
It all started last Friday when I was completely at sixes and sevens packing my stuff for what was my first visit to UK or should I say my first international flight. Somehow with assistance of 4 others dada,vaini, sagar and shripad I finally limited my luggage to specified 20 kgs. It was raining in Mumbai and with experience of 26/7
I decided to reach early in the morning for my jet airways flight at 12.45 pm IST from chatrapati international airport which, as it went, turned out to be a completely wrong decision which I won’t say is rare in my case. I would not have mind it had shri not been with me. Poor fellow, we slept at 00.30 hrs on Saturday morning and got up at 2 when the cab driver gave us a call. We collected ourselves along with the luggage and got down. It was continuously raining that day. I, irresistably, took an hour’s sleep on our express highway drive. We reached Mumbai at 6 am sharp and that was when the cab-driver asked me when was my flight. I, reluctantly, told him that its at 12.45 pm and as expected, he lectured me on how we could have left at 4 am and still could have comfortably made it well before the prescribed check-in time. The policemen at entrance did not let us in seeing our flight time. We were left with having a breakfast at the untidy airport restaurant and cursing the AAI. Somehow we managed to enter in at 7.30 am after exploring all details of airport exterior. We waited in for about two and half hours before my check-in time.
Finally, I checked in at 9.30 am and went through all the checks and all. I was seeing the planes with such proximity for the first time in my life. The announcements started sounding about boarding the plane. Mine was a jet airways flight, no. 9w 118.
With all the enthusiasm and excitement, I boarded the plane.
It took the plane about 20 mins to take-off. We were receiving the instructions from the captain from time to time. I was waiting for it to take off as I could see it move with its spreaded wings. It started running on highway and took off after attaining the required velocity. The feeling in your stomach as soon as the wheels leave the ground is like the one when you sit in a roller-coaster or something. I was making all the efforts that I could to get the aerial glimpse of Arabian sea as mine was not the window seat. Still, I managed to get the same and was having the feeling of eternal bliss. The plane was taking on higher heights with the outside temperatures rapidly falling, as I could see on the screens in front of us.
It attained the height of 36000 fts and was then completely straightened. The handsome stewards and tantalisingly beautiful air-hostesses started their duty of serving the commuters with a pleasant smile on their face.
Man, I just could not believe it and found myself in the seventh heaven, which, I then came to know was at 36000 ft from ground. It was exactly the way I had dreamt it to be when I used to see the planes flying and taking on the heights in the sky from my terrace in Nagpur. A guy who used to go to college on his 49.75 cc LUNA TFR, which used to complain climbing even the slope on his way to college,was climbing far greater heights in the sky. The ambience was perfect. 36000 ft, for 9 hrs non-stop, covering 7500 kms spanning 3 continents, with outside temperature dipping to as low as -57 deg celcius and exquisite quisine being served by charming air-hostesses. What better could the heaven offer ? I thanked Wilber and Oliver wright for their invention from the bottom of my heart and was reminiscing my past. At 5.55 pm BST we got the instructions to tighten our seat belts as we were ready to land. A nice and sunny weather in London welcomed us.
The journey from Luna to London had been a memorable one ! Nevertheless, I made it a point to remind myself that there is a new journey which begins from London. Let us see where it leads.….
Andy
London Onwards
London onwards….
Of late, I have figured out that Saturday has been the most happening day of the week in my life hitherto, the most important event being my birth apart from which there are many incidents which chose this day. 18th august is another one in the list. It began at 3 am in the morning when I bade farewell to my colleague with heavy eyes (instead of heart) who was leaving for India because of me as I was his replacement onsite. With great difficulty I uttered the words “good bye” and again went deep into quilt to sleep. The next alarm rang at 5.30 and this time I had to get up. I was ready with two of my roommates (Srinivasan and Devendar ) at 6.45 with a bag having some biscuits, apples, bottle of water and few print out’s of London map. I called hawk express, a private cab agency and asked for a cab to station. This 24 hour cab service is one of the many things that fascinates me. One just needs to call and tell ‘from’ & ’to’ to the operator on the other side of the phone and that’s it. Within 2 minutes I received a message saying that a blue Mercedes with so & so number will be ready in front of our gate in 10 minutes. The cab arrived and we were off to station where after a couple of snaps we boarded the train to London Liverpool. The train service is privatised here so what you have is an oligopoly of few service providers which is monitored and regulated by national rail, a government body. In our one and half hour journey I was watching the wonderful greenery outside which I was told is the attribute of the summer and would disappear in next few months. At 8.45 we alighted at London Liverpool after passing through the stations at manningtree , Colchester and stratford. One can not avoid the feel of CST which you get at Liverpool station apart from the fact that it’s a bit cleaner. The construction and all resembles our very own CST and reminds you that it was the deed of the same british. We got out and were searching for the way forward when we were offered assistance by a volunteer which I instantly felt was one of the most important improvisations we need at important stations in metropolis of Mumbai as they provide a lot of opportunities to the thugs, assuming that we want to take it to international standards, along with the ubiquitous accurate sign boards which won’t let one lose his way even if one wants.
Our first site was the tower bridge where we arrived in bus. Talking about the buses,
they are sans conductor, with automatic opening doors controlled by the driver. You need to swipe the ticket and just relax in comfortable seats. A stop button in front does the job of the conductor of ringing the bell to the driver. We were discussing our way forward when a desi sitting beside us, out of inherent Indian characteristic of helping others, suggested us about the same. There are just over a million Indians in UK which comes out about 2% of the entire population. For those interested in statistics, 70% of the staff in BT branch I work at are Indians, proof of India’s clout in off shoring. It makes you feel like home. But the same time I could feel the unrest that must have prevailed when off shoring was beginning to make impact on the higher management’s decision to reduce native’s numbers. Imagine, you are asked to leave when you are leading a good life in UK with a salary upwards of 4000£. It even made me think that if this continues we would surely have a “quit Britain” movement resembling one of ours in 1942. I could not help but wonder how such a small country at the peak of its empire ruled almost a quarter of the globe. Anyways, we reached at the famous tower bridge constructed over the river Thames (London ki ganga).
The weather was cool and breezy, with a temperature just below 20 and the place was peaceful. I found the place very romantic. I was a bit disappointed with Thames though as I expected it to be cleaner. After a good deal of photo session on the bridge and in front of the towering buildings adjacent to it we started walking over. It being a cloudy morning and since we had had enough water since morning, I got the inevitable nature’s call. I could answer it but not before following almost half a dozen sign-boards to locate the toilets and paying 20p (a whopping 16 Rs. !) as you lose the privilege of peeing along the roadside. We then headed to London Bridge, another one in the series of bridges over Thames. The next spot was the monument, a tall standing tower which was undergoing some repairs work. After having a veg roll, we went underground to catch the tube (as it is called here) which took us to embankment. Every now and then we (or rather guys accompanying me) were referring to the maps we had brought with us. Then we went to one more architectural spectacle of the British airways, the London eye. It is marvellous to say the least. A real mammoth giant-wheel, 115 m tall, supported only on one side, having some 25 capsules, from where one could see up to 40 kms and view entire London….mind blowing! The places surrounding London eye including the Hungerford Bridge, Waterloo Bridge were flooded with people. The place is so stimulating that one cannot blame the kissing and cuddling couples around. After the 30 mins of ride we went to Westminster abbey. It was around 3 in the afternoon; we had a walk to Royal Park, a lovely garden surrounding the palace. Some musical concert was going on in the garden. I must mention the soothing peace that was there but I was not able to appreciate the music. We took a brief nap (effect of that smooth music !) and then moved to the Buckingham palace.Couldn’t meet Charles as I heard he was having some good time with Camilla Parker Bowels somewhere in New Zealand! The palace is a mark of the abundance and prosperity of this small nation with a strong economy. Near the palace there are two poles on which is mentioned the names of Indian sub-continent countries saying that it is in the memory of 5 million soldiers from the region who laid down their lives in the honour of the king in the world war. Kind British!!
The next stop was McDonalds on Oxford Street where we had our lunch and went to shop. The street was full of people who had all come out to enjoy the Saturday night. Hardcore consumerism is an integral part of the developed economies and London is one place where even a person like me who is, you know, “not much into shopping” gets the itch to shop. After attending Primark and Mark & Spencer’s where the accompanying guys had some shopping, we unanimously decided that it was time we started our return journey. We boarded the 8.28 Ipswich train from Liverpool Street and reached home at 10.15. After having a paratha with some good laugh at Austin powers, I went to bed at 11.30. Another happening Saturday came to an end…..
Andy
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