Food, glorious food! (er…well, except for one pudding)

I like cooking and I like watching cookery shows. What impresses me most is the way all the ingredients are neatly chopped, peeled, ground, crushed and kept in in various bowls, so that the chef can, in a jiffy, and without getting so much as a stain on their aprons, whip up the most delicious looking food. The chefs don’t even need to taste the food most of the time, they just feed spoonfuls of it to the poor unfortunate lucky person standing next to them. . I mean, isn’t that the way food is supposed to be cooked? If only, in real life cooking were this! Imagine traipsing into the kitchen in designer clothes, hair and make up all in place looking like you are ready for a party, except you don a spotless apron and voila (by the power of the apron!), all the ingredients are there in their cute little bowls in desired quantities. One elegantly lights the spotless stove, and uses even more spotless pots and pans and with minimum stirring, and no spattering (is it possible to cook Indian food without at least a wee bit of spattering?) onions get browned in seconds, potatoes get boiled in under a minute, pulao’s get magically garnished with carved veggies. And the best part of it all, no washing up or cleaning up after cooking! (Where did all those empty ingredient holder bowls go by the time the end product is ready one logically wonders?) The only exception to this yardstick by which most cookery shows operate, I think is, Top Chef. There you get to see chopping, dicing, crushing, blenders spewing contents and even the odd sweat on the brow. So even though most of the ingredients and the cooking methods sound like gibberish to me, I sit and watch each episode with an almost religious fervor. The best part (for me i.e.) comes afterwards, when I get to try out my experiments on poor old H and the kids. It was one of the defining moments of our marriage (you know, when rainbows and stars pop up behind significant other’s head, accompanied by an assortment of well fed cherubs, violins playing in the background, all adding to the general merriment) I think, when I discovered that not only was H a pretty decent cook himself but was game enough to have all sorts of culinary experiments tested on him.

Cooking and moi go back a long, long way. Starting with being Mom’s fetcher of things from the fridge, to a more respectable peeler of garlic and onions my climb into this domain was very slow and steady. My very first solo attempt at cooking though was an epic event, which even to this day discussed in hushed whispers by the family. It all started innocently enough with me spotting a seemingly simple enough recipe for “Potato Pudding”. The fact that Mom had allowed me this solo foray into her kitchen was an event in itself. As mentioned before the recipe looked simple enough. It called for boiled potatoes, eggs, milk, sugar, flour, vanilla essence and some butter, I think (the memory is a little foggy ‘cos of the mists of time). It was made all the more simple for me because my Mom is one of those wonderfully organized people whose refrigerator is always well stocked. In fact, it is rather sacrilegious to call it simply a refrigerator. It is an institution in itself. Open it any time of the day, any day of the week and there will be neat little containers stocked with time and labour saving ingredients. Boiled dal, scraped coconut, chopped onions, peeled garlic, kneaded dough for chapathies and boiled potatoes are guaranteed to be in there. As opposed to my own refrigerator which is more like a treasure hunt and mystery puzzle jumbled up together. You are more than likely to encounter containers of that reddish thing, and oh! that weird brown goo, new varieties of fungus and what the heck died in here! But I digress… To come back to the potato pudding, it was the last of my Mom’s list of stock ingredients (boiled potatoes) that was supposed to make the dish an easy one on my part. The boiled potatoes were already there. I just mashed them up furiously (always such a cathartic process), whisked the eggs and sugar together with flour, milk, vanilla and butter. All the ingredients were then mixed up, loaded into a baking dish and bunged into the oven. See, simple enough!

It smelt and looked respectable enough to be plated. And so it was. That was when the first sign of trouble made it’s annoying appearance. Some parts of the dashed pudding clung to the baking dish like they were sundered hearts meeting after eons of separation. Anyway the family (mostly Mom) made suitable encouraging noises about my first effort and mom served them the pudding. Dad gave up after one spoonful and pushed his plate away. Little bro tried to cheer me up by manfully swallowing a few mouthfuls (though looking at the movements in his gullet area, I strongly suspect the did his level best to ensure it went directly to this throat and did not befoul his taste buds in anyway), Mom too tried her best to make appreciative noises. But there are in this world some things to horrible even for maternal love to supersede. Unfortunately, after having tasted the blasted pudding, even I wanted to scrape out my tongue with a chainsaw if only to get rid of the taste. The problem, you see, was that my mom always boils her potatoes with salt. The proof of the pudding as they say lies in the eating and judging by the vast amount of potato pudding that was not chomped down, I am guessed that my first attempt was an unmitigated disaster. As the legend of the potato pudding grew, it even included stories about rats and cockroaches which were seen to scramble out of the garbage bin and rush madly to the nearest source of water after trying out the pudding of lore. So the moral of the story is and hearken to me oh! good people of the world: If anyone tells you salted potatoes, vanilla, milk, sugar and eggs are winning combo - they are lying. Trust me. I learnt it the hard way.

Encounter Most Fowl!

Little D and her brother S liked where they lived. It was no big city but there were always abundant quantities of kids to play with and lots of open space to run around and play in. It also meant that they got to spend a decent amount of quality time with the beasties and the birdies, the creepies and the crawlies, whether they liked it or not.

One evening little D was out playing hide and seek with her pals. Since she was the littlest of the kids in the area, she ended up being the seeker more often than not. So there she was, standing with her eyes closed and counting up to hundred (if Mom’s genes were dominant one suspects she would have been counting in tens). All the other kids had managed to hide themselves in the surrounding shrubbery. D was scurrying around searching for them when she came eye to eye with a strange pair of eyes. As she looked carefully she realized that they belonged to the neighbour’s chicken. She raised herself up to her full height, which was sadly enough, just a few more inches than the chicken. The chicken, understandably, was intimidated and ran away squawking, full throttle. D, understandably, was not too thrilled by close encounters of the avian kind, and also ran away squawking, full throttle. Unfortunately they both chose the same pathway to freedom and thus ended up in another face off. Both were convinced of the imminent threat to their lives and ran as fast as they could back to their respective moms.

Hearing all the commotion D’s well meaning older brother, S scurried after her. Hearing his footsteps gave wings to poor D’s feet, so convinced was she by then, of the chicken’s murderous intentions. Mom had just come outside,hearing all the hullaballoo, when D dragged her inside and closed the door shut. She was just describing the vicious attack on her life by a murderous giant chicken when the doorbell rang. D scooted behind Mom squealing “Don’t open the door. It must be the chicken. He’s found out where I live!” She needn't have worried. It was not her mortal enemy. It was just good old S, of course, solicitously enquiring about his sister’s well being before hurrying away back to play. D was convinced that the chicken would ring the doorbell soon enough and no amount of Mom’s explanation about the Gallus gallus domesticus's lack of opposable thumbs would convince her otherwise.

Since little D did not suffer from lack of imagination, she spent the next few hours dreaming up various plans for revenge. Sadly for D, her parents did not allow her to wreak vengeance on the neighbour's chicken. But she did get her own back, in a way. Over the course of the next week she consumed humungous quantities of chicken with a steely glint in her eye.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ASTERIX !!!

Thank you to the folks at Blogadda for choosing this as one of their Spicy Saturday Picks.

By Toutatis! 50 years of Asterix! The well loved comic series written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo made it’s first appearance in French in the magazine Pilote on 29 October 1959.

Originally published in French, Asterix and his band of indomitable Gauls have managed to not just hold out against Caesar and his hordes, they have held their own in the highly competitive comic world. The very first Asterix comic to be published was Asterix the Gaul. This is the one in which the Roman centurion Crismus Bonus sends a soldier in the disguise of a Gaul into the little Gaulish village. They discover that the Gauls get their super strength form a magic potion that Getafix the druid brews for them. They capture Getafix and take him to the Roman camp in a bid to get him to make the magic potion for the Romans. Our little hero Asterix is also captured while trying to save the druid. The two of them hatch an insidious but hilarious plan to outwit the Romans. They both pretend to crack under torture. Getafix has the Romans running around all over the place searching for the exotic ingredients he demands to make the magic potion. Finally he ends up brewing a potent potion which though it does not bestow super strength, does help in rapid non stop growth of the Romans’ hair and beard. Getafix also secretly prepares some magic potion for Asterix and the two of them clobber their way out to freedom.

Form this beginning there was no turning back for Asterix and his Gauls. Along with the their favourite punching bags the Romans, how they have regaled us with their antics over the years.

The series almost wound up in 1977 with the death of Goscinny but the illustrator Uderzo, however, decided to carry on alone.

The first page on the left of every Asterix book tells us a little about the times in which Asterix and his friends lived.

“The year is 50 BC. Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans. Well, not entirely…One village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invading Romans. And life is not easy for the Romans legionaries who garrison the fortified camps of Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium...”

Thus begins each new adventure of Asterix. Along with his trusted friend Obelix he has travelled far and wide – to Egypt (Asterix and Cleopatra), Britain (Asterix in Britain), Spain (Asterix in Spain) Switzerland (Asterix in Switzerland), Belgium(Asterix in Belgium) etc.

Apparently the humour and puns in Asterix are very hard to translate and have given the translators endless headaches. That seems utterly believable, considering that the jokes in these books are not merely funny but extremely “punny” too! I suppose that is why as children most of us fell in love with the funny characters and marvelous illustrations, but as adults we can still curl up with an Asterix and laugh out guts out at the ingenious wordplay. Oh! and the names! The names are so utterly hilarious it would be a travesty if I did not mention some of the more zany ones - Ekonomikrisis (a Phoenician merchant who is seen in several books), Fulliautomatix (the village smith), Unhygienix (the fish monger), Geriatrix (the geriatric old man of the village), Cacophonix (the village bard), Vitalstatistix (the rotund village chieftain), Squaronthehypotenus (the architect in The Mansions of the Gods), and the list goes on.

Who is your favourite Asterix character?

Is it Asterix, the shrewd, cunning little warrior? He is selected or volunteers for all perilous missions and is different form his fellow Gauls in that he does not get into fights just for the heck of getting into a brawl.

Is it Obelix, Asterix’s closest friend and Menhir delivery man? He is as big as Asterix is small and seems to be eternally ready to drop everything and go off on a new adventure with Asterix - so long as there's wild boar to eat, and plenty of fighting. He fell into a pot of magic potion as a baby and hence his super strength does not wear off like the others. Getafix will not let him take additional potion for fear of side effects, something that Obelix finds immensely unfair and this is a running joke through all the books.

Or is it Getafix, the druid? He is the only person who can produce the magic potion upon which the villagers rely for their strength, he is the focus of many stories, and acts as the village doctor as well. The magic potion is not his sole weapon, he has several other tricks up the sleeve of his long white robe.

Then you have the feisty Impdeimenta, wife of Chief Vitalstatistix and the best cook in the village. She tries her best to make the Gauls less barbarian and a littel more civilized, usually to no avail.

Chief Vitalstatistix himself tries his best to be their fearless leader. And to that effect prefers to be carried around on a shield by a couple of harried shield bearers. In each book he finds new, creative ways to fall of his shield. His major weakness are good food and drink as is evident by his corpulent frame.

Another memorable character is the hapless bard Cacophonix. He is seen to be loved by all except when he opens his mouth to sing! A strange predicament for a bard! Another running gag in most books - Cacofonix is generally bound and gagged during the victory banquet at the end of most of the books, to allow the other villagers to have a good time without having to suffer his caterwauling.

To commemorate 50 years of existence, on 22 October 2009, a new album of Asterix short stories was released throughout the world with 56 pages of brand-new, never-before-published cartoons. I do hope it is affordable though!

Hear! Hear! Let bring out the boars and the mead and make a toast or two to the Asterix and the Indomitable Gauls for keeping generations entertained and let’s hope they hold sway over many generations to come.

Images from Wikipedia and the official Asterix website.

Neanderthal woman can beat Arnold Schwarzenegger in arm wrestling match - Oh no!

Neanderthal woman can beat Arnold Schwarzenegger in arm wrestling! This and even more such enlightening claims are detailed in a book by Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister entitled "Manthropology" and sub-titled "The Science of the Inadequate Modern Male." Apparently modern man, even today’s six pack sporting alpha male types would be major wimps when measured against Early Man. McAllister claims that they were bigger, stronger, faster and could easily beat Usain Bolt, given the same training and facilities that he has.

{What ever is written above is absolutely 100% true and real. Now what’s written below is pretty much the opposite. So read at your own risk. }

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The revelations in Manthropology send shockwaves across the world. The world was totally and utterly devastated and World leaders were worried. Fragments of conversation that burnt up several Head-of –the-state hotlines went like this (according to confidential sources) :

“Did that mean that Conan the Barbarian was not a documentary?”

“And Terminator was not based on real life?”

“No! No! No! How could that be?”

“Now you are going to tell me Santa Claus doesn’t exist?”

“All my happy childhood memories were based on false premises and promises?” “What? Mom!”

“Ain’t there someone I can sue?”

What hope did mankind have when He Who Has Saved the Planet From So Many Disasters could not even win an arm wrestling match with a Neanderthal woman? After saving the world form barbarian hordes, androids, assorted terrorists and even Satan himself wasn’t Arnie our only hope against protecting the world from a raging Neanderthal wench, asked the powers that be, in hushed whispers.

This could not be allowed to happen. A Master Plan was hatched in the remote mountains of some remote place. The Plan was that they would secretly use the secret Time Machine that they had secretly built to send Arnie back in time. He would defeat the Neanderthal woman, she would put stupid ideas about world domination out of her head and the world would be saved!

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Arnie stepped into the Time Machine and was transported back in time. He got out of the machine and looked at himself. Ha! Good! The chaps who had made the machine had included his Conan costume and he felt he would blend right in.

Soon he reached Neanderthal Woman’s cave. She looked huge but seemed harmless enough, standing in the corner and quietly stirring a pot.

Assorted kids frolicked around in the cave. Arnie stepped up and asked in his best Teminatorial voice

“Care for an arm-wressling match?”

NW (looking up from pot) – Grrmphh??? Warghh waa waah arrghghff, groof? (Translation - Grrmphh??? What’s with the weird accent, dude?)

Arnie – I said, Care for an arm-wressling match?

NW(managing to wrestle sabre tooth tiger into pot with one hand while preventing kid from jumping into pot with other) – Warrghh ergh effff??? (Translation – What the heck????)

Arnie – I am de gub’nor of Kalee-fohnia and it ees my job to protegt de world from scumb!

NW (rolling eyes heavenwards) - Warrghh ghus ah grtuhhh sgraahh wah warg Men? Oehe. Warrghhever, groof! (Translation - Why does all our trouble start with the word Men? OK. Whatever, dude!)

Wrestling match takes place, Arnie is seen to leave cave whimpering and hold broken wrist.

Outside the cave he spots Neanderthal Man, who’s been hiding been some bushes and watching the whole thing. NM is grinning widely. Bloke commiserates with Arnie and tells him “Garrh urh argh, eh? Warrghh ghus urh duh arh rah ghagher ghan Usain Bolt?” (Translation – Whupped your ass, eh? Why do you think I learnt to run faster than Usain Bolt?)

Arnie straightens up and thunders “I’ll be back”, and with a wave and a “Hasta la vista, baby”, he steps into the Time Machine and poof, he was gone.

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Back in the twenty first century the World Leaders went to plan B. It was remarkably simple - When faced with rampaging Neanderthals the only option seems to be turn on ones heel and run the hell out of there. Oh! Wait! You can’t because apparently these blokes can easily outrun the lightning fast Usain Bolt. Oh well! Hasta la vista, Baby!

Disclaimer - No Terminators, Neanderthals or sabre-toothed tigers were harmed during the writing of this post. And also, all characters appearing in this work may or may not be fictitious or figments of my imagination.

A for Amar Chitra Katha, B for Balrama, C for Chandamama….

My little girl is seriously hooked to Magic Pot, the Children's Magazine. To be honest, I myself cannot resist reading it occasionally. There is, after all, something weirdly endearing about life lessons and homilies when preached by farm animals and woodland creatures.

My own introduction to Children’s Magazines started on the day Dad brought home a Champak for me to read.

Along with the usual stories and stuff, in those days Champak featured a couple of regular cartoons featuring Chunchoo the Mouse and Cheeku the Rabbit (if my memory serves me right. Champak also featured some rib tickling (for a 6-year old) jokes. For instance there was this one about a bloke who after drinking a cup of tea in a restaurant shoved a fistful of sugar into his mouth and started jumping around. When asked why he replied that he had forgotten to add sugar to his tea and was jumping so that the sugar would get mixed with the tea in his tummy or something to that effect. Just picturing this was enough to send me and my younger brother into paroxysms of laughter.

Soon enough we outgrew Champak and shifted to the slightly more grown up and immensely readable Chandamama. Now here was a really and truly Indian book. What with stories from the Puranas, Indian Myths, Popular Folk tales, Trivia etc. Chandamama was in a class of its own. I remember their illustrations and artwork were totally different from the usual Disney-like wide eyed chubby cheeked characters. Chandmama introduced us to the never-ending series of King Vikramaditya and the Vetal (vampire-like creature) . What stories they were! In each episode the brave king would stride up to the ancient tree, (always during a stormy night, amidst thunder and lightning, and shrieking ghouls) pull the corpse down and begin his journey to the cremation ground. The Vetal would then tell him a story which always ended in an ethical dilemma. Vikram had to provide the correct solution to the quandry or else his head would burst into a thousand pieces. And even though we knew that Vikram would always solve the Vetal’s tricky riddles, and that the Vetal would give Vikramaditya the slip, each of the Vetal’s riddles was a fascinating story that would keep us gripped.

Along with Chandamama came a new rival for our literary affections. Amar Chitra Katha, a truly Indian comic book series. Literally meaning “Immortal Picture Stories” the comics were usually based on stories from Indian epics, mythology, history, folklore, and fables. In our urban nuclear family, it took the place of the benign Granny telling us tales of yore. I learnt more about Indian myths and stories from Amar Chitra Katha than from any other source. The illustrations which seemed to be quite Raja Ravi Varma-esque only added to the overall appeal. I used to read the English version, but I believe that the popularity of the books ensured that it was soon printed in many Indian languages as well as a few foreign ones.

Tinkle was another favourite. Suppandi with his cheerful lack of wits and Shikari Shambu the cowardly, but unbelievably lucky hunter kept us regaled (I still wonder why his hat is pulled down over his eyes). Tantri the Mantri too, poor chap with his eternal quest to assassinate Raja Hooja, who was forever unaware of the insidious plans of his Minsiter. Even his most ingenious scheme would get foiled in the simplest possible way. There was also Kalia the clever crow and his enemies – Chamataka the jackal and Doobdoob the crocodile. Tinkle had quite a bit of General Knowledge too and taught us far more than the boring text books at school.

Among Malayalam magazines Balarama was my favourite. The language was simple, the stories funny and it characters like Kaalia, Suppandi, Shambu, Tantri etc often featured here too. Again there were stories from Epics and stories from all religions. And of course, it featured everybody's favourite little devil, Mayavi. This good natured imp is the arch nemesis of the trio of Kuttoosan (the black magician), Dakini (the witch) and Luttappi (their aide- a little red devil). I still remember a certain Balarama magazine in which were featured caricatures of popular cricketing terms like ‘man on long leg’ (cartoon showing a cricketer with literally one leg longer than the other), ‘man at silly point’ (a cricketer wearing a pointy hat and looking all silly), ‘man on the fence’ (a bloke perkily perched atop a fence), etc.

Magazines like Children’s World and Target came along when we were adolescents. I particularly remember Target with fondness. It was everything a magazine for young adults should be. With unbelievably slick production values as well as interesting content. Sometimes it had a nifty pull out poster in the centre page. It used to have little illustrated jokes at the bottom of the pages, which were quite often real gems. One which I remember is a series which showed all words ending with “-ant” which was suitably illustrated with an ant doing what ever the word suggested. Persist-ant would show a hardworking little ant. Sycoph-ant showed an ant fawning over a politician etc. The name “Target” also provided hours of debate, as to how it ought to be pronounced. Some preferred to call it ‘Tar-get” while others tried the supposedly French “Tar- jet”! It sometimes featured top writers like Ruskin Bond and illustrators like Ajit Ninan and Manjula Padmanabhan. One of the regular comic strips featured in it were Gardhab Das - a donkey who is a music teacher! Then there was Detective Moochwala, who along with his dog Pooch solved crimes. Extremely tongue in cheek, the magazine was full of unpretentious, wholesome humour. For unfathomable reasons the production of this wonderful magazine was stopped sometime around the ‘90s. It was dumbed down into Teen’s Today which was a huge flop.

It would be a travesty, when remembering Children’s books in India to overlook Indrajal Comics!

Holidays weren't quite holidays till your afternoon siesta included an Indrajal Comic. There was something comforting to curl into bed with one of these in hand. Phantom, Mandrake, Flash Gordon, Rip Kirby and Buz Sawyer rubbed shoulders with apna desi hero Bahadur. Remember how Bahadur started off wearing a loose orange Kurta, but later episodes show him wearing a tight, pink T-shirt and showing off his muscles (India’s first metrosexual man?) Again the Comics’ popularity lead to it being published in several Indian languages including Hindi, Kannada, Bengali etc. And again like all good things Indrajal too stopped mesmerizing countless Indian kids in April 1990. Since I never cared for Diamond Comics, that pretty much ended my following adventures of The Ghost Who Walks and his ilk. Hero - Phantom’s horse, Devil -his dog, Diana- his wife (oddly enough, in that order), Lothar and Hojo (Mandrake’s Sidekicks), Bela (Bahadur’s gutsy lady love) had all become familiar household names by then.

These books helped us to keep our reading well rounded. Otherwise our reading would have been limited to Enid Blyton and the like, which while fun and entertaining were never quite Indian.

Other than Target and Indrajal Comics most of these magazines are still around and I hope the current generation to enjoys them too. And for those of you who like me want to live a little bit in the past here’s a link (a sort of Diwali gift) which has helped me return to the past - The Chandamama Archives.

I got the pictures when I randomly googled them. So thanks to the owners, whoever you are :)