Saturday, May 12, 2012

FOOD DIARY


The breakfast on Deccan Queen is something that has been talked and written about so much that it almost is a truism to say anything about it. For Puneiets the train has been like a lifeline that runs from Pune to Mumbai at 7 am and Mumbai to pune  at 5 pm again. The train has been running for over 30 years now and carries people who work in the either of the cities and work in the other. Needless to say the breakfast is quite an affair here..

As the train pulls fresh aroma of chicken cutlets, various omelettes and cheese fills up the compartments. Everything is made fresh in the pantry car and is over by the time train reaches Mumbai at 10.45? am.

Although me and Sachin are not “regulars” on this train, neither are we one of those enthusiastic train travellers nor does the Mumbai –Pune travel entice us in any which way. But since we had a flight to catch from Mumbai in the afternoon and as usual our love for food got us on the train rather than a bus which runs every half an hour for Mumbai.

As we settle down with our luggage (me n sachin travel really heavy and we don’t know how..) and get our seats, a friendly but a rather quick guy takes our order. More than usually I end up ordering (read bite) more than I can chew (pun intended). Our order arrives in a nicely folded white paper bag with paper plates inside. We have ordered for two plates of chicken cutlets, a cheese sandwich and a cheese toast. Cutlets are crisp outside and very soft inside. They are flavoured with mint and mildly spiced, one bite of these and I confess to Sachin that I’ve not had these good cutlets in a while. Once again I come to believe in my philosophy of simple pleasures of life! The cheese toast is actually not toasted but fried! And fried to delight!! It is a combination of white slice of bread and some sour cheese coated with flour and deep fried till crispy on the edges. I finish  one cutlet and wrap up the other for the road.

It is  delightful conversations between the waiters and the “regulars” that take place on board. Within no time we’ve crossed Panvel and are closing in to Dadar. Its time, to say adios to an experience full of good food and people.

Mayhem on Havelock



It was  2 pm me and Sachin (my husband) were at one of the shacks devouring a red grouper  wrapped in banana leaf and grilled. Usually we end up very hungry and starving after our scuba dives and the food is an absolute completeness then! So both of us with our divers’appetites really didn’t care about the frenzy (quite an unusual one for a island) on the street. One our tummies were satiated we moved towards our resort about a kilometre away. On our way we saw a group of foreign nationals staying in our resort running towards the hillock. We stopped by a grocery store with a television set where everything was being shut, to find out about the earthquake that had hit Malaysia of 8.9 ritcher scale! And a Tsunami warning was declared for the entire Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Southern coast of mainland India.

“Oh my god”, I said, “Sachin what are going to do now!?” Sachin was definitely calmer than I were, he told me to run towards the resort and pack a small bag with bare essentials, some food and our wallets. He went to hire a two wheeler for us to go on the other side of the mountain which had a motorable road at a height! I was thanking my stars for having him right next to me. His training (in the army) allows him to keep his cool and work towards the situation much better than I can think of! As I reached the resort two of the girls we made friends here on the island Darya from Germany and Nicola from England joined me in my room. They had packed a bag already and were moving towards the hill. I convinced them to join us; Darya bought the plan immediately and left to get another scooter. As me and Nicola were waiting for the other two to return I started making call back home in Pune to tell them about the situation. To be honest I was more worried about our three year old daughter Saee, whom we had left with the family to go on this vacation for the two of us. It stuck me like a lightening that no matter what me and Sachin have to be there for Saee. That one moment, I realised what it is to be a parent. Everything else in your life takes a backseat when the catastrophe is around the corner and you want to come out of it, not for yourself but for your child first.

The resort was empty, everybody was walking towards the hill. Nicola and I were getting desperate waiting for our riders. Vinnie, the owner of the resort came to us to ask us to vacate immediately. I was trying to explain him the situation and Nicola cried, “Here they are!!”

We got on our scooters, Darya was not very comfortable riding it on a curvy, steep road. So I took over with Nicola behind me and Darya behind Sachin. It took us fifteen minutes to reach on a higher ground and decided to stop on a flat Platform. By this time Sachin was making all the tactical decisions for the three of us. We settled down under a tree. We were actually on west side of the mountain and the tsunami warning was on the eastern coast, so practically we were at the safest place on the island. Sachin constantly kept in touch with the resort owner as he had a radio set with direct connect with weather dept of government. It was already two hours, all of us were getting restless. The only bottle of mosquito repellent which Nicola was carrying was over. I had a packet of biscuits and some water. Darya and Nicola had skipped their lunch because of the whole chaos; they finished of the whole packet. It was getting dark, the last light was becoming almost invisible. I was constantly getting calls from the family and friends. We were assuring and reassuring everyone of our well-being. Ironically it was Darya’s father from Hamburg, Germany who gave her a call and told about the warning being called off and the alert still on. We still wanted to make sure and confirmed the same from friends in Pune. As we rode back into the civilisation, we saw people getting down from the hillock. It was already 8 pm, quite late by the standards of an island. The resort Cafe had no cooked food as everyone was just getting back. The cook decided to fry some potato chips for everyone and we toasted to life, friendship and camaraderie.




EXPLORATION UNDER WATER


I was introduced to scuba diving by Sachin, my husband who started diving with Indian Navy as a part of his combat diving training, ten years ago. Four years later when we met each other in 2006, he was already an avid recreational diver totally engulfed by the mysteries of the ocean. He introduced me to the abundance, diversity and vibrance of the ocean. After we got married in 2007, the first trip we took was to Goa; to dive and eat! Oh yes fortunately for both of us we are foodies and would unabashedly go on food excursions to different places. So coming back to diving, the Goa trip wasn’t as good as I had imagined as far as the diving is concerned. It was a rather dampener with ill fitting equipment, wet suit and combination of an average instructor and not so clear diving site. But I decided to keep my faith in diving as well as Sachin and we told ourselves we will do it once again.

So on the fifth wedding anniversary we decided to take a break from the monotony of work ,  ‘homemaking’ and looking after our three year old daughter Saee (“looking after part is vice versa); and booked us a month long diving vacation in the Havelock island east of Port blair in Andaman and Nicobar Islands of  India.

No one but you can tell what calls you to scuba diving. If you seek adventure you’ll find plenty, if you are looking for discovery, welcome to inner space. Most people will find it a cliché but the fact remains that we know the surface of the moon better than the depths of ocean. To me it is the serenity and peace that one experiences under water. It is a unique way to find solitude and sometimes even feel empty inside while you’re under water.

Of course I did not experience this the very first moment I got inside the water. Initially it felt a bit awkward with heavy gear and inhaling through my mouth! As I progressed inside the water, the feeling of lightness came along as easily as fishes to water. I started getting along with a new medium and a whole new world under water.  One of the major problems I faced while my first dive was equalisation, apart from getting adjusted to the gear and breathing under water.  To maintain the air volume as one descends, you need to add air to the space to keep up with the volume reduction, this concept is called equalisation. To equalise the air space in sinuses and ears one blows holding the nose tight, wriggle the jaw while ascending and press the forehead tightly. At first not being use to the medium it took a longer time for me to equalise thus resulting into ear pain. But as I got along in water it became easier with the second and third dive.

The joy of swimming along with the fishes, the flora and corals are inviting enough to take a plunge and be there. Till now I’ve seen and learnt to indentify barracudas who swim in large group, yellow, red and white snappers which make ocean so colourful, slugs and sea cucumbers which are to me friends of our own Garfield The cat, they lie down lazily on the ocean bed, jelly fishes, eels (ancestors of snakes probably), star fish and so on...

My exploration has just begun and I wish to continue it with Sachin as life and diving buddy...